home

Eye tracking insights in consumer research Q2 2024

In Q2 2024, eye tracking technology has been pivotal in advancing consumer research, offering nuanced insights into consumer behavior and decision-making processes. Studies have utilized eye tracking to explore topics such as the impact of greenwashing on ad evaluation, the influence of neuromarketing, and the effectiveness of in-store recycling signage. This methodology has enabled researchers to capture precise visual attention metrics, enhancing our understanding of consumer interactions with various stimuli.

Exploring product style perception: A comparative eye-tracking analysis of users across varying levels of self-monitoring

Yao Wang, Yang Lu, Cheng-Yi Shen, Shi-Jian Luo & Long-Yu Zhang

Digital shopping applications and platforms offer consumers a numerous array of products with diverse styles and style attributes. Existing literature suggests that style preferences are determined by consumers’ genders, ages, education levels, and nationalities. In this study, we argue the feasibility and necessity of self-monitoring as an additional consumer variable impacting product style perception and preference through the utilization of eye-tracking technology. Three eye-movement experiments were conducted on forty-two participants (twenty males ...

Attention and Skepticism: Influence on Ad Evaluation with Greenwashing

Tais Pasquotto Andreoli, Silvio Augusto Minciotti & Leandro Leonardo Batista

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of attention and skepticism in the evaluation of false market discourse with an environmental appeal (greenwashing). The theoretical support for the research was based on the study of the attention process (understood in terms of pre-attention and attention), as well as the practice of greenwashing and consumer skepticism. The methodological procedure adopted a hypothetical-deductive approach, carried out through two face-to-face experiments (n=129 and n=159) with a 2 factorial design (attention/pre-...

Navigating the Neuromarketing Landscape: Valuable Insights for Businesses in a Post-Pandemic World

Kawalpreet Singh, Arvind Kumar & Gursimranjit Singh

Purpose: There has been a significant rise in usage of neuromarketing for conducting marketing research, but a large number of businesses are still skeptical about integrating such methods into their marketing research toolkit. The reason for such skepticism may be certain misconceptions. One such misconception is that neuromarketing is a difficult and expensive marketing research tool. Another misconception is whether neuromarketing is a mere gimmick or an insightful marketing research method. Hence, this study explores the present stance of neuromarket...

Comparison of information search behavior for different exploratory tasks: Evidence from experiments in online knowledge communities

Yaxi Liu, Chunxiu Qin, Xubu Ma, Fan Li & Yulong Wang

Users rely on exploratory search to find useful and serendipitous information in online knowledge communities. Although there are multiple types of exploratory tasks, we know little about the differences in search behaviors for distinct exploratory tasks. Consequently, communities cannot provide adaptive support for users performing distinct exploratory tasks. Against this backdrop, a lab experiment was conducted to reveal the behavioral differences among different exploratory tasks through querying, clicking, scrolling and eye-tracking data. By operatio...

Neurotourism Insights: Eye Tracking and Galvanic Analysis of Tourism Destination Brand Logos and AI Visuals

Víctor Calderón-Fajardo, Rafael Anaya-Sánchez & Francisco Rejón-Guardia

This pioneering study explores the intersection between Neurotourism, defined as the integration of neurosciences in tourism, and the perception of tourism Brand Personality (BP) through the advanced use of psychophysiology techniques, specifically Eye-Tracking (ET) and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR). It analyses how tourism destination brand logos/combination marks and images generated by artificial intelligence (AI) influence consumer attention and emotional response. Focusing on the five dimensions of BP proposed by Aaker (1997) - sincerity, excitement,...

Read or skip privacy policies when installing apps on wearable devices: the roles of perceived necessity and threat clues

Yu Pan, Yiyin Ruan, Mengyi Chang, Dong Lyu & Yuhao Li

Wearable devices are increasingly integral to our daily lives but raise significant concerns about the security of personal data. In contrast, users often skip reading privacy policies when installing apps on wearable devices. This gap between the concerns and behaviors has spurred disputes regarding business ethics between app providers and users when private information is leaked. While much research has explored the reasons underlying users’ skipping behaviors on mobile phones or tablets, there has been limited attention given to wearable devices desp...

The Effects of Wooden Furniture Color, Floor Material, and Age on Design Evaluation, Visual Attention, and Emotions in Office Environments

Yongchun Mao, Puhong Li & Pinting Hao

The selection of floors and furniture in offices can impact the interior environment and potentially influence employees’ emotions and health. This study aims to investigate the effects of floor material, furniture color, and age on design evaluation, fixation duration, and time to first fixation. Twenty-four younger adults (M = 21.9, SD = 1.75) and twenty-four older adults (M = 48.1, SD = 6.85) participated in the experiment, where they viewed four different designs: wood floor—brown furniture (WF-BF), wood floor—dark furniture (WF-DF), tile floor—brown...

The impact of virtual influencer advertising on consumer response: a moderated chain mediation model based on mind perception and parasocial interaction

Jing Yan, Haiyan Kong, Shoufen Jiang & Mengdi Zhang

This study explore how virtual influencer advertisements affect consumer response. Based on the SOR theory, an eyetracking experiment with 76 participants and a questionnaire survey with 298 participants were conducted to construct a moderated chain mediation model. The results show that emotional virtual influencers attract more advertisement attention and exert more positive impacts on consumer response than professional ones. Mind perception and parasocial interaction act as chain mediators, while the impact of parasocial interaction on unfamiliar pro...

