Behaviour & Information Technology

ISSN: 0144-929X (Print) 1362-3001 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tbit20

Trust me, if you can: a study on the factors that

influence consumers’ purchase intention triggered
by chatbots based on brain image evidence and
self-reported assessments

Chiahui Yen & Ming-Chang Chiang

To cite this article: Chiahui Yen & Ming-Chang Chiang (2020): Trust me, if you can: a study on
the factors that influence consumers’ purchase intention triggered by chatbots based on brain
image evidence and self-reported assessments, Behaviour & Information Technology, DOI:
10.1080/0144929X.2020.1743362

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2020.1743362

Published online: 24 Mar 2020.

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BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2020.1743362

Trust me, if you can: a study on the factors that influence consumers’ purchase
intention triggered by chatbots based on brain image evidence and self-reported
assessments
Chiahui Yena and Ming-Chang Chiangb
a
Department of International Business, Ming Chuan University, Taipei, Taiwan; bDepartment of Life Science, College of Science and Engineering,
Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Nowadays, chatbots is one of the fast rising artificial intelligence (AI) trend relates to the utilisation Received 2 August 2019
of applications that interact with users in a conversational format and mimic human conversation. Accepted 9 March 2020
Chatbots allow business to enhance customer experiences and fulfil expectations through real-time
KEYWORDS
interactions in e-commerce environment. Therefore, factors influence consumer’s trust in chatbots Trust; chatbots; neuroscience;
is critical. This study demonstrates a chatbots trust model to empirically investigate consumer’s electroencephalography
perception by questionnaire from self-reported approach and by electroencephalography (EEG) (EEG); purchase intention
from neuroscience approach. This study starts from integrating three key elements of chatbots,
in terms of machine communication quality aspect, human-computer interaction (HCI) aspect,
and human use and gratification (U&G) aspects. Moreover, this study chooses EEG instrument to
explore the relationship between trust and purchase intention in chatbots condition. We collect
204 questionnaires and invite 30 respondents to participate the survey. The results indicated
that credibility, competence, anthropomorphism, social presence, and informativness have
influence on consumer’s trust in chatbots, in turn, have effect on purchase intention. Moreover,
the findings show that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the superior temporal gyrus are
significantly associated with building a trust relationship by inferring chatbots to influence
subsequent behaviour.

1. Introduction
Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) devices or assistants,
such as Google Assistant, Siri on Apple mobile phones,
and Cortana on Microsoft desktops, claim to work and
react like humans (Russell and Norvig 2009). AI tech-
niques have been extensively applied for many years to
support and enhance the quality of decision making
and problem solving in different fields (Schuetzler et al.
2018) including healthcare (Valtolina, Barricelli, and Di
Gaetano 2020), education, the public sector, industry,
media, and business (Elsevier 2018). Admittedly, one
of the fast rising AI trends nowadays involves utilising
applications that interact with users in a conversational
format, mimicking human conversation; these are ‘chat-
bots’, ‘conversational agents’, or simply ‘bots’ (Schuetzler
et al. 2018). Chatbots have been on the rise for a couple
of years and have already been widely adopted. They
evoke conversational commerce, and introduce new
ways for businesses to communicate with the world
and, most importantly, with their customers (Saunders
2017). Thanks to changes in availability and the rise of
messaging platforms, interest in chatbots is increasing.
They represent a channel that enables businesses to
reach their customers anytime and anywhere through
platforms like Facebook Messenger, Slack, WhatsApp,
and WeChat (Zumstein and Hundertmark 2017). Fur-
thermore, chatbots allow e-service agents to enhance
customer experiences and fulfil expectations through
real-time interactions in e-commerce environments
(Chung et al. 2018). Therefore, whether and why custo-
mers trust chatbots constitute critical issues in under-
standing purchase behaviour.
Past marketing studies and information systems (IS)
studies have indicated that, in e-commerce settings,
there is a strong link between trust and purchase behav-
iour (Gefen 2000; Jarvenpaa, Tractinsky, and Vitale
2000). Furthermore, researchers have claimed that trust
is as an important predictor of machine/technology suc-
cess (Pavlou 2002; Ratnasingam 2005). However, a
PointSource report revealed that some consumers do
not completely trust chatbots to provide them with the
same level of service as humans would. Only 16% of
the respondents that were surveyed by PointSource
said that they were ‘fully satisfied’ with all aspects of

