3.1.3. Design and procedure
The design was broadly similar to that outlined in Experiment 1 except for the fact that there were a further two dependent variables here. In an additional task, the participants had to select from the two versions of the same package which they would be willing to pay most for (the ranking dependent variable) and then specify how much they would be willing to pay for each (the willingness to pay, or WTP, dependent variable).
In one trial, identical in procedure to that specified earlier, the participants had to orient the modified symbol on the wine label. There were four further trials. In each of these trials, two versions of the same packaging were shown side-by-side, one on either side of the screen (positioning was randomised across participants, see Fig. 5). The participants first had to rank which of the two versions they would be willing to pay more for. They were instructed to click the images of the packages in order of preference, starting with the preferred packaging exemplar. A ‘1’ appeared in the top-left hand corner of the image clicked first to indicate most preferred, a ‘2’ in the image clicked second. Although not stated explicitly, the participants could re-click the image to remove the assignment, and then re-assign it to the other option if so desired. The participants were then asked to enter how much they would actually have been willing to pay for each of the displayed products (in US Dollars). Clicking on a button labelled ‘next’ started the next trial as long as all of the elements of the task had been completed (if this were not the case, a message appeared saying ‘please complete the task’). The order of presentation of the 5 trials was randomised for each participant. After completing the study, the participants were debriefed briefly as to the nature of the study.