Digital Commons Network^™

Measuring Physiological Arousal Towards Packaging: Tracking Electrodermal Activity Within The Consumer Shopping Environment, Rupert Andrew Hurley, Dan E. Hutcherson, Charles E. Tonkin, Shaundra B. Dailey, Julie C. Rice

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Contrasted against the popular belief that consumers make purely rational decisions, purchasing decisions are rapid, subconscious, and emotional decisions. In order to understand a consumer’s purchasing decisions, we suggest finding methods beyond focus groups, which typify this type of research, to measure and interpret consumer reactions to various packaging designs. In this paper, we examine electrodermal activity, a measure of emotional arousal, and eye tracking in the context of a realistic shopping environment as possible measures to support insight into customer preference of packaging. We hypothesized that presenting consumers with an experience more closely related to actual shopping would encourage …