Seen but not considered? Awareness and consideration in choice analysis

Consideration set formation (CSF) is a two-stage decision process in which people first select a subset of products to consider and then evaluate and choose from the selected subset of products. CSF models typically use stated consideration or infer it from choice data probabilistically. This study explores CSF by means of eye-tracking and evaluates how measures of visual consideration compare to stated consideration. We develop a model of CSF behavior, where stated and visual consideration are embedded in the specification of the utility function. We propose three different measures of visual consideration and show that one third of respondents (∼34%) use CSF behavior and that stated consideration diverges substantially from visual consideration. Surprisingly, many product types stated as not considered receive more visual attention, not less. Our findings suggest that stated consideration may be in part a measure of preferences rather than of consideration, implying concerns with endogeneity when including stated consideration data in choice models. Accounting for CSF in discrete choice analysis increases our understanding of the decision process, and can target concerns with biased estimates when analyzing data from two-stage decision processes.