What it is
People tend to choose the options they look at more, and prior work explained this by assuming that visual attention increases preference for the attended option. Combining eye-tracking with a think-aloud protocol, the authors provide evidence that attention shapes preference by activating attributes associated with the attended option, and that which attributes are activated depends on context such as how desirable the options are and what the goal is. In standard choices, where the goal is to pick the preferred option, attention mainly activates positive attributes; when these contextual factors are incongruent, the activated attributes become less positive and attention sways choice less.
Why it matters
It had remained unclear why looking at an option increases its preference and when that relationship weakens. The authors' computational model of gaze-driven attribute activation subsumes existing theories as special cases and uniquely predicts which attributes gaze brings to mind and how they shape the decision, a mechanistic account of a fundamental driver of choice and of its boundary conditions.
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Filed underNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies, Visual Attention and Saliency Detection, Mind wandering and attention