Cog will film the living rooms of 20 households for a period of two week to capture instances of two-screening and this footage will then undergo a “psycho-physiological analysis”, Thinkbox said.

Included in the study is analysis of the second screen activities themselves, whether it is using social networking sites, text messaging or gaming, for example, and mobile eye-tracking will be employed to understand the attention levels paid to each screen.

Alongside this, Thinkbox is looking to understand the impact of two-screening on programme and ad-break engagement.

Research and planning director Neil Mortensen (pictured) said: “Two-screening makes up a fraction of the time people spend watching TV, but it is a very interesting fraction and one that hasn’t yet been examined in enough depth. Everyone is talking about it, but very little is actually known about it. We intend to address that with this new study.”