Consumers‘ Online Cognitive Scripts: A Neurophysiological Approach

A cognitive script is a predetermined sequence of actions that define a well-known situation. Building on neuroscience literature, the objectives of this research-in-progress are to verify and validate that consumers activate cognitive scripts when shopping online, understand how cognitive scripts are formed by consumers over multiple online shopping trips, and investigate how consumers activating different cognitive scripts respond when facing a novel shopping environment. Twenty-one novice participants (i.e., no digital music purchase experience) were assigned to either an "intrascript" condition (multiple visits to a single website) or an "interscript" condition (single visits to multiple websites). Using psychometric and neurophysiological measures, our results suggest that intrascript consumers appear to use more automatic processing, while interscript consumers use more controlled processing. In addition, when visiting a new website, interscript consumers perceive this website as easier to use than intrascript consumers. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.