CONTACT Ming-Chang Chiang cmcphd@gmail.com Department of Life Science, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei 242, Taiwan
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 C. YEN AND M.-C. CHIANG
their experiences with chatbots. Meanwhile, 27% said
that they were either ‘somewhat unsatisfied’ or ‘comple-
tely unsatisfied’ (Hopping 2018). Researchers have begun
to believe that it is essential to investigate consumers’
trust in this new technology since chatbot uptake
among consumers depends on user trust. Without
trust, the full potential of chatbots may not be realised
(Nordheim 2018). Given these facts, the motivation
behind this study can be phrased as follows:
What factors affect users’ trust in chatbots that
provide customer service?
Although several relatively new studies have been carried
out to explore the factors that influence consumer trust
(Beldad, Hegner, and Hoppen 2016; Lee and Choi 2017;
Kuipers 2018; Nordheim 2018; Chattaraman et al. 2019),
satisfaction (Ben Mimoun and Poncin 2015; Liang and
Austin Lee 2016; Lee and Choi 2017; Chung et al. 2018),
and intention (Beldad, Hegner, and Hoppen 2016; Lee
and Choi 2017; Liew and Tan 2018) with regard to chat-
bots, few studies have paid special attention to the critical
factors that influence consumer trust as it pertains to inte-
grating the human-computer interaction (HCI) aspect
with the social aspect. The present study has attempted
to address these research gaps by proposing a novel
model and empirically testing HCI with a specific focus
on how machine characteristics and social actor factors
affect consumers’ purchase intentions. This study has
demonstrated a chatbots trust model to empirically inves-
tigate consumer perception through questionnaires under
the self-reported approach. In order to enrich our under-
standing of the research phenomenon, this study started
by integrating three key elements of chatbots: the machine
communication quality aspect, the HCI aspect, and the
human use and gratification (U&G) aspect.
In addition to the popular self-reported approach, this
study has also adopted the neuroscience approach for the
purpose of investigating the effects of consumer trust in
chatbots on consumer purchase intentions. In the past
decade, there have been some attempts to explore the
potential of cognitive neuroscience, specifically brain
image evidence, in IS and marketing research. These
have been termed NeuroIS (Dimoka, Pavlou, and Davis
2007; Dimoka 2010; Dimoka et al. 2012) and neuromar-
keting (Fugate 2007; Lee, Broderick, and Chamberlain
2007; Camerer and Yoon 2015; Lee, Chamberlain, and
Brandes 2018), respectively. The promises of NeuroIS
and neuromarketing are complementary to existing
research tools given that neurophysiological tools can
provide reliable self-reported or archival data that are
difficult or impossible to obtain with traditional tools
(Dimoka et al. 2012). Various neuroscience methods
are brain imaging tools including EEG, functional mag-
netic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission topo-
graphy (PET), and magnetoencephalography (MEG), all
of which are powerful for investigating brain activity and
its role in social decision making and communication
(Koechlin 2016; Baillet 2017).
Trust is an important social behaviour for mediating
social phenomena; however, underlying brain mechan-
isms that are related to trust and are activated during
social process exchanges are still not well understood.
Past studies have explained users’ acceptance and usage
of new technology in e-commerce environments through
the brain image method (Riedl, Hubert, and Kenning
2010; Kuan, Zhong, and Chau 2014; Anderson et al.
2016). Since researchers can benefit from drawing
upon the theories, methods, and tools that neuroscience
offers (Dimoka, Pavlou, and Davis 2011), there is great
value in exploring consumer trust by integrating the
questionnaire and neuroscience approaches. Various
neural signatures have been indicated for brain responses
to decisions involving trust (Bellucci et al. 2017; Krueger
and Meyer-Lindenberg 2019). Therefore, we have exam-
ined consumers’ brain activity using EEG imaging by
monitoring subjects’ brains while they interacted with
chatbots online on a sequential trust website.
Specifically, this study consisted of two studies. The first
study was a questionnaire based on a research model that
focused on overall human-chatbot collaborations through
participants’ self-reported assessments, and the second
was a measurement of users’ psychophysiological reac-
tions to chatbots as captured by EEG. In the first declara-
tive study, participants filled out a series of questionnaires
that were related to their interactive experiences with chat-
bots. These questionnaires assessed their trust in chatbots
and their willingness to purchase. In the second study, par-
ticipants browsed webpages with chatbots while the
researchers gathered psychophysiological data based on
their reactions as measured by a commercial EEG device.
Based on research design of past literature (Ortiz de
Guinea, Titah, and Léger 2014), this study has proposed
that purchase intention is derived from consumers’ trust
in chatbots and their trust in sellers. In this study, we
have analysed how machine communication quality,
human-computer interaction, and human use and gratifi-
cation can affect overall customer trust in online stores
that deploy e-service chatbots.
First, ‘machine communication quality’ refers to chat-
bot specialisation in terms of agent expertise and infor-
mation credibility. Consumers expect chatbots that are
both knowledgeable about the relevant products and
able to provide factual information (Liew and Tan
2018). As researchers, we have aligned our assumptions
with those that have been expressed in studies that have

