Project R-14708

The role of automatic and deliberate mental imagery in multi-sensory digital consumer environments. (Research)

Living and working online has been boosted in the battle against the pandemic. As we are now carefully approaching the pandemic aftermath, it becomes clear that the pandemic containment measures have instilled long-lasting habit changes in the sense that many interactions in society will remain more digital or technology-mediated than before. One of the shortcomings that are currently still inherent to digital interfaces, is the fact that they tend to rely only on audiovisual information transfer. In this research project, we examine how the forgotten sense of touch can also be appealed to, facing this new digital normal in the context of consumer purchase decision making. As many sensory-enabling technologies are still in their infancy, and most of them not yet ready for massmarket consumer purposes, this research project focuses rather on how haptic imagery can be evoked, under which conditions drivers for mental haptic imagery work (or not), and what effects they can have in diverse consumer contexts. After first pushing the boundaries of the present literature on mental imagery, we will look further into the potential of evoking and influencing mental imagery and subsequent consumer reactions in combination with crossmodal correspondences, VR, and AR. These research objectives are explored via a mix of measurements (e.g., implicit association testing, mouse tracking, product evaluations, and actual behavior) and a combination of lab experiments and field research.

01 January 2024 - 31 December 2027