Application of Neuroscience Methods in Online Consumer Behavior Research: A Review Based on Online Consumer Behavior Patterns

Zhang Jing; Chen Mingliang

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20211028.301

Summary

Nowadays, online consumption has become an increasingly common form of consumption. Compared with traditional offline consumption, online consumption scenarios are easier to be simulated in the laboratory, the consumption process does not involve face-to-face interaction, and consumer psychology is more secret and complex. Therefore, it is more suitable to open the “black box” inside the consumer’s brain and explain consumer behaviors with the help of neuroscience tools. However, online consumption has not attracted as much attention as traditional offline consumption in the field of consumer neuroscience at present, and most relevant review articles are about the application of neuroscience methods in the research of traditional offline consumer behaviors. Due to the diversity of online consumer behaviors as well as neuroscience tools, it is necessary to analyze both the advantages and disadvantages of various tools and their applicable online consumption scenarios. Therefore, this paper aims to review the application of neuroscience methods in online consumer behavior research.

This paper firstly describes the concept and development of consumer neuroscience, analyzes the main advantages of neuroscience methods compared with the traditional methods of consumer behavior research, and introduces EEG/ERPs, fMRI and eye tracking technology, which are widely used in online consumer behavior research. Then, this paper introduces the AISAS model, which is used to depict online consumer behavior patterns. The model divides online consumer behaviors into five stages, including Attention, Interest, Searching, Action and Sharing. Based on the model, this paper summarizes the specific applications of the three neuroscientific tools mentioned above in each stage of online consumer behaviors.

In the process of literature sorting, this paper uses the Core Collection of Web of Science and CNKI as the database to search for literatures related to online consumer behaviors. After careful reading and comparing, 53 literatures from 2010 to 2021 are manually screened out (72% of literatures in recent 5 years). The literatures are preliminarily classified according to each stage of online consumer behavior patterns, and further categorized according to target variables and research topics under corresponding categories. The results are coded in chronological order, and the research objectives, neuroscience tools, main conclusions, shortcomings and prospects of each literature are summarized.

The main contributions of this paper are as follows: Firstly, it supplements the review of online consumer behavior research in the field of consumer neuroscience research, which helps researchers understand the current progress. Secondly, it helps researchers to clarify the advantages and disadvantages of the three neuroscience research tools and their application scopes, so as to reduce the misuse and abuse of tools in the research. Thirdly, it puts forward the potential future research direction for online consumer behaviors in terms of the behavioral stages, paths and forms of online consumption different from traditional consumption, which is helpful to promote the research of online consumer behaviors.