Biasing simple choices by manipulating relative visual attention

By K. Armel, Aurelie Beaumel, Antonio Rangel. Judgment and Decision Making, 2008

368 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Several decision-making models predict that it should be possible to affect real binary choices by manipulating the relative amount of visual attention that decision-makers pay to the two alternatives. We present the results of three behavioral experiments testing this prediction. Visual attention is controlled by manipulating the amount of time subjects fixate on the two items. The manipulation has a differential impact on appetitive and aversive items. Appetitive items are 6 to 11% more likely to be chosen in the long fixation condition. In contrast, aversive items are 7% less likely to be chosen in the long fixation condition. The effect is present for primary goods, such as foods, and for higher-order durable goods, such as posters.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Economics and Econometrics, General Decision Sciences

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7fc775482ece25bc28eb5dd0ae5ac7e14e112ee1

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Citations in the corpus

The Attentional Drift-Diffusion Model Extends to Simple Purchasing Decisions (2012, background): “Nevertheless, previous research has shown that it is indeed possible to influence choices by exogenously manipulating fixation times (Shimojo et al., 2003; Armel et al., 2008), consistent with the idea that visual fixations are influencing the choices and not vice-versa.”
Multialternative drift-diffusion model predicts the relationship between visual fixations and choice in value-based decisions (2011, background): “Furthermore, another previous study by our group (36) manipulated fixation times exogenously and found that the manipulation affected choice probabilities.”
Visual fixations and the computation and comparison of value in simple choice (2010, positive): “Third, consistent with the findings reported here, related studies have shown that it is possible to bias choices by manipulating relative fixation durations exogenousl”
The effect of involvement on visual attention and product choice (2015, neutral): “a predictor of the actual purchase (Armel et al., 2008).”
Do you like what you see? The role of first fixation and total fixation duration in consumer choice (2015, background): “…of fixation duration on choice, i.e., visually salient alternatives are fixated on longer (Lohse et al., 1997; Bialkova & van Trijp, 2011; Navalpakkam et al., 2012; Orquin et al., 2013) and thereby affect the decision in favor of the attended product (Armel et al., 2008; Shimojo et al., 2003).”
Eye Tracking Reveals Processes that Enable Conjoint Choices to Become Increasingly Efficient with Practice (2016, background): “Armel, Beaumel, and Rangel (2008) alter the duration of attention to pairs of food choices by presenting one decision alternative for 300 milliseconds and the other for 900 milliseconds.”