Neuroscience Letters | 2021
The effect of reviewer’s review volumes on online consumer reviews’ perceived usefulness: An event-related potential study
Abstract
What is the most useful online consumer review? Consumers face the challenge of identifying useful online consumer reviews, some of which might have been manipulated. Reviewer s review volumes is the past behavior of a reviewer. Reviews are used by many online shopping websites. While reviewer cues are receiving increasing attention, the effect of reviewer s review volumes on the perceived usefulness of online consumer review remains under-explored. This research explored the underlying neural mechanism of reviewer s review volumes on the perceived usefulness of online consumer reviews by applying the event-related potentials (ERPs) approach. Behaviorally, a higher perceived usefulness rate and reduced reaction time were observed for the high-review-volume condition compared to the low-review-volume condition, indicating that the high-review-volume condition was more desirable to the participants. At the neural level, the high-review-volume condition elicited an attenuated N2 and an increased LPP compared with the low-review volume condition, suggesting a more positive evaluation of the high-review volume condition. These results showed the positive impact of the reviewer s review volumes on the perceived usefulness of online consumer reviews and its potential neural substrates.