eye tracking

A logo epitomizes a brand and depicts the picture of a product; consequently, attention, as an initial step of the AIDA model, to the logo is a good-looking index to survey the cognitive processing during consumers’ decision-making. Eye tracker extracts the visual attention data. For these reasons and appreciated from fixation duration, in the present study, the process of visual attention to the logo of a brand during decision-making was studied. To analyze the effects of the popularity of a brand on consumers’ decision-making, visual attention of 53 undergraduate students was studied. The brands were selected from two categories of beverages: soft drinks and non-alcoholic beers. Prior to the test, the participants had declared their favorite categories. The results showed that 75% of the participants selected a popular brand of their unfavorite categories. On the other hand, the difference of fixation duration between logos of popular and unknown brands did not directly relate to the choices of the participants. Therefore, these results did not correspond with the AIDA model. Additionally, cognitive processing toward the unknown brands’ logos was more than the popular brands’ logos. Moreover, the consumers who changed their decision were subjected to more cognitive processing compared to the consumers who insisted on their selection. In contrast to the AIDA model which implies that decision-making is triggered by attention, the present study indicated that decision making can also be influenced by the popularity of the brand. This can be due to optimization of the working memory usage by the brain. Finally, these results could be helpful in creating a new brand. According to the AIDA model, the more attractive logo and package of the brand, the more chance for being selected by the customers. However, our findings emphasize the importance of the popularity of the brand.

Emotional words are assumed to have a processing advantage over neutral words due to their emotional content. Meanwhile, this advantage depends on other word features such as frequency and the characteristics of the processor and context of learning. Accordingly, the current study investigated the simultaneous impacts of L2 words’ emotional valence and frequency, and L2 user’s gender on word recognition time in a natural reading context. 43 intermediate EFL learners read 36 sentences in a coherent text for comprehension while their eye movements were recorded by eye-tracker. The findings revealed that participants processed the positive, negative, and neutral words identically based on eye fixation time. However, the frequency effect was attained for both valenced and neutral words. Also, no significant gender differences were approved in terms of recognition time though male participants tended to process all word types slightly faster than female ones. The lack of processing difference between valenced and neutral words is attributed to the disembodiment of L2 emotional words and learning experience of the participants as late EFL learners. These learners have been deprived of affective socialization and the affective sensory experience in their development of L2 emotional words. The absence of valence/frequency interaction is attributed to the L1/L2 relationship in terms of the target words. Although witnessed gender effect did not reach a significance level, it is suggested that the processing of emotional words be viewed in a multidimensional framework where the characteristics of the word, the processor, and the learning context are taken into account

Utilizing graphic advance organizers before reading is to construct a mental model of the meaning of the text based on readers' formal prior knowledge of familiar rhetorical schemata, which enhances reading performance. The effectiveness of an animated matrix in improving reading comprehension was investigated in a computer-mediated reading environment. Eye-tracking was employed to examine the reading process of participants performing a German reading task. Two groups of participants (N = 21) were compared in terms of their reading performance quality, the number of main idea units recalled, and the verbatim recall memory. The use of a graphic advance organizer significantly improved reading comprehension quality (p < .05). Based on the eye-tracking results, the two groups of participants showed no significant difference, indicating equivalent exposure to the passage. There is evidence that the user-controlled sequential display of elements grants categorical reading of the matrix and provides minimal guidance to deepen the understanding of the passage, as metacognitive skills are not actively used in linking new material read to parts of the organizer.