Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx Please cite this article as: Wagner Junior Ladeira, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102403 0969-6989/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. More bodily motor action, less visual attention: How supermarket stimuli and consumer-related factors infuence gaze behavior Wagner Junior Ladeira a, * , Marlon Dalmoro b , Fernando de Oliveira Santini a , Juliane Ruffatto a , Roberto Zanoni a a Universidade Do Vale Do Rio Dos Sinos (UNISINOS), Unisinos Business School, Av. Unisinos, 950, Sao Leopoldo, RS, 93022-000, Brazil b University of the Vale Do Taquari, Av. Avelino Talini, 171 - Universit´ ario, Lajeado, RS, 95914-014, Brazil A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Bodily motor action Visual attention Cognitive processes Supermarket stimuli Consumer factors Gaze behavior ABSTRACT This research examines the relationship between bodily motor actions and the focus of visual attention when consumers are selecting retail products. Based on a quasi-experimental study that was conducted to explore the level of visual attention, collected through the eye-tracking system, it can be seen that the amount of information captured by gaze behavior is conditioned by bodily movement at the front of a shelf. The viewpoint emerging from this paper is that cognitive processes stimulated by vision are deeply rooted in the body’s interactions in the retail environment and may also be infuenced by stimuli associated with the particular supermarket, as well as by factors relating to individual consumers. 1. Introduction Imagine watching a rushed consumer hastily shopping at the su- permarket: their swift bodily movements give you the impression of impulsiveness, agitation and lack of attentiveness. However, might the rapid movement of the body, induced by walking at speed, be interfering with their visual attention? Specifcally, can we be sure that this con- sumer has the minimal necessary cognitive processing skills to enable them to make sound judgments or coherent decisions? It can be assumed that this consumer would make more controlled and informed choices if s/he remained in a stationary, or relatively immobile, bodily stance at the front of a shelf. Bodily movement has always been important in understanding man’s relationship with his environment. The human body was treated as a prison of the soul by the Greek philosopher Plato. In Judeo-Christian thought, the human body was seen as the site of sin. In the words of French philosopher, Ren´ e Descartes, the human body was a separate entity from the mind. After thousands of years, studies exploring bodily movement (bodily interactions, motoric processing, somatic signals and offine cognition) have been used to understand consumer preference, judgment and decision-making (Topolinski 2010; Reimann and Bechara 2010; Krishna and Schwarz 2014). Recently, in-store feld studies have been conducted using mobile eye-tracker applications - those in which the participant needs to carry a device of their own, such as glasses (Huddleston et al., 2018). These studies analyze the infuence of environmental factors (associated with the top-down factors) on consumer choices in actual buying situations involving various factors, including: number and position of shelf fac- ings (Chandon 2009), package design elements (Clement et al., 2013), merchandise displays (Huddleston et al., 2015) and mobile phone usage (Grewal et al., 2018). However, these studies do not provide evidence of the infuence of human bodily movement on the process of capturing visual attention. As a result of this, differences in cognitive processing are not measured when consumers are stationary or engaged in bodily movement. This paper evaluates the relationship between bodily movement and visual attention when consumers choose products in-store: it distin- guishes possible retail environment infuencers, associated with stimuli in the supermarket, from factors specifc to individual consumers. The resulting perspective of this paper holds that cognitive processes stim- ulated by vision are deeply embedded in the body’s interaction with the particular retail environment. As such, this research offers three key contributions: 1) it provides empirical evidence of the infuence of bodily movement on the cognitive processing of retail information, 2) it offers novel insights into retail environment infuencers associated with stimuli in the supermarket (such as visual complexity, human density, spatial density and shelf layout) and also into factors that vary according to individual consumer (such as time spent in store, the infuence of * Corresponding author. E-mail address: wladeira@unisinos.br (W.J. Ladeira). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102403 Received 9 December 2019; Received in revised form 12 November 2020; Accepted 21 November 2020