Visual attention predicts risky supplement decisions in recreational fitness: evidence from a quiet eye experiment

Risky, high-stimulant supplement use and IPED-like products are increasingly common in recreational fitness environments and represent a relevant public health and harm-reduction concern. While psychosocial correlates of such decisions have been widely examined, less is known about visuocognitive processes involved in the real-time evaluation of supplement-related information at the point of choice. Quiet Eye (QE), defined as the final fixation before an action, has been described as a marker of attentional stability but has not yet been examined in the context of supplement-related risk decision-making.

A laboratory eye-tracking study was conducted with 166 recreational fitness athletes. Participants viewed a standardized supplement stimulus containing reward-related and warning-related cues, completed a binary task-based risky-choice task, and reported their intention to use the risky product. Measures of QE fixation duration, psychosocial risk constructs, and experimentally induced cognitive load were obtained. Logistic and linear regression models were estimated using standardized predictors.

Longer QE fixation on warning cues was associated with a lower likelihood of selecting the risky supplement (OR = 0.50, p = 0.003) and with lower intention scores (b = -4.20, p < 0.001). In standardized terms, a one-SD increase in QE_warning corresponded to an approximately 50% reduction in the odds of choosing the risky option and a decrease of about four points on the 0-100 intention scale. QE fixation on reward cues was associated with intention but not with task-based choice. Psychosocial variables showed consistent associations with both outcomes: risk acceptance was positively associated with intention and risky choice, whereas risk perception was inversely associated with both. Cognitive load was associated with higher intention scores (b = 2.02, p = 0.002) but was not associated with task-based choice.

The findings indicate that warning-related QE fixation is associated with lower intention and a reduced likelihood of risky choice in supplement-related decisions. QE metrics are interpreted as visuocognitive markers of attentional allocation during the final phase of decision-making rather than as causal determinants. Together with established psychosocial correlates, visuocognitive attention may constitute an additional descriptive component in understanding supplement-related risk decision processes, with potential relevance for harm-reduction approaches in visually dense fitness environments.