eyeScrollR: A software method for reproducible mapping of eye-tracking data from scrollable web pages.

The Internet has become an important part of our lives and an increasing number of researchers use eye-tracking technology to examine attention and behavior in online environments. Researchers, however, face a significant challenge in mapping eye-tracking data from scrollable web pages. We describe the R package eyeScrollR for mapping eye-tracking data from scrollable content such as web pages.

A meta-analysis on the effect of visual attention on choice.

Decision makers attend more to preferred choice options and to the ultimately chosen option, but does visual attention influence preferences and choice? Several theories suggest that attention has a causal effect on preferences and choice and a growing number of studies have examined the question with experimental methods. However, the evidence for an effect of attention on choice is mixed and highly contended. To advance the debate on the role of attention in decision making, we meta-analyze studies that manipulate attention-to-choice options and measure the effect on 2-alternative preferential choices.

Covert attention leads to fast and accurate decision-making.

Decision-makers are regularly faced with more choice information than they can directly gaze at in a limited amount of time. Many theories assume that because decision-makers attend to information sequentially and overtly, that is, with direct gaze, they must respond to information overload by trading off between speed and decision accuracy. By reanalyzing five published studies, we show that participants, besides using overt attention, also use covert attention.

Eye tracking: empirical foundations for a minimal reporting guideline.

In this paper, we present a review of how the various aspects of any study using an eye tracker (such as the instrument, methodology, environment, participant, etc.) affect the quality of the recorded eye-tracking data and the obtained eye-movement and gaze measures. We take this review to represent the empirical foundation for reporting guidelines of any study involving an eye tracker.

The visual environment and attention in decision making.

Visual attention is a fundamental aspect of most everyday decisions, and governments and companies spend vast resources competing for the attention of decision makers. In natural environments, choice options differ on a variety of visual factors, such as salience, position, or surface size. However, most decision theories ignore such visual factors, focusing on cognitive factors such as preferences as determinants of attention.

Uncertainty in learning, choice, and visual fixation.

Uncertainty plays a critical role in reinforcement learning and decision making. However, exactly how it influences behavior remains unclear. Multiarmed-bandit tasks offer an ideal test bed, since computational tools such as approximate Kalman filters can closely characterize the interplay between trial-by-trial values, uncertainty, learning, and choice.

Increasing consumers' attention capture and food choice through bottom-up effects.

To guide consumers in their decision process, especially food products often carry labels indicating production method or nutritional content. However, past research shows that many labels are rarely attended to in the consumer's decision process. In order to enhance the effectiveness of such labels and to increase choice likelihood of labeled products, the label must capture attention.

Threats to the validity of eye-movement research in psychology.

Eyetracking research in psychology has grown exponentially over the past decades, as equipment has become cheaper and easier to use. The surge in eyetracking research has not, however, been equaled by a growth in methodological awareness, and practices that are best avoided have become commonplace. We describe nine threats to the validity of eyetracking research and provide, whenever possible, advice on how to avoid or mitigate these challenges.

Implicit Statistical Learning in Real-World Environments Leads to Ecologically Rational Decision Making.

Ecological rationality results from matching decision strategies to appropriate environmental structures, but how does the matching happen? We propose that people learn the statistical structure of the environment through observation and use this learned structure to guide ecologically rational behavior. We tested this hypothesis in the context of organic foods. In Study 1, we found that products from healthful food categories are more likely to be organic than products from nonhealthful food categories.

A meta-analysis of blood glucose effects on human decision making.

The academic and public interest in blood glucose and its relationship to decision making has been increasing over the last decade. To investigate and evaluate competing theories about this relationship, we conducted a psychometric meta-analysis on the effect of blood glucose on decision making. We identified 42 studies relating to 4 dimensions of decision making: willingness to pay, willingness to work, time discounting, and decision style.

Effects of salience are both short- and long-lived.

A salient object can attract attention irrespective of its relevance to current goals. However, this bottom up effect tends to be short-lived (e.g.

Attention to advertising and memory for brands under alcohol intoxication.

In an attempt to discover new possibilities for advertising in uncluttered environments marketers have recently begun using ambient advertising in, for instance, bars and pubs. However, advertising in such licensed premises have to deal with the fact that many consumers are under the influence of alcohol while viewing the ad. This paper examines the effect of alcohol intoxication on attention to and memory for advertisements in two experiments.

A review of the findings and theories on surface size effects on visual attention.

That surface size has an impact on attention has been well-known in advertising research for almost a century; however, theoretical accounts of this effect have been sparse. To address this issue, we review studies on surface size effects on eye movements in this paper. While most studies find that large objects are more likely to be fixated, receive more fixations, and are fixated faster than small objects, a comprehensive explanation of this effect is still lacking.

Attention and choice: a review on eye movements in decision making.

This paper reviews studies on eye movements in decision making, and compares their observations to theoretical predictions concerning the role of attention in decision making. Four decision theories are examined: rational models, bounded rationality, evidence accumulation, and parallel constraint satisfaction models. Although most theories were confirmed with regard to certain predictions, none of the theories adequately accounted for the role of attention during decision making.