focused on chatbots and agents under the assumption that
quality communication requires credibility and compe-
tence (Edwards et al. 2014; Chung et al. 2018). Second,
HCI tests the extent of the assignment of human traits
and characteristics to computers (Araujo 2018). This
study has explored the adoption of anthropomorphic
cues in chatbot design and how this influences consumers’
perceptions of trust. We extended earlier communication
field research by explicitly testing the effects of anthropo-
morphism, social presence, and media richness on consu-
mers’ attitudes to chatbots. Third, the term ‘human uses
and gratifications’ refers to the gratifications or benefits
that attract and hold users to various types of media, and
the types of content that satisfy their social and psychologi-
cal needs (Chaouali 2016). This is considered an ideal
theoretical basis for probing the gratifications that users
seek to fulfil when they use chatbots. Thus, this study
has presented informativeness and playfulness as antece-
dents in order to shed light on the mechanisms that
underly consumers’ trust in chatbots.
In summary, the current study address the following
questions:
(1) To what extent does consumer trust in chatbots influ-
ence trust in seller and, in turn, purchase intention?
(2) What are the salient aspects of consumer perceptions
of chatbots and sellers that affect trust?
(3) How do consumers’ emotional patterns, as reflected
in their brain activity, impact consumer decisions
during interactions with chatbots?
2. Literature and research hypotheses
2.1. Trust
This section discusses the literature and the research
model. Figure 1 presents an illustration of the research
model for this study.
Trust refers to ‘the willingness of a party to be vulner-
able to the actions of another party based on the expec-
tation that others will perform a particular action
important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to
monitor or control that party’ (Mayer, Davis, and
Schoorman 1995). This definition highlights that trust
is a subjective belief by one party regarding another
(Pennington, Wilcox, and Grover 2003). In fact, numer-
ous scholars have conceived trust as complex and multi-
dimensional, conceptualising it as a set of beliefs about
the integrity, ability, and benevolence of another party
(Ridings, Gefen, and Arinze 2002). Both economists
and sociologists have agreed that trust is a crucial
enabling factor in relations that are characterised by
uncertainty, interdependence, and fear of opportunism
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 3
in the online marketplace (Pavlou and Gefen 2004).
Trust is a fundamental mechanism for building and
maintaining the relationships that constitute the ground-
work that supports all cooperative behaviours between
relational parties (Li, Browne, and Wetherbe 2006). Pre-
vious studies of online buyer-seller relationships have
demonstrated the positive effect of trust on behavioural
intention (Lee and Turban 2001; Gefen, Karahanna,
and Straub 2003; Lu, Zhao, and Wang 2010). Hence,
this study’s first hypothesis is as follows:
H1: Consumers’ trust in sellers is positively associated
with their purchase intentions.
As two distinct facets, seller and chatbot trust are
hypothesised in consumer trust in e-commerce. On
online retail platforms, consumers deal with sellers
directly, often through chatbots that serve as agents for
bringing sellers and buyers together and facilitating
transactions. ‘Trust in chatbots’ is defined as consumers’
subjective belief that chatbots possess knowledge and
expertise, and goodwill and honesty (Beldad, Hegner,
and Hoppen 2016). Similarly, ‘trust in seller’ is defined
as consumers’ belief that sellers will act benevolently,
honouring their commitments to customers. Xiao and
Benbasat (2007) claimed that recommendation agents
can be trust targets in terms of competence, benevolence,
and integrity. They also noted that consumers’ percep-
tions of websites influence their perceptions of rec-
ommendation agents due to the ‘transference process’
of trust. This principle also holds true in reverse; that
is, perceptions of chatbot credibility influence the trust-
worthiness of the vendors that provide the agents
(Liew and Tan 2018). Moreover, research has shown
that trust in agents positively affects consumer reuse
intentions (Wang and Benbasat 2005). Hence:
H2: Consumers’ trust in chatbots is positively associated
with their trust in sellers.
2.2. Machine communication quality
In keeping with prior studies (Edwards et al. 2014;
Chung et al. 2018; Spence et al. 2019), we examined
credibility and competence as communication quality
properties in the context of online interaction. When
customers experienced quality communication and
received feedback from information that was transmitted
through chatbots, interactions were effective and trust-
worthy. ‘Credibility’ can be defined as the degree to
which the source and its message are perceived as believ-
able (Wathen and Burkell 2002). While misinformation
from chatbots results in information credibility con-
cerns, when the information is accurate, customers are
trusting in the sense that they ascribe reliability and
4 C. YEN AND M.-C. CHIANG
Figure 1. Research model.
completeness to their perceptions of message credibility.
Customers perceive that information is credible and per-
suasive when they have good experiences with commu-
nicators (Chung et al. 2018). The literature has
demonstrated that this is crucial for IS adoption (Poston
and Speier 2005) and online transactions (Ba and Paul
2002). Thus, in the current study, the importance of cus-
tomer perceptions of chatbot credibility is acknowl-
edged, and has led to the following hypotheses:
H3: Chatbot credibility is positively associated with con-
sumers’ trust in chatbots.
Chatbots’ competence is evaluated according to their
degree of expertise as well as the extent to which they
possess the required skills and knowledge. Customers
expect chatbots to listen to their concerns, accurately
diagnose their issues, and provide the information that
they need. In order to evoke positive perceptions of
understanding and communication quality, chatbot
interactions must be smooth, accurate, and complete
because when information is delivered efficiently,
appearing to be both competent and expert, consumers
positively appraise chatbot believability (Chung et al.
2018). ‘Competence’ is an expression of chatbot expertise
and is seen as a cue for trustworthiness. In the context of
an automated system, it has been argued that trust is
mainly based on users’ perceptions of machine expertise
(Nordheim 2018). Liew and Tan (2018) highlighted the
importance of chatbot competence and found that con-
sumers trust specialist virtual agents with high expertise
as opposed to generalist agents. Therefore, the following
hypotheses were established:
H4: Chatbot competence is positively associated with
consumers’ trust in chatbots.
2.3. Human-computer interaction
Customer’s perceived anthropomorphism, i.e. the
assignment of human traits and characteristics to com-
puters is an essential dimension in HCI (Araujo 2018).
Social cues constitute a category of communication

