Eye tracking and decision making

Question 1

Mere exposure effect - Zajonc (1968)

Answer 1

Used Turkish nonsense words, Chinese-like characters, photos.

• stimuli shown for 2 secs - 0-6 rating.
• found familiarity and repeated exposure increased “goodness” - breeds appeal.

Question 2

Does the halo effect always apply?

Answer 2

Fang, Sing and Aluwahlia (2007): 232 students, Kansas.

• showed banner ads on web pages.
• ppts saw target ads - 0/5/10 times.
• rated ads after reading web pages.

Findings:

• build of halo effect dependant on initial liking.
• only occurs if initial evaluation is positive.

Norman (2004): argues you can use visceral beauty responses to build this ‘halo effect’ - more familiar the more it builds.

Question 3

Mere exposure & halo effect

Answer 3

Zajonc (1968): automatic increase of appeal via stimuli exposure.

Lingaard (2006): decisions made reliably in 50ms.

Boundary limitations: can create halo effects - but to build upon, need initial liking.
- if they don’t like it, repeating won’t be beneficial.

Question 4

Eye tracking and attention

Answer 4

Fixations and saccades.

Unconscious process - what is processed longest and most.
- short, easy words most likely processed quicker.

Question 5

Eye mind hypothesis (Just & Carpenter, 1980)

Answer 5

“No appreciable lag between what is fixated and what is process.”

Question 6

Eye tracking in action

Answer 6

If there is a face, we are automatically inclined to attend to the face for longest period of time.

Also big headlines/large written text and other pictures.

Smaller info received less.

Question 7

Eye movements (Pieters, Wedel & Rosenberg, 1997/2004)

Answer 7

Top left corner often attended to first - commonly where key info/title is.

1.73secs = average time examining ads.

Question 8

Eye tracking (Cowen, Ball & Delin, 2002)

Answer 8

Measures typically used for eye movement measurement:

• number of fixations.
• total fixation duration.
• average fixation duration.
• fixation spatial density - provides “global measure of the total amount of processing performed on each page”. - metric equivalent of heatmaps.
• scanpaths.

Question 9

What eye tracking does not tell us (McDougall, Goodliffe, Ollis & Taylor)

Answer 9

Groups saw it for half a second, 6 secs, or unlimited time.

• group 1: 500ms - average number of fixations = 1. 15.
• reasons given for evaluations are same when only 1-2 fixations are possible.
• may be result of retrofitting “reasons for decisions” (appeal vs. informativeness) to task demands.
• not based on changing patterns of eye fixations.

Amount of time given to look/number of fixations may not influence appeal.

Question 10

Decision making

Answer 10

In relation to products - very conscious problem.

Cycle of:

• problem recognition
• > information search
• > evaluation of alternatives
• > product choice
• > outcomes
• > problem recognition…

Question 11

Decision making: multiattribute models

Answer 11

Popular with market researchers.

Typically specify 3 elements of consumer evaluations:

• attributes = eg. price, brand, reputation etc.
• beliefs = extent consumer thinks brand has particular attribute.
• importance weights = importance of each attribute to consumer.

This info makes it possible to:

• spot weaknesses in brand profile.
• emphasis advantages.
• strengthen key product-attribute linkages.
• create new unique selling points.

Question 12

Decision making: recap

Answer 12

Marketers view purchasing as a careful problem solving process.

Can identify markets, USPs, segments etc.

Seems to be a gap between intention and behaviour.

Question 13

Decision making: multiattribute models - mismatches between predictions and behaviour

Answer 13

Fishein (1983) - first, and most influential model.
- others created to improve predictability.

These include:

• theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fisbein, 1977).
• theory f planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991).

Behaviour attitude/subjective norms/perceived behvioural control -> intention -> behaviour.
(Perceived behavioural control —> behaviour).

Mismatches between predictions and behaviour based on multi-attribute models and questionnaires arise because:

• there can be differences between intentions and actual behaviour.
• social pressure may change intentions or behaviour.
• models concentrate on product evaluation rather than buying it.
• also need to include attitudes towards websites when shopping online.
• attitudes can change for a variety of reasons.

Question 14

Decision making: evaluation of alternatives

Answer 14

Person considers compromise of their evokes set.
Members of evoked set usually share characteristics.
The way one groups products influences which alternatives they will consider.

• evoked set = alternatives consumer knows.
• consideration set = ones actually considered.
• inept set = consumer knows about but wouldn’t consider.
• inert set = not under consideration at all.

Question 15

Decision making: evaluation of alternatives - strategic implications of product grouping

Answer 15

• product positioning = hinges on marketer’s ability to convince consumers that product should be considered in a category.
• identifying competitors = many different products compete for membership of a category.
• exemplar producers = where a product is a good example of a category.
• locating products = product categorisation can also affect consumer’s expectations regarding places where they can locate products.

Question 16

Decision making: perspectives on decision making - rational perspective

Answer 16

Careful and logical integration of info about a product.

Weigh up pros and cons of each alternative.

Arriving at a satisfactory decision.

Highly involved.

