Neuroscience Research Notes

Campos (2017) stated that as the name implies, eye tracking is all about studying people’s eye movement and analyzing their behaviour based on this movement. That is to say, eye-tracking tools are the ones that make it possible for brands to see through the eyes of their potential customers, not just within lab-based scenarios, but also in the course of their actual real-life purchasing.

In the present day, eye tracking devices are tiny with lights, and participants can wear them while shopping or watching TV. Once the customer is wearing this device, brands can use data generated to answer a series of questions related to:

• The level of attention consumers attaches to the items being promoted near the store’s entrance.
• Whether customers read billboards and posters, or they glance at the information present without reading.
• How customers attention are distributed when choosing products from shelves.
• The extent of attention consumers pays to ad placements on their television.

Eye-tracking does open a wide range of opportunities for marketing studies. Farnsworth (2019) demonstrate the application of this in advertising by referencing the case of companies attempting to boost sales for baby products by using close-ups of adorable faces of babies. Researchers discovered that when the baby looks face on, the focus of the viewers will be on the face of the baby, paying less attention to the product being advertised; however, when the baby is gazing at a product or text, the viewers will shift their focus to the content of the advertisement (Farnsworth, 2019). Dooley (2019) stated that as a result of this finding, companies put close up videos of adorable babies and make sure that the baby is looking at what they want the consumers to buy.

The eye-tracking technique measures the fixation or gazing (where the person is looking) point, the time that the person stared at the point, eye movement with the head, number of blinks, and dilation of the pupil (Zurawicki, 2010). Another evaluation that can be conducted in addition to the fixation is the sequence in the shift of the person’s eye from one location to another (saccade) (Chae & Lee, 2013). For conducting such analysis, different technologies can be used to measure the eye’s movement and the most common are those that measure the observation of controlled stimuli at fixed points in photos, videos, and other interaction that users have via a computer screen. More advanced technologies can be used to track the head’s movement in a three-dimensional space based on an attached camera (Zurawicki, 2010). The implication is that the measurement process is very subtle, as there is limited or no interaction between the subjects and the researchers.

In eye-tracking types of equipment, studies, although not new, have offered different unique views from the dimension of neuromarketing. Together with the potential of eye-tracking, these studies have become increasingly relevant in the visual pollution of today’s business world with interest in assessing customers’ attention. There are numerous applications in today’s business work, on the mechanisms that guide customers in selecting a particular point of interest in an image (the standard of attention and forecasting places with the most significant interest) (Zhao & Koch, 2013). As such, eye-tracking techniques can avail necessary information about the relevant items that involve attention, considering that it is related to visual fixation patterns, in different issues within the marketing context (Fiszman et al., 2013).

On the same note, the eye-tracking technique can be used together with other types of equipment to measure cognitive responses, the lead energy for new insights, with particular reference to consumers’ behaviour and marketing communications. With the tool connected to facial coding, the results generated will show the accurate volume of visual activity (the exact point the person is looking at), linking specific emotional responses to different stimulated elements (people’s feeling based on what they have seen).

With the emotional responses and visual focus synchronized, the marketer will access reliable data that can be used to understand the factors driving customers’ reaction towards a given stimulus (Hill, 2011). The benefit of such is significant, especially when it comes to TV advertisements, with the vast amount of information generated in milliseconds, potentially limiting the ability to identify the main objects liked by the viewers, or the factors that drove their attention positively or negatively (Ho, 2014).

There are two main models applied in eye movements being measured by the eye-trackers as fixation and saccades (Velásquez, 2013). Per Nielsen and Pernice (2009), fixation is all about the eye being fixed to a given object, enjoying the object’s details; while, saccades is all about the rapid movement of the eye between two fixations. In addition to these major movements, eye trackers also measure variables that could be of great value for marketers, such as the size of the pupil (used for identifying attention and emotions), pupil dilation, and closure of the eyelids (used to monitor sleepiness) among other potential measures.

The range of eye fixation is usually approximated to be between 200 Ms when reading a text, and 350 Ms when viewing a scene. Scan path is the series of fixations and saccades produced through this eye movement. Interests, visual perceptions, cognitive intent, and relevance are analyzed through the scan paths. In the marketing context, one central area where the scan path analysis is applied is how humans interact with computers, especially when it comes evaluation of online advertisements and web pages (with the focal points of intention highlighted), and the behavioural patterns of navigation (Zurawicki, 2010). Chae and Lee (2013) also reported that other areas were eye-tracking techniques, such as recording and analyzing the individuals’ visual attention by tracking their eyesight across different fields: marketing, usability, behavioural psychology, and cognitive psychology. This approach’s potential is that it helps in identifying more effective ways of enhancing online sales and identifying the challenges that customer face in the process of checkout, either with the format employed or any of the steps followed in making such purchase (dos Santos et al., 2015).

In another argument, Orquín and Loose (2013) stated that the eye movement in the course of the decision-making process is as a result of the requirement of a given task and somewhat by the stimuli (that create biases to capture the information), which allows for striking visual stimuli to be favoured. The top-down and bottom-up factors aid attentions and influence how individuals interpret stimuli (Behe et al., 2013). As stated by Pieters and Wedel (2004), the bottom-up factors are features of the stimuli itself, representing a rapid form of attention being captured. On the other hand, top-down factors are the past (existing) ideas that the consumers already have about the product. When it comes to top-down factors, it is required that the consumers voluntarily search and pay attention to certain information about the product.

Although there have been many advances in technologies geared towards measuring the physiological signals of consumers, the less costly tools like facial coding and eye tracking have been embraced more by the neuromarketers (Harrell, 2019). Nielsen, a leading consultancy in the field of crowd marketing stated that using eye-tracking helps brands to make sure that the attention of customers is focused on the right things and at the right moments (for instance, when a logo appears), and a facial coding aimed at ensuring that the ad can trigger responses from the customers as it was designed to elicit (and it is essential to point out that Nielsen rarely uses any of its tools in isolation) (Harrell, 2019).