that helps guide us in our relationships and interactions
with others. A straightforward way of manipulating
social cues is to equip agents with an anthropomorphic
interface. With chatbots, this can be achieved by adding
human-like characteristics, facial expressions, body ges-
tures, and/or speech output (Qiu and Benbasat 2010).
Most previous research on anthropomorphic interfaces
has focused on developing and examining various
designs of agents’ appearance and behaviour, such as
avatar dimensionality (i.e. 2D or 3D), facial expressions,
communication modalities, and nonverbal behaviour
(Qiu and Benbasat 2009).
Online stores need to understand how to introduce
chatbots to consumers and the extent to which agent
framing influences consumer perceptions in terms of
the level of chatbots’ anthropomorphism (Araujo
2018). Chatbots can be viewed as social actors that are
capable of possessing human-like attitudes or feelings
(Qiu and Benbasat 2009). Humans have been found to
apply social rules, such as politeness, in their interactions
with computers. Furthermore, users have been found to
perceive chatbots as having humanlike personalities.
Sundar’s (2004) study indicated that anthropomorphism
of computer could predict user’s loyalty. Consequently, it
can be assumed that anthropomorphism potentially
impacts human consumers’ trust in chatbots (Nordheim
2018). Hence, the following were hypothesised:
H5: Consumers’ perceived chatbot anthropomorphism
is positively associated with their trust in chatbots.
‘Social presence’, which is embedded in communi-
cation theory, refers to other people’s degree of salience
in an interaction and the consequent salience of interper-
sonal relationships (Short, Williams, and Christie 1976).
This conceptualisation has been widely employed in IS
research to investigate computer-mediated communi-
cation, system design (Cyr et al. 2009), and information
technology (IT) usage (Venkatesh and Johnson 2002;
Miranda and Saunders 2003). Social presence implies a
psychological connection with a user who perceives the
website as warm, personal, and sociable, thus experien-
cing the feelings that are associated with positive
human contact (Cyr et al. 2007). For instance, social
presence has desirable consequences in social media
since the sense of warmth that is created on social net-
work sites influences user participation (Cheung, Chiu,
and Lee 2011; Xu et al. 2012). Social presence also rep-
resents a sense of sociability, which, in e-commerce
environments, impacts trust (Hassanein and Head
2007), usage intention (Gefen and Straub 2004), and loy-
alty (Cyr et al. 2007).
Considering research on virtual agents, past studies
have identified social presence as a construct that refers
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 5
to the feeling of being with another. It can be used to
describe the ‘quasi-social’ relationships between agents
and users, and it can also be useful in evaluating users’
perceptual differences with regard to agents’ social
characteristics (Qiu and Benbasat 2009; Ben Mimoun
and Poncin 2015). In computer-mediated environments,
social presence is necessary to enhance and foster social
interactions, enable a sense of connection between web-
sites and their visitors, and influence consumer attitudes
and behaviours (Ben Mimoun, Poncin, and Garnier
2017). Li and Mao (2015) argued that social presence,
representing a sense of human warmth and sociability,
has a positive impact on consumers’ use intention in
the context of virtual agents. In this regard, it would be
appropriate to incorporate social presence in examin-
ations of user trust. Hence, the following were
hypothesised:
H6: Consumers’ perceived social presence in relation to
chatbots is positively associated with their trust in
chatbots.
Media richness theory (Daft and Lengel 1986) pro-
poses that individuals distinguish communication tech-
nologies on a scale from lean to rich based on the
technology’s intrinsic properties. Two concepts of
media richness are communication performance and
interpersonal relationships (Daft, Lengel, and Trevino
1987). Media richness theory claims that individuals
seek to match the richness of a medium with the com-
plexity of the task for which it is used (Flanagin and
Metzger 2001). Specifically, four factors affect media
richness, namely the transmission of multiple cues (e.g.
vocal inflection, gestures, etc.), the immediacy of feed-
back, language variety, and personal focus (Daft, Lengel,
and Trevino 1987). In order to fully comprehend the
attributes of new technologies and their impacts on con-
sumer usage, past studies have reexamined the social
presence model and the media richness theory as frame-
works for understanding social media behaviour (Kaplan
and Haenlein 2010; Park, Chung, and Lee 2012; Van Der
Heide, D’Angelo, and Schumaker 2012; Choi 2019). By
limiting the investigation to conversational agent com-
munication, the current study sought to explore the vari-
ations in media use that result from chatbot attributes.
Hence, the following were hypothesised:
H7: The media richness of chatbots is positively associ-
ated with consumers’ trust in chatbots.
2.4. Human use and gratification
U&G, which is a paradigm used in media studies, is bor-
rowed from mass communications research that focuses
6 C. YEN AND M.-C. CHIANG
on the individual use and choice of media (Katz 1959).
The main purposes of this paradigm are to explain the
reasons people choose a specific medium over alternative
communication media and to elucidate the psychological
needs that motivate people to use a particular medium
(Cheung, Chiu, and Lee 2011). According to Rubin
(2002), U&G involves several assumptions. First, it
views people as active, goal-directed, and motivated in
terms of media selection. Second, it assumes that people
select the appropriate channels of communication for
satisfying their needs and wants. Third, it presumes
that people have diverse communication behaviours
based on different psychological factors, which, in turn,
influence how well media can gratify their different
needs (Pornsakulvanich and Dumrongsiri 2013). More-
over, U&G has been extensively adopted to explain the
uses and effects of interpersonal and mediated com-
munication channels such as the Internet and social net-
working sites (Xu et al. 2012; Ku, Chen, and Zhang
2013). Since this study started with human-computer
communication, we have drawn on U&G from the com-
munication field as an underlying theoretical foundation
for examining the factors that influence chatbot use
intentions.
A large number of previous studies have adopted the
uses and gratification approach to define the motiva-
tional factors that drive users’ Internet engagements
based on their psychological needs and the gratifications
that they seek (Eftekhar, Fullwood, and Morris 2014).
Past studies have indicated that users’ gratifications
influence their continuance intentions. They have also
identified categories of needs that drive social network-
ing site usage, including emotional, cognitive, and social
needs (Wang, Tchernev, and Solloway 2012). Lee and
Ma (2012) asserted that individuals who are driven by
gratifications that are related to information seeking,
entertainment, socialising, and status seeking are more
likely to share news on social media platforms. Echoing
previous literature, this study has posited that users are
goal-directed in their behaviour and are aware of their
needs (Cheung, Chiu, and Lee 2011). We assume infor-
mativeness and playfulness as the U&G dimension that
influences chatbot use. ‘Informativeness’ refers to the
extent to which users perceive virtual agents as capable
of effectively providing relevant information (Li and
Mao 2015). It describes users’ feeling as though they
are informed about a particular service, such as its tech-
nical capabilities and the likely experience that is associ-
ated with its use (Smith, Johnston, and Howard 2010; Li
and Mao 2015). Furthermore, the concept of playfulness
is an appropriate construct for studying HCI because
technologies incorporate playful features, such as multi-
media, graphics, and animation (Ben Mimoun and
Poncin 2015). If consumer-chatbot communication
becomes socially interactive, then perceived playfulness
will be quite influential in determining users’ trust in
technology and their intentions to use it (Lee and Choi
2017). This body of reasoning has led to the following
hypotheses:
H8: Consumers’ perceived informativeness is positively
associated with their trust in chatbots.
H9: Consumers’ perceived playfulness is positively
associated with their trust in chatbots.
2.5. EEG
Numerous studies have indicated EEG as a beneficial
tool because of its non-invasive neuronal signals in
terms of collecting neuro-information and studying
social behaviour (Kuan, Zhong, and Chau 2014; Heisel-
berg and Bjørner 2018; Ma, Zhang, and Wang 2018).
Chau and his collaborators have applied responses
from group-buying information opinions and emotions
to an EEG examination (Kuan, Zhong, and Chau
2014). Evidence from self-described and EEG data has
demonstrated that ‘buy’ information is associated with
negative emotions while ‘like’ information is linked to
positive emotions. By adopting EEG technology, Ma,
Zhang, and Wang (2018) indicated that buying behav-
iour was correlated with consumers’ price expectations.
Their study discovered that subjects’ price opinions
were significantly affected by emotions and experiences
in behavioural result and EEG experiment. These distinct
neuroinflammation influences can be illustrated by var-
ious social behaviours and brain activity using EEG.
A number of new insights combining neuroscience
and marketing have described trust and brain activities
via EEG study (Dimoka et al. 2012; Daugherty et al.
2018; Gordon et al. 2018; Hubert et al. 2018; Lin et al.
2018; Shaw and Bagozzi 2018). Neuropsychological
studies have demonstrated that the dorsolateral prefron-
tal cortex is specifically active in beneficial memory for-
mation and learning processes given its function in
constructing relationships for cognitive processes (Blu-
menfeld et al. 2011; Mannarelli et al. 2015); however,
its role in trust encoding is more controversial. These
works have stated that the organisation of spectrotem-
poral processing in the superior temporal gyrus is critical
for speech signals in speech perception (Mesgarani et al.
2014; Hullett et al. 2016) and social concepts (e.g. honor–
brave) (Zahn et al. 2007), but purchase intentional pro-
cessing and its relationship with trust are not well under-
stood. However, previous studies could not rule out the
possibility that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and
the superior temporal gyrus correlate to trust in the