Question 17

Decision making: perspectives on decision making - behavioural influence perspective

Answer 17

Decisions are a learned response to environmental cues.

Decisions influence by cues (eg. bright colours).

Low involvement.

Question 18

Decision making: perspectives on decision making - experiential perspective

Answer 18

Selection made when highly involved but not easily explained rationality.

Routine response behaviour -> limited problem-solving -> extensive problem solving.

• low cost products -> expensive.
• frequent purchases -> infrequent.
• low involvement -> high.
• familiar product -> unfamiliar.
• little thought, search or time -> extensive.

Question 19

Decision making: elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986)

Answer 19

Communication -> attention & comprehension ->

1. (systematic) -> high involvement processing -> cognitive responses -> belief and attitude change -> behaviour change.
2. (heuristic) -> low involvement processing -> belief change -> behaviour change -> attitude change.

Petty, Cacioppo & Goldman (1981):
Students told uni was instituting a comprehensive exam which must be passed to graduate.
- high involvement = told this would happen before they graduate.
- low involvement = after.

Varied: quality of arguments (strong vs. weak).
- expertise of the source: from within university vs. outside.

Findings: stronger arguments from personally relevant/high involvement group.
- low involvement had stronger attitudes for both non expert and expert source.

Question 20

Decision making: quick recap

Answer 20

2 types of processes in operation.

Rationale vs. behavioural influences.

High vs low involvement.

Fast automatic processing vs. slow effortful conscious process = heuristics.

Question 21

Decision making: cognitive approaches to decision making

Answer 21

Kahneman (2011): thinking, fast & slow.

System 1 - fast:

• automatic.
• unconscious.
• used constantly.
• used heuristics.
• links cognitive ease to illusions of truth, pleasant feelings, appeal.

System 2 - slow:

• takes effort.
• conscious.
• used less frequently.
• “logical”.
• calculates.

Question 22

Decision making: use of heuristics

Answer 22

= “strategy that ignores part of the info with the goal of making decisions more quickly and more accurately than complex methods” (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011).

Rely on reducing effort by:
- using fewer cues. 
= simplifying the weighting of cues. 
- integrating less info. 
- examining fewer alternatives.

Question 23

Decision making: recognition heuristic

Answer 23

= if one or two alternatives is recognised and other is not; infer recognised alternative has higher values with respect to the criterion (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011).

Coates et al (2004): priming familiar brand increases probability of purchase consideration.

Hoyer & Brown (1990): in blind test most people preferred higher quality peanut butter/
- change high quality label to another jar and they prefer “branded” jar.
= sensation transference.

Question 24

Decision making: use of heuristics - processing theory

Answer 24

Alter & Oppenheimer (2009): ease with which people process info, reliably influences judgements across a broad range of dimensions.

• argues: fluency experiences creates a cue, or heuristic for judgements and decision making.

Question 25

Decision making: heuristics in complex choices

Answer 25

Hauser et al (2009): found that sequential heuristics predict consumer choices.

Heuristic decision rules more likely when:

• they are more products.
• more features to be evaluated.
• quantifiable features more salient.
• more time pressure.
• consumer is an early phase of decision process.
• effort required to make a decision more salient.
• the above are combined forming a complex choice.

Question 26

Decision making: recap - heuristics

Answer 26

Rely on peripheral cues - celebrity, smell/sound, known brands, previously learned/primed associations.

Ease of processing:

• fluency.
• recognition heuristic.

Question 27

Decision making: choice architecture

Answer 27

Thater & Sunstein (2008): many ways to present choice.
- what is chosen depends on how it is presented.

Johnson et al (2012): claim there is no neutral architecture.

• all choice presentations have a (usually implicit) default.
• tools for CA fall into 2 categories:
  1. tools used in structuring the choice task - (what to present to decision makers)
  2. tools used in describing the choice options - (how to present it).

Question 28

Decision making: structuring choice

Answer 28

1. number of alternatives: “choice overload”; “tyranny of choice”.
   - more options = cognitive burden, but increase chance of preference match - need to balance.
2. tech and decision:
   - search engines.
   - produce recommendation system.
   - interactive decision aids.
   - “help identify alternatives and filter out irrelevant”.
   - systems can manipulate choice (eg. booking.com/airbnb).
3. defaults: one of the most powerful and popular choices.
   - default settings - determine initial encounters with products.
   - re0use defaults - come into play with subsequent product uses.
   - choice option default - pre-checked boxes.
   - persistent defaults - past choice remembered.
   - reverting defaults - past choices deleted.
   - ethical risks.
4. choice over time: choices often unfold gradually rather than instantly which affects choice in 3 ways:
   - early positive outcomes preferred - yield to temptations and discount later outcomes.
   - uncertainty about future - focus on desirable future outcomes.
   - over optimism about future - assume we will accomplish more than we do.
5. task structure affects the search process: determines how individuals explore available options.
   - simple choices = one from small set of alternatives.
   - large choice sets = meed to consider role of search costs - (can be reduced by tools that translate choice into immediate salient out more successful.