Avatars and organizational knowledge sharing

Dennis D. Fehrenbacher & Martin Weisner

We study how organizational knowledge sharing behavior is affected by avatar use during computer-mediated communication (CMC) with an unknown co-worker. Experimental results from two ethnically different samples provide theory-consistent evidence that outgroup discrimination—manifested as refusal to share knowledge—can get magnified in the ‘virtual world’ when avatars are used for self-representation. In supplemental analysis, we use eye-tracking data to provide preliminary evidence for behavioral differences—in terms of gaze fixation—when knowledge shar...

Does risk preference matter to willingness to pay for functional food: Evidence from lab experiments using eye-Tracking technology

Shihang Zhen, Xianli Xia, Luchen Huang, Yihan Cao, Hanliang Fu & Yanjun Ren

With the prominence of nutrition-related health issues worldwide, functional food is supposed to be an efficient way to address this challenge by achieving its nutrition and health benefits. However, whether consumers are willing to pay (WTP) for high-nutritional value foods of this kind and what is the role of consumers’ risk preferences in their WTPs are unclear. This study employs a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to investigate the effect of risk preferences on consumers’ preferences and WTPs for functional food, focusing on four attributes of dairy...

Does Migration Work Experience Promote Return Home for Entrepreneurship? The Mediation of Cognitive Ability and the Moderation of Risk Preference

Cunhu Xi, Yingqin Zhang, Xiaochi Zhao & Xiaoqian Qu

Migrant workers play a crucial role as potential entrepreneurs in enhancing the quality and efficiency of rural revitalization, garnering widespread attention from both the academic and practical realms. Our paper utilizes micro-survey data from 542 farmers collected by our research team from 2021 to 2022 and employs experimental economics methods to measure farmers’ cognitive abilities (CA) and risk preferences (RP). It systematically examines the impact and mechanisms of migration work experience (MWE) on migrant workers’ return home for entrepreneursh...

Headlines, Pictures, Likes: Attention to Social Media Newsfeed Post Elements on Smartphones and in Public

Anna-Theresa Mayer, Jakob Ohme, Ewa Maslowska & Claire M. Segijn

Scrolling through a social media newsfeed has become almost ubiquitous. Yet, it remains unknown what specific post elements people pay attention to and whether this varies depending on how they access social media newsfeeds. In an eye-tracking experiment among university students ( N = 201), we compare user attention to specific post elements like source, title, or picture, in a dynamic Facebook newsfeed by device (desktop vs. mobile) and smartphone usage environment (private vs. public). Significant attentional differences occur at the level of the news...

The Impact of Serif vs Sans-Serif Typefaces on e-Commerce Websites

Sara Vecino, Martin Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Daniel Fernandez-Lanvin & Javier de Andres

E-commerce is a method of conducting business online, where the sales performance of each website is influenced by its design and usability. Typography is one of the characteristics of a website’s visual design that can impact how users perceive the page. The objective of this study is to determine whether the use of sans-serif typefaces enhances readability compared to serif typefaces, and to determine users’ preference for sans-serif or serif fonts and if there is any correlation between the preference and the objective variables. To achieve this goal,...

When time drives search effort: the\xa0effect of assortment variety on\xa0visual attention to SKU pricing

Wagner Junior Ladeira, Vinicius Nardi, Marlon Dalmoro, Fernando de Oliveira Santini, William Carvalho Jardim & Debdutta Choudhury

Understanding the effect of assortment composition on attentional levels is an essential topic for academic researchers and practitioners. This work has important implications when analyzing the influence of shopping frame time and search effort on the relationship between the reaction to assortment composition and visual attention to stock-keeping units (SKUs) pricing.

The Influence of In-Store Recycling Signage on Consumer Behavior: A Study of Visual Attention and Usage of Store Drop-Off Bins

Mengmeng Zhao, Shannon Anderson, Rupert Andrew Hurley, Sheila Anzures, Paul Nowak & Kelly Burt

This study examined the impact of using three types of in-store signage to educate consumers about packaging recyclability as well as to measure its effectiveness in increasing awareness of a store drop-off recycling method for packaged granola. A total of 67 shoppers were recruited and divided into two groups to shop for granola in a retail store. Group A was not exposed to signage near the granola, while Group B was exposed to the in-store signage comprising shelf strips and aisle invaders with How2Recycle educational information containing messaging a...

Adopting Maximum Pupil Diameter to Detect Subtle Usability Issues of a Smartphone Application, Conflict Solver

Limin Zhang & Hong Cui

With the increasing popularity and unparalleled ubiquity of smartphones, researchers in various fields are designing and developing novel applications for this platform as part of the solution to the challenging problems they face. Usability lies at the core of the user experience of such applications. However, the assessments used are often limited to summative and post-event methods, which can overlook subtle yet impactful issues. Objective and instantaneous measures of cognitive workloads provide a solution to this shortcoming. Our previous research h...

Discover cutting-edge publications in Consumer research and user experience
See all publications

Enhance your consumer research skills

Leverage eye tracking insights to deepen your understanding of consumer behavior and improve strategic marketing decisions.