Abstract
Whilst choice experiments (CEs) are widely applied in economics to study choice behaviour, understanding of how individuals’ process attribute information remains limited. We show how eye-tracking methods can provide insight into how decisions are made. Participants completed a CE while their eye movements were recorded. Results show that while the information presented guided participants’ decisions, there were also several processing biases at work. Evidence was found of (i) top-to-bottom, (ii) left-to-right and (iii) first-to-last order biases. Experimental factors - whether attributes are defined as ‘best’ or ‘worst’, choice task complexity and attribute ordering - also influence information processing. How individuals visually process attribute information was shown to be related to their choices. Implications for the design and analysis of CEs and future research are discussed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 709-721 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Health Economics |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 27 Dec 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2018 |
Bibliographical note
The University of Aberdeen and the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates fund the Health Economics Research Unit (HERU). We thank all participants who took part in the study and Pavlos Topalidis for invaluable help with data collection. We thank two anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions that helped improve this article.Keywords
- choice experiments
- choices
- eye tracking
- information processing
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Mandy Ryan
- School of Medicine, Medical Sciences & Nutrition, Health Economics Research Unit - Director of H E R U
- Institute of Applied Health Sciences
Person: Academic