Investigating Decision Sequences via Eye Tracking

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Martin Meißner
• Subject Area: Accounting and Finance
• Term: from 2012 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 219806109

Decision sequences are an integral part of consumers¿ daily buying experiences. When defining the features of a new car consumers engage in a multitude of subsequent buying decisions which are different with respect to the number of product alternatives and attributes (task-based complexity) and with respect to the difficulty of the decision situation (context-based complexity). Recent research found that a high task-based complexity at the beginning of a decision sequence cognitively depletes respondents. Depletion on its part increases consumers¿ use of simplifying decision heuristics. These research results are important for firms and market researchers, because they show that consumers¿ decision behavior can be influenced by changing the order of sequential decisions. The subject of the research project “Investigating Decision Sequences via Eye Tracking” (IDSET) is to investigate decision sequences with respect to information acquisition and decision behavior. The aim is to gain fundamental insights into whether and how quickly consumers adapt when searching for information in sequential decisions in case of changing task- or context-based complexity. In particular, it is examined how the cognitive depletion depends on the number of alternatives and attributes as well as the difficulty of the decision situation. The above factors are manipulated in several experiments; the information search process is measured by eye movement recordings (eye tracking). The research project IDSET lies at the frontier of psychological and economic decision research.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Australia
• Host: Professor Harmen Oppewal, Ph.D.