The Influence of Lighting on Perceived Product Size: The Role of Surface Curvature and Attention

Itrat Batool, L’Espoir Decosta, Patrick J.N., Hamish Simmonds and Aaron Gazley

Journal of Business Research, 2025, vol. 200, issue C

Abstract: While the affective and behavioural effects of bright lighting in retail settings have been widely explored, its influence on visual perception—particularly product size perception—remains overlooked. This research fills that gap by uncovering a novel link between bright lighting and object shape, showing how their interaction shapes consumer perception. Bridging two previously disconnected streams of literature—lighting and perceived product size—we demonstrate that under bright lighting, convex products are perceived as significantly larger, while concave products appear smaller. Across three controlled experiments, we find that bright lighting heightens visual attention, which amplifies the perceived size of products—but critically, only when the surface curvature is convex. These findings advance theoretical understanding of visual processing in retail environments and offer actionable insights for product display, packaging, and lighting design.

Keywords: Product surface curvature; Convex; Concave; Bright lighting; Dim lighting; Perceived product size; Attention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296325004382
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:200:y:2025:i:c:s0148296325004382

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115615

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().