In The Blink of an Eye

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Eye movement, when scanning supermarket shelves or viewing items online, is often directionally specific. In shops, people look at products in a particular order. Online or when watching TV ads, people often look in a particular direction when processing text, animation or dynamic product images. 

But what Hao Shen from the Department of Marketing, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)Business School, and Akshay Rao from the Department of Marketing, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, US, have discovered is that if the direction of eye movement used during a product evaluation is perceived by the brain as ‘easy’ then the product evaluation
is enhanced. 

The researchers carried out three studies to show that when people re-employ a directional motor procedure – used in a prior, unrelated task – to evaluate a product, it results in a sense of fluency, which is then misattributed to the product under evaluation. 

“There is a lot of research showing that the ease with which people process information can influence their judgement. For example, when fonts in an ad are easy to read, people evaluate an advertised product more positively, as they misattribute the feeling of ease resulting from reading information, to their liking of the product (Schwarz 2004 ). Here I think even unconscious eye movement might influence product evaluation,” says Shen.

So the experiments that Shen and Rao set up were designed to manipulate eye movement, such as numbers moving in certain routes on a screen or showing pictures moving in a particular direction.

Overall, the findings from their studies showed that as well as repetition of eye movement enhancing fluency, a hand or arm movement (gross motor movement) accompanied by eye movement can have the same effect, which can go on to affect how the person feels about a product.  

Shen explains further: “If product evaluation requires people to employ a similar eye movement to one rehearsed before, it will be easy for people to evaluate the product. For example, usually it is easy to move eyes from left to right, as this is consistent with our habit. So, we can predict that a picture of a product that moves from left to right on a screen will be processed more fluently than a picture that moves from right to left. 

“In addition, when something is easy to process, this ease of feeling is pleasant. People may misattribute this pleasant feeling to the product being evaluated. They may ask themselves unconsciously: ‘Why did I feel good when I saw this picture? Maybe I like it.’ Consequently, they may like a product more when it is easy for them to process.”

And, what surprised Shen most from this research was that even unconscious eye movement can generate feelings of ease which can then be misattributed to the liking of a product. 

So what does all this mean in terms of applications in the real world?

“The position in which a product is located, or the way a product moves, can influence the ease of attending to the product, which can usually influence product evaluation. For example, when marketers show dynamic product images, it is better to make them move from left to right. When they show a product with directional cues (such as a car or shoes), it is better to make them orientate toward the right,” says Shen.

“Sometimes irrelevant experiences might influence consumers’ eye movement and their processing of products that are presented visually later. For example, during online shopping, consumers typically swipe leftward or upward to move the pictures of products on the screen of an iPad or a smartphone. As a result, they might be more likely to move their eyes toward the left side or the top of a product description. So marketers should present key messages in those areas of the visual field,” says Shen, adding that this could be explored in more detail in future research projects.  

Looks good to me: How eye movements influence product evaluation by Hao Shen, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Akshay Rao, of the University of Minnesota, US, in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2016.