Using EEG to understand how our brain elaborate information in stated choice experiments: Easy versus hard tasks in the choice of vehicles

ABSTRACT

In the current study, we aim to provide preliminary evidence that complex consumer choices depends on cognitive processes and executive functions that may not be fully captured by current stated choice (SC) approaches. To address this gap, here we combine the standard SC experiment with electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings while manipulating the cognitive demands of the task. Our study is applied to the choice context of a car purchase between a petrol and an electric vehicle. Respondents were asked to fill in a stated choice experiment online and a subsample of these respondents were then invited to participate in an EEG study during which they repeated the same SC experiment while we continuously recorded EEG signals from their scalp. We then modelled people’s choice behaviours in easy and hard decisions, and compared this analysis of their choice behaviour to their EEG responses in these two conditions. Our results confirm that hard decisions lead to higher cognitive demands and larger EEG responses in electrodes on the frontal part of the scalp and these demands can lead to choices inconsistent with the compensatory assumptions.