context of purchase intentions in interactions with chat-
bots and contribute to trust in all subsequent associative
self-reported analyses. In the present study, we have
argued, using EEG tests, that there is a relationship
between trust and purchase intention in the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex and the superior temporal gyrus
under the chatbot condition. Hence, we hypothesised
that:
H10: Trust is associated with higher brain activation in
the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the superior tem-
poral gyrus.
3. Research methodology
3.1. Study 1: measures, participants, and
procedures
The questionnaire was posted at several shopping for-
ums to recruit survey participants. Given that consu-
mers’ purchase intentions constitute our primary
interest, those respondents who completed a shopping
procedure are considered to have chatbot conversation
experience. At the end of survey, 204 samples are col-
lected, and several are directed to the second stage of
the survey. Most of them are female (67.8%), 20–30
years old (59.6%), college students (71.8%), 5–10 years
of shopping experience (89.1%).
All the constructs correspond to multiple items, each
of which is based on a five-point Likert scale that ranges
from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). In the
questionnaire, trust is based on Mayer, Davis, and
Schoorman’s (1995) definition and adapted from
Gefen, Karahanna, and Straub (2003). The items that
measure purchase intention were modified from Pavlou
and Fygenson (2006). The items that pertain to credi-
bility and competence were adapted from Chung et al.
(2018). Anthropomorphism is measured using items
that were modified from Nordheim (2018). Social pres-
ence is measured using items that were adapted from
Gefen and Straub (2004). Media richness is measured
by items adapted from Daft and Lengel (1986). Regard-
ing the construct of use and gratification, the items that
measure playfulness were modified from Wu, Wang, and
Tsai (2010) and Dholakia, Bagozzi, and Pearo (2004)
while informativeness is measured by items that were
adapted from Chang and Zhu (2011).
3.2. Study 2: EEG study
At the EEG study, 30 voluntary participants who partici-
pated in study one arrived at the EEG laboratory. The
healthy subjects included 12 males and 18 females, ran-
ging in age from 21 to 24 years (Mean = 21.55 years, SD
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 7
= 1.60 years), and did not have any history of neurologi-
cal diseases. All the participants had previous experience
on online shopping. The experiments were approved by
Fu Jen Catholic University Institutional Review Board
(IRB Approval Number C106005). Experiment protocol
was exhibited to participants on documents at the very
beginning. Subjects were located comfortably space and
electrically defensed room. Experimental webpages
were showed principal on a computer screen at a dis-
tance of 70 cm from each subjects’ face. A mouse and
keyboard was prepared to the participants to make
their selects. Each participant had two practice tests to
become know with the experimental protocol before
the formal procedure.
In the first part of EEG study, 30 respondents were
invited to join the experiment in ‘no chatbots condition’.
We designed difference five pairs of shopping webpages,
including fashion clothing, shoes, accessories, travelling
products, and foods. The experiment webpages for
EEG study are shown as Figure 2, and a single trial of
the experimental webpage is shown in Figure 3. Each
webpage was displayed to respondent for 20 s, after view-
ing each webpage, the respondent was answered a ques-
tionnaire related trust and purchase intention toward
this shopping webpage. Self-reported data were gathered
to validate research model as well as compare with data-
set from the second part. When subject completed all
questionnaires, EEG tool started to manipulated and pre-
sented to the subject for above five webpages. EEG data
capture consumer’s reflection and evaluation toward
shopping webpages without chatbots, and describe
trust reside in the brain.
In the second part of EEG study, participants were
asked to perform task related to purchase items ‘with
chatbots condition’. The styles of shopping websites are
no distinct difference from those webpages in the first
part; the only dissimilar information is the chatbots con-
dition. We add chatbots as a pop-up box in shopping
webpages. Each set also displayed for 20 seconds, while
subject could view dialog lists with chatbots. Meanwhile,
every respondent still answered the questionnaire related
to trust and purchase intention.
3.3. EEG recordings
EEG recordings were performed using Neuron-Spec-
trum 3 (Neurosoft Lt, Russia) and 21-Channel Digital
EEG Systems. Electrodes were situated according to the
International 10–20 System. Digital EEG systems
Neuron-Spectrum are modern, high-tech electronic
medical devices commonly used by medical practitioners
and neurophysiologist-researchers. The high quality of
EEG recordings is achieved as a result of the component
8 C. YEN AND M.-C. CHIANG
Figure 2. Experiment webpages for EEG.
hardware and software. The sampling rate of the EEG
signal is up to 5000 Hz per channel. The A/D converter
is 16 bits, and the noise level is less than 0.3 μV. The
mathematical processing of the received data allows for
brain mapping, spectral, coherent, periodometric analy-
sis and automatic report generation. The EEG display on
the computer screen has a resolution up to 2560 × 1600
pixels, and images can be printed out on common
paper. The impedance is indicated on the electronic
unit’s front panel. The EEG recording quality depends
directly on the electrode impedance that should be less
than 5 kΩ during the recording. The EEGs were
recorded for 5 s in each turn, beginning 2 s before and
continuing until 2 s after the onset of both the game
results and pictures presentations.
EEG data were processed through the Neuron-Spec-
trum.NET software, it is proposed for the performing
of EEG exams with the use of digital EEG systems of
Neuron-Spectrum series created by Neurosoft Ltd. and
also for the analysis of the recorded EEG and report gen-
eration. EEG measures the brainwave patterns are
generally classified into differ frequency bands, including
delta (below 4 Hz), theta (4–7 Hz), alpha (8–12 Hz), beta
(13–28 Hz) and gamma (30–100 Hz) (Towle et al. 1993).
Here, we focus on a beta frequency band is associated
with decision making and cognitive processing (Andreou
et al. 2017; Pornpattananangkul et al. 2019). After con-
verting and analysing the beta frequency band of EEG
data were collected 30 subjects using standardised Low
Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (sLORETA)
(Pascual-Marqui 2002) for 3D representation of the elec-
trical activity of human brain (De Ridder et al. 2011).
4. Data analysis and results
4.1. Measurement model
A partial least squares structural equation modelling
(PLS-SEM) approach, supported by SmartPLS, was uti-
lised in this study in order to analyse the survey results
(Ringle, Wende, and Will 2005; Ringle, Wende, and
Becker 2015). Reliability and validity are the dual criteria

