Cognitive mechanisms of observing others touching products increases purchasing intention: An eye-tracking study

Previous research has shown that observing others touching a product can effectively increase purchasing intention. Nonetheless, the underlying cognitive mechanism of this process remains under-investigated. The current study investigates whether increased purchasing intention to the touched products in the first-person perspective (1PP) is due to mental simulation of the touching actions or detailed visual processing of the product (Exp. 1). Additionally, we tested whether visuospatial perspective-taking was involved when the observation was from the third-person perspective (3PP; Exp. 2). Our results demonstrated that observing others touching a product in either 1PP or 3PP increased purchasing intention and led to greater attention to the hands but not to the product. More importantly, only the visual attention to the dominant hand mediated the positive effect of touching actions on purchasing intention (Exp. 1), thus suggesting that the cognitive mechanism supporting increased purchasing intention to the touched products was mental simulation rather than the detailed visual processing. Additionally, when the observation was from 3PP, the pattern of attentional allocation between the dominant and non-dominant hand was similar to that in 1PP, suggesting that visuospatial perspective-taking was involved, and likely the cognitive mechanism of increased purchasing intention to the touched products in 3PP.