Integrating experimental economics and biometric methods to improve understanding of consumers' decision making: A novel protocol and its application to the case of olive oil in Tunisia and Morocco

Models of consumer choices have operated based on the principle of the rationality of individuals. Consumers are supposed to be maximizing their utility. However, there is increasing awareness that consumers choices are driven by both conscious and unconscious factors. Recent technological developments now make it possible to incorporate biometric data into models of consumer choices. We introduce a protocol for a laboratory experiment aimed at understanding consumers preferences for olive oil and the impact of information on their willingness to pay for this good. The protocol combines an auction mechanism à la Becker–DeGroot–Marschak with the measurement of biometric data, including eye-movements and facial expression. We compare consumer choice models incorporating different sets of biometric factors and discuss their goodness of fit. While the baseline tobit model allows good prediction of consumers’ willingness to pay for olive oils, the models incorporating biometric data have a higher predictive power.