Figure 3. Two experiment conditions (No chatbots vs. with chatbots).
for examining the adequacy of the measurement model.
Composite reliability values were also adopted in order
to evaluate reliability. This study found that all the
reliability figures were above 0.8, as demonstrated in
Table 1, exceeding the suggested level. Regarding con-
struct validity, this paper scrutinised both convergent
validity and discriminant validity. As the constructs
have an average variance extracted (AVE) of at least
0.5, convergent validity is determined adequate (Fornell
and Larcker 1981). All the AVEs in this study were
between 0.61 and 0.86, indicating that a greater volume
of construct-related variance was captured than error
variance by the principal constructs. The study measured
discriminant validity by calculating the square root of the
AVE values for each construct, whose value ought to be
higher than the correlation estimates involving the con-
struct. Table 2 illustrates both the comparisons of
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 9
construct correlation and the square root of the AVE.
The off-diagonal elements were the correlations among
constructs, which ranged from 0.28 to 0.76. The diagonal
elements were the square root of the AVE, and all of
these values exceed the inter-construct correlations.
4.2. Structural model
Users trust in chatbots affect their trust in seller (β =
0.59, t = 11.01), and, in turn, influence purchase inten-
tion (β = 0.70, t = 15.43). Thus, H1 and H2 were sup-
ported. Credibility and competence are both positively
associated with trust in chatbots (β = 0.21, 0.16, t =
4.19, 2.46 respectively), supporting H3 and H4. In
addition, anthropomorphism and social presence are
also positively associated with trust in chatbots (β =
0.27, 0.28, t = 4.15, 3.57 respectively), supporting H5
10 C. YEN AND M.-C. CHIANG

