Effective electronic menu presentation: From the cognitive style and mental imagery perspectives

Abstract

While technology has significantly changed how we communicate, our knowledge of how to utilize electronic menus in restaurants is lacking. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating customer response to various multimedia presentation formats on a digital platform. To test this, we developed four menu presentation formats and examined how different presentation formats affect mental imagery and the desire to eat. The results reveal that mental imagery positively affects the desire to eat, while mental imagery itself varies depending on the presentation format and cognitive style. The video menu elicited the highest mental imagery followed by the picture, narration, and conventional menus. Visualizers and verbalizers appear to form similar mental imagery with these presentation formats. Providing support for dual coding theory, the results suggest that while the visual domain plays the strongest role in mental imagery and the desire to eat, they are also influenced by auditory stimuli.