Behavioral Experiment Protocol for Examining Social Presence, Visual Attention, and Impulse Buying in Live-Streaming...

Live-streaming e-commerce combines product demonstration with real-time social interaction, yet survey-based research cannot capture the moment-to-moment attention associated with simulated purchase decisions. This protocol describes a controlled 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment manipulating social presence and product visual salience. Two hundred forty participants (60 per condition) viewed one 90 s stimulus while gaze was recorded at 120 Hz across product, streamer, chat, and price areas of interest. Participants then completed measures of perceived social presence, flow, positive emotion, urge to buy impulsively, and purchase intention, followed by a simulated purchase-choice task. High social presence was associated with greater attention to streamer and chat regions, higher flow, positive emotion, and urge scores, and shorter decision times. High product salience was associated with longer product and price fixation, earlier first fixation on the product, and higher purchase intention. In the simulated task, 181 participants (75.4%) selected "purchase now," with condition rates ranging from 68.3% to 83.3%. Modeled indirect associations suggested that psychological states contributed more strongly to simulated purchase choice than experimental condition or gaze duration alone; these same-time mediation measures do not establish temporal causality. The protocol integrates controlled stimulus manipulation, eye tracking, psychometrics, and simulated decision outcomes while requiring cautious interpretation of raw fixation duration when the AOI area or exposure differs across conditions.