 The "Visual Preference Heuristic": The Influence of Visual versus Verbal Depiction on Assortment Processing, Perceived Variety, and Choice OverloadClaudia Townsend and Barbara E. Kahn Journal of Consumer Research, 2014, vol. 40, issue 5, 993 - 1015 Abstract: The "visual preference heuristic" suggests that consumers prefer visual to verbal depiction of information in a product assortment. Images produce greater perceptions of variety than text, which is appealing in assortment selection, but can result in choice complexity and overload when choice sets are large and preferences are unknown, suggesting a moderator for Iyengar and Lepper's results. Eye-tracking results reveal that the natural gestalt processing of individual visual stimuli, as compared to the piecemeal processing of individual textual stimuli, affects the processing of the assortment as a whole with visual (compared to verbal) presentation facilitating a faster, though more haphazard, scanning of the assortment. While the less systematic processing that results from visual presentation feels easier, it is not ideal for larger assortments resulting in higher complexity ratings and choice overload than with text depiction. These findings reveal that, like many heuristics, preference for visual depiction may be overapplied. Date: 2014 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:doi:10.1086/673521 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood More articles in Journal of Consumer Research from Journal of Consumer Research Inc. |
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