Predicting decision-making in virtual environments: an eye movement analysis with household products

[EN] Understanding consumer behavior is crucial for increasing the likelihood of product success. Virtual Reality head-mounted displays incorporating physiological techniques such as eye-tracking offer novel opportunities to study user behavior in decision-making tasks. These methods reveal unconsci...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Palacios-Ibáñez, Almudena, Marín-Morales, Javier|||0000-0003-1271-2892, Contero, Manuel|||0000-0002-6081-9988, Alcañiz Raya, Mariano Luis|||0000-0001-9207-0636
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/204403
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/204403
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Virtual reality
Extended reality
User experience
Eye movements
Gaze bias
Decision making
Product evaluation
Statistical learning
ESTADISTICA E INVESTIGACION OPERATIVA
EXPRESION GRAFICA EN LA INGENIERIA
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] Understanding consumer behavior is crucial for increasing the likelihood of product success. Virtual Reality head-mounted displays incorporating physiological techniques such as eye-tracking offer novel opportunities to study user behavior in decision-making tasks. These methods reveal unconscious or undisclosed consumer responses. Yet, research into gaze patterns during virtual product evaluations remains scarce. In this context, an experiment was conducted to investigate users¿ gaze behavior when evaluating their preferences for 64 virtual prototypes of a bedside table. Here, 24 participants evaluated and selected their preferred design through eight repeated tasks of an 8-AFC, with individual evaluations conducted for each design to ensure the reliability of the findings. Several eye-tracking metrics were computed (i.e., gaze time, visits, and time to first gaze), statistical tests were applied, and a Long Short-Term Memory model was created to recognize decisions based on attentional patterns. Our results revealed that the Gaze Cascade Model was replicated in virtual environments and that a correlation between product liking and eye-tracking metrics exists. We recognize subjects¿ decisions with a 90% accuracy, based on their eye patterns during the three seconds before their decision. The results suggest that eye-tracking can be an effective tool for decision-making prediction during product assessment in virtual environments.