Visual attention towards food during unplanned purchases – A pilot study using mobile eye tracking technology

Abstract

This pilot study aims to investigate the relationships between consumers’ weight status, energy density of food and visual attention towards food during unplanned purchase behavior in a real-world environment. After more than a decade of intensive experimental eye tracking research on food perception, this pilot study attempts to link experimental and field research in this area. Shopping trips of participants with different weight status were recorded with mobile eye tracking devices and their unplanned purchase behavior was identified and analyzed. Different eye movement measurements for initial orientation and maintained attention were analyzed. Differences in visual attention caused by energy density of food were found. There was a tendency across all participants to look at low energy density food longer and more often.

New Consumer Research Technology for Food Behaviour: Overview and Validity

“…Eye-tracking can be carried out with a static subject, but the newest methodology enables eye-tracking, either from moving subjects [ 63 ] or from subjects in an immersive environment [ 64 ]. Developments in this area combine several measurements, such as eye-tracking and face reading [ 65 ].…”

Acceptance, impact and mechanisms of action of portion control tools for the management of body weight in adults

“…On the other hand, when evaluating within each plate, participants spent more time looking at the vegetables than any other AOI. This contradicts the results obtained by (Doolan et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2018;Werthmann et al, 2011, p. 201), who associated longer gaze fixations to high energy density foods, being vegetables low energy density food (Hummel et al, 2021). One possibility is that a longer fixation on vegetables responds to the location of the vegetables, which were always placed in the upper part of the plate, inducing a greater visual fixation.…”