The role of visual attention in product selection

While pop-up ads are designed to inform consumers, they can interfere with online browsing behaviour. Although our visual system allows this seemingly irrelevant information through its filters, it does not always result in negative consequences. The purpose of this project is to investigate how distracting images can result in favourable or unfavourable preferences for an online product depending on their location, colour, and duration. The theoretical contribution will be made to phenomenon in psychology called Inhibition of Return (IOR), which will be applied in a marketing setting. In experiments one and two, visual attention is measured by reaction time to the location and colour of objects while visual distractions are ignored. The third experiment explores the role of attention on product preference. In sum, by manipulating the location and colour of visual distractions, we showed that this has an effect on the participants’ reaction times and potential product preferences.