While past research has extensively investigated how a specific product attracts attention, little is known about how the display of other products in the same visual field affects the consumer's attention. Drawing from the Biased Competition Model and the Gestalt Principles, the current research seeks to examine the effect of distracting products' similarity and proximity on a focal product in a goal-oriented online shopping episode. Specifically, in Study 1 (n = 38), using eye-tracking, we show that consumers allocate the most visual attention to distracting products when they are both categorically similar and spatially near the focal product. We replicate this finding in Study 2 (n = 211) and results additionally suggest that under such distraction, consumers are less likely to accurately identify the focal product. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

尽管过去的研究已经广泛研究了特定产品如何引起人们的注意，但对于在同一视野中其他产品的显示如何影响消费者的注意力知之甚少。从“有偏向竞争模型”和“格式塔原则”出发，当前的研究旨在研究在目标导向的在线购物情节中分散产品相似性和邻近性对重点产品的影响。具体而言，在研究1（n = 38）中，我们使用眼动追踪技术显示，当消费者在类别上既相似又在空间上靠近焦点产品时，他们将最大的视觉注意力分配到分散注意力的产品上。我们在研究2中重复了这一发现（n = 211），结果还表明，在这种分散注意力的情况下，消费者不太可能准确地识别出焦点产品。