Digital Theater Systems (DTS) recently did a test to find out whether human emotions were more affected by audio or video, and by how much. DTS commissioned Neuro Insight to study the brain waves of 107 mobile users.

The scientists strapped on 28 sensors over each subject’s noggin and showed them a mixture of video snippets over 10-inch tablets, each of which was divided into 3 different video resolutions: 240p, 480p, and 1080p. However, the audio was kept constant, feeding half of the participants basic stereo sound, while the other half were treated to the Headphone:X enhanced virtual surround sound experience.

The scientists measure neurological responses that show changing activity in the brain due to stimulus. For this particular study, Neuro Insight focused specifically on the increase of pleasure. What they found was interesting.

Overall, switching to Headphone:X from standard-quality audio generated an average increase of 42 percent in the Hedonic Index across all video qualities, demonstrating greater enjoyment of the content by the test subject. The biggest increase in enjoyment came when Headphone:X audio was added to medium quality video—a 66 percent spike.

Surprisingly and in contrast, maintaining the audio quality and varying the video quality had very little impact—movements of less than one percent across the board. Neuro-Insight concluded that only enhanced audio-not video-made a significant statistical difference across any of the measures.

DTS reads minds to prove audio trumps video in mobile devices | Digital Trends