Context congruity effects of online product recommendations: an eye-tracking study
| Date | 08 October 2018 |
| Published date | 08 October 2018 |
| Pages | 847-863 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-02-2017-0035 |
| Author | Jing Luan,Zhong Yao,Yongchao Shen,Jie Xiao |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
Context congruity effects of
online product recommendations:
an eye-tracking study
Jing Luan, Zhong Yao and Yongchao Shen
Department of Economics and Management, Beihang University,
Beijing, China, and
Jie Xiao
Department of Business Administration, Hunan University, Changsha, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to understand how the context congruity effects of online product
recommendations (PRs) by recommendation agents (RAs) influence consumers’attention to and memory of
recommended products in an online shopping environment.
Design/methodology/approach –The study focuses on the context congruity effects of online PRs by
examining consumers’browsing patterns and attention characteristics (fixation counts and fixation duration)
using an eye-tracking device and by measuring memory performance with an aided memory test. Three types
of PRs (highly congruent, lowly congruent and incongruent PRs) and two degrees of involvement (high and
low involvement) are considered.
Findings –The results of the gaze data show that context congruity effects can influence consumers’
PR attention, but this effect is not moderated by involvements. The results of the memory data show that PR
recognition is influenced not only by context congruity effects but also by involvement. Another significant
finding is that attention to a PR does not necessarily guarantee better memory performance.
Practical implications –The study significantly contributes to deepening the understanding of how
context congruity can influence consumers’attention to and memory of PRs. The findings also have
important managerial and practical implications, such that selecting and presenting PRs should be based on
context congruity effects.
Originality/value –First, introducing context congruity effects to investigate the effectiveness of online
PRs by RAs not only provides an important theoretical contribution to research on recommendation
effectiveness but also enriches its application. Second, the findings suggest that the relationship between
visual attention and memory is not definitely positive. Third, to interpret the complex translation process
from attention to memory, the authors propose a methodology that considers stimulus attributes, issue
involvement, cognitive capacity and cognitive interference.
Keywords Memory, Eye tracking, Attention, Context congruity, Online product recommendation
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In the era of the Web2.0, e-commerce offersconsumers great convenience, tremendousproduct
choices, and a significant amount of product-related information. Abundant product
information affords consumers not only opportunities to evaluate products more
comprehensively but also difficulties in processing mass information due to humans’
cognitive limitations. Identifying products that satisfy consumers is not an easy task.
The availability of recommendation agents (RAs) aids consumers in searching, selecting and
customizing products (Chung et al., 2016). RAs are web-based software applications that
conduct a series of operations to provide users product advices based on their needs,
preferences, profile,and shopping history.Thus, RAs have thepotential to mitigateconsumers’
information overload and search difficulty, further improving their decision quality. Online Information Review
Vol. 42 No. 6, 2018
pp. 847-863
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-02-2017-0035
Received 1 February 2017
Revised 14 June 2017
15 October 2017
Accepted 16 February 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
This work has been supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Project Nos 71271012,
71332003, 71671011) and by the Excellence Foundation of BUAA for PhD Students (Project No. 2017050).
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Context
congruity
effects
Previous research on RAs primarily concerns its recommendation-generating process
(Khusro et al., 2016). However, from consumers’perspective, the effectiveness of RAs is not
only determined by algorithms. Many other factors, such as perceived usefulness, ease of use,
credibility, output strategy, and product and user-related factors also influence consumers’
evaluation of RAs. This study investigates RA-related issues beyond algorithms in order to
enrich RA research. We mainly focus on how online product recommendations (PRs) by RAs
work to attract consumers’attention and whether consumers’attention and memory
processing varies based on context congruity effects of PRs.
Context or thematic congruity has previously been addressed by online and physical
advertising-related research in order to understand how to achieve greater advertising
effectiveness and impact (Moorman et al., 2002a, b; Porta et al., 2013). Referring to this line of
research, context congruity in this paper is defined as the extent to which a PR and its
context are congruent in terms of theme, content or context. More specifically, it refers to the
relationship between the content of a PR and its surrounding context, and to the association
that consumers can generate between them. By providing PRs based on techniques such as
the content-based approach, collaborative filtering and hybrid approaches, the degree of
congruity in PRs by RAs can be generally categorized as high congruity (HC), low congruity
(LC) and incongruity. The context has HC when the PRs are similar to the browsing product.
For example, if one is browsing rice cookers and the RA’s recommended products are other
rice cookers, the context is highly congruent. With LC, the PRs are less related to the
browsing product, such as complementary products. For example, for the rice cookers, if the
products recommended by the RA are other items that people who bought rice cookers also
purchased, such as a rice storage bin or a rice paddle, the context is lowly congruent.
The third category is incongruity (IN), in which the PRs are unrelated to the browsing
product and may be based on consumer’s previous browsing history, for example. To
evaluate whether these recommendations are effective for consumers with regard to the
context congruity effects, we will examine consumers’attention and memory performance
toward PRs as outcome measures. In an online shopping environment with overwhelming
information, it is increasingly difficult for marketers to compete for limited consumer
attention (Webb and Ray, 1979) and for effective product memory. Thus, in the context of
congruity, understanding how consumers comprehend, process, memorize and use
PRs by RAs contributes to the research on context congruity effects, and can serve as a
reference for RA designers to optimize their creative efforts in assisting marketers to rise to
this challenge.
Related research has examined the influence of congruity between the media context and
advertising on consumers’attitudes, reactions, purchase intentions and recall in the context
of online newspapers or online portal websites (Porta et al., 2013; Rieger et al., 2015; Kim and
Choi, 2012) as well as the congruity effect on consumers’information procurement and
processing (Luan et al., 2016; Rieger et al., 2015). However, online shopping websites or
e-commerce portals that are popular among consumers for offering opportunities to address
the everyday tasks of problem solving and information searching (Heinz et al., 2013) have
not been explored enough. Heinz and Mekler (2012) examined the impact of advertising
placement and navigation style (aimless browsing or goal-oriented information searching)
on consumers’advertisement recognition by displaying food-related ads in an online shop
selling men’s and women’s apparels. They found that navigation style, not banner
placement, can influence recognition. The authors suggested that when conducting research
in the context of online shopping, researchers should vary the level of task involvement,
such as providing opportunities for participants to choose what they want to search for and
using an eye tracker to trace participants’eye movements, in order to obtain additional
insights into how consumers orientate themselves during online shopping. Although they
presented very interesting and promising further research, the authors ignored the influence
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