Table 1. Results of reliability and convergent validity.

Factor
Construct Item loading
Credibility (CR) The conversational agent is honest 0.85
CR = 0.82 The conversational agent is honourable 0.78
AVE = 0.69 The conversational agent is moral 0.77
Purchase intention (IN) I will seriously contemplate purchasing goods from this site 0.93
CR = 0.96 I will purchase goods from this site 0.94
AVE = 0.86 I am likely to make future purchases from this site 0.93
I will consider purchasing goods from this site in the future 0.77
Competence (CO) The conversational agent save a tremendous amount of time 0.76
CR = 0.67 My interactions with the conversational agent are more productive than face-to-face interactions with in-store 0.81
AVE = 0.89 agents
Using conversational agent is more efficient than other forms of communication 0.82
Anthropomorphism (AN) The conversational agent is natural 0.83
CR = 0.90 The conversational agent is humanlike 0.83
AVE = 0.70 The conversational agent is polite 0.89
The conversational agent is authentic 0.79
The conversational agent is realistic 0.83
Media richness (MR) The conversational agent can handle multiple information cues simultaneously 0.81
CR = 0.89 The conversational agent can facilitate rapid feedback 0.82
AVE = 0.68 The conversational agent can establish a personal focus 0.84
The conversational agent an message can be explicitly expressed or easy to be comprehend 0.89
Trust in seller (TRS) The seller is trustworthy 0.89
CR = 0.89 I trust the store 0.92
AVE = 0.82 The seller is adequate for my need 0.86
Trust in chatbots (TRC) The conversational agent is trustworthy 0.90
CR = 0.91 I trust the conversational agent 0.79
AVE = 0.77 The conversational agent is adequate for my need 0.81
Playfulness (PL) The conversational agent is entertained 0.82
CR = 0.91 The conversational agent gives me a lot of pleasure 0.86
AVE = 0.70 I enjoy communicate with conversational agent 0.87
I feel relax when I communicate with conversational agent 0.81
Social presence (SP) There is a sense of human contact when I communicate with conversational agent 0.82
CR = 0.88 There is a sense of sociability 0.86
AVE = 0.64 There is a sense of human warmth 0.87
There is a sense of human sensitivity 0.80
Informativeness (IF) I get useful information from conversational agent 0.79
CR = 0.87 I can search for information I need 0.81
AVE = 0.63 I can keep up to date on current trends 0.79
Note: CR, composite reliability; AVE, average variance extracted.

and H6. Contrary to our expectations, the path from
media richness to trust in chatbots is not significant,
with a path coefficient of −0.02 (t = 0.28). As a result,
H7 was not supported. As anticipated, informativeness
is positively associated with trust in chatbots (β = 0.15,
t = 2.94), supporting H8. Playfulness does not have a
significant influence on trust in chatbots (β = 0.01, t =
0.14), indicating that H9 is not supported. The path
analysis and explanatory power of the research model
are shown in Figure 4.
The predictive quality of a model can be assessed by the
percentage of total variance it explains (R 2). The results
show that credibility, competence, anthropomorphism,
social presence, informativeness accounted for 66% of
the variance of trust in chatbots. Moreover, R 2 was 34%
when trust in chatbots used to predict trust in seller.
Finally, the R 2 value shows that trust in seller accounted
for 49% of variance in terms of purchase intention.
All the R 2 values exceeded 10%, indicating acceptable
explanatory power.

Table 2. Correlation among constructs and the square root of the AVE.
AN CO CR IF MR PL SP TRC TRS IN
Anthropomorphism 0.83
Competence 0.53 0.78
Credibility 0.37 0.45 0.82
Informativeness 0.38 0.40 0.35 0.80
Media richness 0.28 0.45 0.36 0.40 0.82
Playfulness 0.43 0.35 0.35 0.31 0.41 0.84
Social presence 0.57 0.71 0.48 0.49 0.54 0.38 0.80
Trust in chatbots 0.64 0.64 0.55 0.52 0.42 0.40 0.71 0.85
Trust in sellers 0.41 0.61 0.57 0.37 0.41 0.30 0.49 0.59 0.90
Purchase intention 0.46 0.64 0.56 0.44 0.42 0.35 0.59 0.76 0.70 0.93
Note: Off-diagonal elements are the correlations among constructs. Diagonal elements (in bold) are the square roots of the AVE.
 BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 11

Figure 4. Results of the structural model.

