The ratings were made using a 7-point Likert scale, with scores ranging from 1 (least satisfied or unlikely to recommend) to 7 (most satisfied or likely to recommend). The experimental session was conducted as follows:
1). Introductions about four different attractions with pictures and text were individually given to the participants.
2). Once the participants were given the introduction about one attraction, they were given 1 to 2 minutes to read and to imagine their travel experience at the place. They were asked to rate their expected satisfaction (subjective utility) with the attraction.
3). Once all four attractions were rated, the participants were asked to rate the overall expected satisfaction (subjective utility).
4). Finally, the participants were asked to rate their willingness to recommend the whole trip to their friends or family.
Based on the result from the pre-experiment session and the visiting sequence in Experiment 1, we can define the scores that each destination/attraction obtains from the tourists as “high contrast of type” or “low contrast of type”, and “negative contrast of quality” or “positive contrast of quality”.
Experiment 2: frame and bias at the experience level
The VE used for obtaining data at the experience level has four attractions, namely, gallery, mountain, park, and beach. We asked participants to tour in the VE by controlling their avatars to walk around the computer-generated 3D world. Figure 3 shows a screenshot of the VE: (a) gallery, (b) mountain, (c) park, and (d) beach. Table 2 presents the brief descriptions of the artificial attractions in the VE.