This study examined consumers' cognitive scripts during online shopping. It had three main objectives: 1) Validate if consumers activate scripts during online shopping; 2) Understand how scripts form over multiple trips; 3) Investigate how consumers with different scripts respond to new shopping environments. The study used electroencephalography and other neurophysiological measures to analyze brain activity as 20 participants visited familiar and unfamiliar shopping websites. Preliminary results found no significant difference in how scripts changed for those visiting the same site repeatedly versus different sites. Analysis of brain activity and attitudes is ongoing to understand how script formation impacts processing of new websites. The study aims to provide insights into satisfying online customer experiences.

1. Consumers' Online Cognitive
Scripts: A Neurophysiological
Approach
Sylvain Sénécal (HEC Montréal)
Pierre-Majorique Léger (HEC Montréal)
Marc Fredette (HEC Montréal)
René Riedl (University of Linz)
Gmunden Retreat on NeuroIS 2012
Gmunden, Austria, June 3-6

2. Tech3Lab
Insfrastructure financing
Operational financing
Scientific partners

3. Group experimental room

4. Group experimental room

5. Individual experimental room

6. Individual experimental room

8. Cognitive Script
• “Coherent sequence of events expected by the
individual, involving him either as a participant or as an
observer” (Abelson 1976)
• “Predetermined, stereotyped sequence of actions that
define a well-known situation.” (Shank and Abelson
1977)
• Basically, it allows people to understand and behave
appropriately in a particular situation (Abelson 1981).
• Experts form more elaborate, distinctive, contingent,
and hypothetical scripts than novices (Leong et al.
1989; Martin 1991)

9. Research Objectives
1. Validate if consumers activate cognitive scripts
when shopping online;
2. Understand how cognitive scripts are formed by
consumers over multiple shopping trips;
3. Investigate how consumers activating different
cognitive scripts respond when facing a novel
shopping environment (e.g., a new store).

10. Potential Contributions
• To theory:
– Better understand script activation over multiple
interactions
– Script and Self-service technology
• To practice:
– Help managers provide satisfying online experiences
– Potentially, locking-in consumers with easier to learn
websites (Johnson and Bellman 2003).

11. Cognitive Script and Neuroscience
• When encountering a situation, the brain tries to match the
input information (e.g., Burger King) with a similar
representation existing in memory (Barr 2009).
• By activating a certain analogy, information that is associated
with this analogy in memory is triggered, generating a
prediction of what to expect next (Bar 2009, Bar and Neta
2008).
• Hence, cognitive scripts could be at the basis of human brain
activity and consequently human behaviors
• “Information encoded in our memory guides and sometimes
dictates our future behavior. One can look at our experience
as stored in memory as scripts.” (Bar 2009, p.1239)

12. Hypotheses
• H1: Consumers, whose script was formed during
repeated visits to a single website (intrascript
consumers), will possess a different script than
those whose script was formed during single visits
to different websites (interscript consumers).

13. Neurophysiological differences between
Novices and Experts
Hill and Schneider, 2006

14. Hypotheses
• H2: When revisiting the website, intrascript
consumers will more use automatic processing.
• H3: When visiting a new and dissimilar website,
intrascript consumers will use more controlled
processing.

15. Hypotheses
• H4: When visiting a new and dissimilar website,
interscript consumers will have more positive
attitudes toward the website than intrascript
consumers.

16. Method
• Pretest conducted in Summer 2011
• Main study
– Lab expriment
– Subjects: No online music purchase experience
– Data collected in March - April 2012
– Data analysis: ongoing

17. Method – Main study
• Questionnaire 1
– « Online music purchase » script elicitation 1
– List of 10 songs
• Random assignment to Group A (same site) or B (different
sites)
– Purchase task: One song per website (1 hour and/or 10 websites
max.)
• Questionnaire 2
– « Online music purchase » script elicitation 2
– Website evaluation (Bressolles and Nantel 2008)
– Demographics

18. Experimental Design
One Hour (maximum)
Intrascript A A A A A A A A A A L Questionnaire
Interscript B C D E F G H I J K L Questionnaire

20. Measures
• Neurophysiological
– Electroencephalography (EEG) and Heart Rate (HR)
• B-Alert® X10
• EEG based engagement index (Berka 2007): sleep onset,
distraction, low engagement, and high engagement.
• EEG based workload index
– Electrodermal response (EDR)
• Procomp Infinity (Thought Technology)
• Self-reported
– Website evaluation (Bressolles and Nantel 2008)
• Aesthetics, Ease of Use, Information Quality,
Interactivity/Personalisation

21. Pretest and Main Study
B-Alert EEG Headset

22. Results
• Pre-test done in Summer 2011 with 6 subjects.
• Real test done in March-April 2012 with 20
subjects.
• Once the data are processed, we still have about
20 measures per subject per thousandth of second
(approx. 75,000,000 observations per subject).
• Per subject, we have approx. 250Mo of data
(unstructured data excluded)

23. Description des données

25. H1 : Consumers, whose script was formed during repeated visits to a single website
(intrascript consumers), will possess a different script than those whose script was
formed during single visits to different websites (interscript consumers).
• Two independent judges coded each participant’s initial
and final scripts (Intercoder reliability coefficient 0.97)
• Average number of events between the initial and final
script:
– Intrascript condition : from 5.70 to 5.65 events
– Interscript condition : from from 7.18 to 7.55 events
– Difference in variation (-0.05 vs. 0.37) was not statistically
significant based on a Mann-Whitney test (n1=10 and
n2=11)

26. H2: When revisiting the website, intrascript consumers will more use automatic
processing.
H3: When visiting a new and dissimilar website, intrascript consumers will use more
controlled processing.
Intrascript group Interscript group
N = 14

27. H4 : When visiting a new and dissimilar website, interscript consumers will have more
positive attitudes toward the website than intrascript consumers.
N = 21

28. Next step