Caramel or Peanut Butter? Attention Is What Makes Us Decide On a Candy Bar

OK.  So get this.  You're trying to decide between the candy with peanut butter and the one with caramel.  According to a new study, our attention to what we're looking at helps us make the decision.

Huh?

Newswise.com reports that scientists using eye-tracking technology have found that what we look at helps guide our decisions when faced with two visible choices, such as snack food options.

"But it is not as easy as saying we simply choose what we look at the most, the research found.  Instead, our gaze amplifies our desire for choices we already like," the site says..

“We don’t necessarily choose something just because we look at it more, as some researchers have suggested.  If we look at something we feel neutral about, our attention will have little effect,” the site quotes Ian Krajbich, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology and economics at The Ohio State University.  “But if we look at something we already like, our attention makes us like it even more in that moment.”

Here's the candy bar situation.  Say "you're looking at two candy bars in a vending machine. You like both of them, but prefer the one with peanut butter slightly more than the one with just chocolate. You’ll usually choose the one with peanut butter, but not always," newswise reports.

“We can use eye tracking to predict when people are going to go against their usual preference,” Krajbich explains at the site. “When someone spends more time looking at their less-valued but still liked item, it amplifies how appealing it is.”

Another interesting fact the researchers discovered is that people tended to make their decisions more quickly when they liked both of their two choices, Krajbich points out.

“That is surprising to some scientists.  The thought is that the quick decision should come when you’re choosing between two items you feel neutral about, because why would you care?” he states.

Instead, people struggle more with the decisions about neutral items and choose quickly between two liked items. “When both items are good, your attention plays a larger role in your decision and you choose more quickly," he says.

What researchers found is that how long people look at items is not correlated with their ratings – "So it is not the case that they are simply looking more at items they rated higher,” Krajbich adds.

“What we find is that how long they look at items is not correlated with their ratings – so it is not the case that they are simply looking more at items they rated higher,” he asserts.

But beware.

Marketing can actually backfire when you’re forced to buy a product you don’t like, newswise writes.

“An older paper shows that if you have to choose from two disliked items, the item that gets more attention is less likely to be chosen,” Krajbich concludes. "More attention doesn't always translate into us choosing a particular item."

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