How Augmented Reality Affects People’s Perceptions: Adoption of AR in Product Display Improves Consumers’ Product Attitude

Abstract

Abstract Augmented reality has emerged as a novel communication tool which adds virtual computer-generated information to viewers’ real life. Although a wealth of research has investigated the effect of AR technology on consumers’ attitude, little is known about the underlying mechanism of how it influences consumers’ attitude. The purpose of this paper is to address the problem. Two experiments were performed to test the effect of AR based product display on consumer’s attitude and the underlying mechanism of the effect. Specifically, in Experiment 1, the authors presented a bottle to 92 participants (43 women, 39 men, mean age = 25.78) via three different methods: AR based display, non-AR based display without background, and non-AR based display with a background to verify the main effect. Additionally, another 100 volunteers (65 women, 35 men, mean age = 24.16) participated in Experiment 2 to verify the mediating effect. The results have demonstrated that the effect of AR based display on consumers’ product attitude is mediated by Self-referencing reality simulation. The current research suggests that managers should develop and adopt AR technology in their product display which can improve consumers’ product attitude.