An eye tracking exploration of cognitive reflection in consumer decision-making

The works presented in this thesis are the result of the experiments conducted in the Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory (CEEL) and in the Consumer Neuroscience Laboratory (NCLab) of the Economics and Management Department at the University of Trento. The aim of this research is to study the influence of cognitive impulsivity on commercial problem-solving and consumer decision-making. We focused on the attentional aspects related to the decision-making process as analyzed by the eye movements. The first section will present the main topic of the thesis, the key tool used to conduct the experiments (eye tracker) and the three papers; the latter will compose the second, third and fourth chapter. All the chapters have a common thread: to shed light on the cognitive aspects of problem-solving and their implications for the consumer decision-making process as analyzed through gaze behaviour. - The aim of the first paper, “The role of numeracy, cognitive reflection and attentional patterns in commercial problem-solving” by Dorigoni, Polonio, Graffeo and Bonini, is to analyze the predictive power of two important cognitive abilities, numeracy and cognitive reflection, in two different problem solving scenarios with high numerical components. - The aim of the second paper, “Getting the best deal: Effects of cognitive reflection on mental accounting of choice attributes” by Dorigoni, Cadonna and Bonini is to understand if people with low cognitive reflection are more prone to mental accounting across attributes of the same product; low cognitive reflectors do not integrate all the attribute costs and consequently they do not always choose the best deal. - The aim of the third paper, “Cognitive reflection and gaze behaviour in visual tasks” by Dorigoni, Rajsic and Bonini is to demonstrate that cognitive reflection has predictive power on heuristics and biases related to perceptual and visual tasks. This result is extremely important because it reflects a different disposition to see and analyze the information depending on the cognitive impulsivity.