Exploring the role of Visual Salience within the Proximity Effect

• DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/u8bsz
• Publication Date: 2018-07-02T11:51:23Z
• Authors: Daniel Knowles; Kyle Brown; Silvio Aldrovandi
• Keywords: Choice Architecture; Health Psychology; Nudge; Proximity; Cognitive Psychology; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Proximity Effect; Salience; FOS: Psychology; Applied Behavior Analysis; Visual Salience; Health; Effort; Psychology; Psychology, other; Obesity

Research into why the proximity effect occurs and understanding of the underpinning mechanisms is relatively scarce. Attempts have been made to explore whether cognitive load and physical effort underpin the effect, but no previous study has experimentally manipulated visual salience to determine its role in the proximity effect. The present study aims to be the first to do so, starting with a pilot study to determine an effective operationalisation of visual salience in a laboratory setting. The selected manipulation will then be used in a laboratory study conducted with 68 individuals in a 2(Distance; 20cm vs 70cm) x 2(Visual Salience; Low vs High) between subjects design. Actual and Likelihood of consumption will be measured and statistically compared between conditions to determine the potential role of Visual Salience within the Proximity Effect.