Food labels play a key role in attracting consumers' attention and providing information that could largely influence their purchase decisions. The aim of the present work was to evaluate how consumers acquire information from food labels using eye-tracking measures. Fifty-three consumers completed two tasks in which they evaluated perceived healthfulness of the products and willingness to purchase by looking at three unknown labels of three different products (mayonnaise, pan bread and yogurt).Participants' eye movements were recorded using an eye tracker while evaluating the labels. Results showed that in order to evaluate their willingness to purchase and perceived healthfulness of unknown food labels, consumers directed their attention to selected areas, searching for specific information such as brand, ingredients, nutritional information and the image on the label, regardless of type of product and label design. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONSAttention measures based on memory have been reported to be poor indicators of what consumers actually attend to, mainly due to the fact that attention is not necessarily active and conscious. Eye-tracking measures could be a useful way of studying consumers' processing of visual stimuli such as food labels. Results from the present study suggested that attention toward unfamiliar food labels was mainly determined by top-down factors. Consumers mainly scanned the labels, searching for specific information related to brand, composition and nutritional information. bs_bs_banner Journal of Sensory Studies ISSN 0887-8250 138 Journal of Sensory Studies 28 (2013) 138-153

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The aim of the present work was to assess the influence of nutrition information format on attentional capture and consumers' understanding. Sixteen labels of two products (yoghurt and pan bread) were designed following a four 2-level factors full factorial design with the following variables: label background design, type of product, nutrition information format and traffic light system. The labels were presented to 178 consumers, who were asked to decide whether the fat/sodium content of each yoghurt/pan bread label was medium or low. Participant responses and reaction times were recorded. Results showed that type of product, nutrition information format and traffic light system significantly affected the time needed by consumers to find the nutrition information and to classify the labels according to their content of a given nutrient. Meanwhile, consumers' understanding of the labels was mostly affected by the content of the nutrient and the presence of the traffic light system.