Visual Attention and Attribute Attendance in Multi‐Attribute Choice Experiments

Abstract

Summary Decision strategies in multi‐attribute choice experiments are investigated using eye‐tracking. The visual attention towards, and attendance of, attributes is examined. Stated attendance is found to diverge substantively from visual attendance of attributes. However, stated and visual attendance are shown to be informative, non‐overlapping sources of information about respondent utility functions when incorporated into model estimation. Eye‐tracking also reveals systematic nonattendance of attributes only by a minority of respondents. Most respondents visually attend most attributes most of the time. We find no compelling evidence that the level of attention is related to respondent certainty, or that higher or lower value attributes receive more or less attention. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.