Exploring product style perception: A comparative eye-tracking analysis of users across varying levels of self-monitoring

Digital shopping applications and platforms offer consumers a numerous array of products with diverse styles and style attributes. Existing literature suggests that style preferences are determined by consumers’ genders, ages, education levels, and nationalities. In this study, we argue the feasibility and necessity of self-monitoring as an additional consumer variable impacting product style perception and preference through the utilization of eye-tracking technology. Three eye-movement experiments were conducted on forty-two participants (twenty males and twenty-two females; Age: M $=$ 22.8, SD $=$ 1.63). The results showed participants with higher levels of self-monitoring exhibited shorter total fixation durations and fewer fixation counts while examining images of watch product styles. In addition, gender exerted an interaction effect on self-monitoring’s impact, with female participants of high self-monitoring ability able to perceive differences in product styles more rapidly and with greater sensitivity. Overall, the results highlight the utility of self-monitoring as a research variable in product style perception investigations, as well as its implication for style intelligence classifiers, and style neuroimaging.