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. 2022 Jun 13:16:817450.
doi: 10.3389/fnins.2022.817450. eCollection 2022.

Is the Discount Really Favorable? The Effect of Numeracy on Price Magnitude Judgment: Evidence From Electroencephalography

Bijuan Huang  1 , Xiaoyu Liu  1 , Yangyang Wang  1 , Hongxia Li  1 , Jiwei Si  1 , Dawei Wang  1 , Komal Afzal  1
Affiliations

Is the Discount Really Favorable? The Effect of Numeracy on Price Magnitude Judgment: Evidence From Electroencephalography

Bijuan Huang et al. Front Neurosci. .

Abstract

Attractive price promotion will induce an unreasonable willingness to purchase, especially through shopping. However, it is not clear how numeracy, one of the essential abilities for understanding and applying numbers, influences the process of purchase judgment. In total, 61 participants were recruited to perform a price promotion task using electroencephalography. The results showed that consumers with low numeracy performed worse than their peers with high numeracy at the behavioral level, and they also had lower P3b amplitude and less alpha desynchronization, regardless of price promotion frameworks. These findings provided evidence on the processing of price information and provided further insights into how numeracy impacts price magnitude judgment.

Keywords: P3b; alpha desynchronization; numeracy; price magnitude judgment; promotion frameworks.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Illustration of one trial. Range of reference price, regular price and sale prices are 20 to 100 yuan. And that of discount is 20% to 90%.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
ROIs in time and time-frequency domain analyses. Nine dotted rectangles were 9 ROI in the time domain analysis. The red dots represented P5 and P7 electrodes with a significant delayed modulation (both pcluster < 0.05) in the absolute discount; and the blue dots represented P6, P8, and PO8 electrodes with a significant delayed modulation (bothpcluster < 0.05) in the relative discount in time-frequency domain analysis.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Behavioral performance in two promotion frameworks. White lines were quartile of data; black lines were mean and standard deviation of data; each colored dot represented raw data of a subject. *p < 0.05 (the same blow).
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Group-level P3b waveform (highlighting with dashed rectangle) and topographic map in the relative discount. (A) The waveform of group difference at P3, Pz, and P4 electrodes. And the shaded area represents standard deviation. (B) Topographic map of P3b were displayed at the intervals 300 ∼ 500 ms in high-skilled group and low-skilled group. (C) The Grand average P3b topographic maps for two experimental groups and their difference. (D) Amplitude of P3b reflecting a significant difference for two experimental groups. (E) Correlations between P3b amplitude at right parietal area and accuracy. Each colored dot represented raw data of a subject. Full lines represented the best linear fit, and dotted lines represented 95% CI in two experimental groups.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Group-level topographic map and time-frequency features in the absolute discount. Topographic maps of the time-frequency ROI was displayed in the first half. And full rectangle represented P5 electrode. The bottom half was the time-frequency features of P5 electrode. Dotted rectangle represented the time-frequency ROI.
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
Group-level topographic map and time-frequency features in the relative discount. Full rectangle represented P6 electrode.
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