4.3. EEG results
EEG features real-time neuroimaging methods that
provide measurements directly from neuronal acti-
vation. Among the non-invasive approaches, EEG has
emerged as the most viable option. Any activity in the
brain is accompanied by changes in ion concentrations
in neurons leading to polarisation and depolarisation.
EEG is advantageous in that it is portable and cost
effective, although magnetic fields suffer far less degra-
dation than electric fields from the spatial blurring
effect of the skull. As it stands, a comprehensive picture
of the interaction of trust and purchase intention with
the brain’s functionality from a cognitive neuroscience
perspective using EEG is still lacking. We report the
results of the study using EEG to map the areas of the
cortex of the human brain involved in the relationship
between trust and purchase intention. Alpha-EEG
(Figure 5) and Beta-EEG (Figure 6) activities were col-
lected 30 subjects frequency band and processed
through the sLORETA software for 3D representation
of the electrical activity of human brain. 3D represen-
tation of images were showed the (A) no chatbots con-
dition or (B) chatbots condition. As shown in Figure 5,
after converting and analysing the EEG data using
sLORETA, comparing alpha-EEG activity are mainly
in the (A) no chatbots condition or (B) chatbots con-
dition, which are no more active than the control
group. The relationship between trust and purchase
intention, comparing the blue arrows are mainly in the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the superior temporal
gyrus, which are more active than the control group in
beta-EEG activity and shown in Figure 6. Despite robust
associations between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
and the superior temporal gyrus for agent condition,
using EEG, we explored the neural responses involved
in agent condition.
The shopping webpages with two conditions, i.e. no
chatbots condition in time 1 (T1) and with chatbots
condition in time 2 (T2), were assessed for any sys-
tematic differences using t-tests. Overall, by providing
chatbots box, trust in seller increased from 4.02 to
4.06, a change of 0.04; and purchase intention
increased from 3.70 to 3.94, a change of 0.034. The
results of the t-tests indicate both changes are statisti-
cally significant, and show as Table 3.
5. Discussion
5.1. Findings
The results support the proposed model to a consider-
able extend. A number of findings are worth discussing:
first, the study demonstrates the relationship among
trust in chatbots, trust in seller, and purchase intention.
Thanks to technology progress, AI is able to provide
marketing efforts through chatbot, with effects on
customer perceptions of trust. Second, trust in chatbots
are predicted by chatbots characteristics, such as
credibility, competence, anthropomorphism, social
12 C. YEN AND M.-C. CHIANG

Figure 5. The topographical mapping of the electrical activity of human brain using sLORETA. Alpha-EEG activity were collected 30
subjects beta frequency band and processed through the sLORETA software for 3D representation of the electrical activity of
human brain. 3D representation of images were showed the (A) no chatbots condition or (B) chatbots condition.

presence, and informativeness. Third, however, the
findings also indicate that neither media richness nor
playfulness have positive influence on users’ trust
toward chatbots. That communication with chatbot is
a functional task to execute purchase goods might be
one of the reasons. When consumers browse websites
to buy something they need or want, the role of chatbot
is to solve consumer’s problem and help them to per-
form the purchasing process. Consumers do not
require multiple cues and language varieties as media
 BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 13

Figure 6. The topographical mapping of the electrical activity of human brain using sLORETA. Beta-EEG activity were collected 30 sub-
jects beta frequency band and processed through the sLORETA software for 3D representation of the electrical activity of human brain.
3D representation of images were showed the (A) no chatbots condition or (B) chatbots condition. The relationship between trust and
purchase intention, comparing the blue arrows are mainly in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the superior temporal gyrus, which
are more active than the control group.

richness function. Further, communication with chat- Fourth, in comparison of no chatbots condition, we
bot in playfulness atmosphere is not also an essential illustrate that chatbots increase both customers’ trust
elements for consumers. and purchase intention with the brain’s functionality
14 C. YEN AND M.-C. CHIANG
Table 3. Self-reported measures in EEG study.
T1 (No T2 (With Change
Measure chatbots) chatbots) (S.E.)
Trust in 4.02 4.06 0.04 (0.042)
seller
Purchase 3.70 3.94 0.24 (0.034)
intention
from EEG, and help build positive customer relationship.
Plassmann et al. (2015) as well as Venkatraman et al.
(2015) asserted that activity in brain areas such as the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the superior temporal
gyrus, as indicated by EEG and fMRI, constitute the
strongest link to marketing. Recently, Hubert et al.
(2018) expressed the effect of consumer behaviour on
trustworthiness evaluations in online shopping by
measuring the brain activity. These data provide evidence
that consumer behaviour is closely linked to trust and
activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Consistent
with prior studies, this research found that trust is associ-
ated with higher brain activation in the dorsolateral pre-
frontal cortex and the superior temporal gyrus.
5.2. Implication and future research
Although some previous studies have focused on the
effects of consumer trust on purchase intention, some
gaps have still persisted. First, to date, several controlled
experiments have been conducted to directly examine
the interaction between humans and chatbots (Liew
and Tan 2018; Schuetzler et al. 2018; Chattaraman
et al. 2019); however, few studies have implemented
psychophysiological instruments (Ciechanowski et al.
2019). A large number of studies have come up with var-
ious psychophysiological and neuroimaging methods in
the paradigm of social interaction or social cognition,
no experiment has employed EEG to gather evidence
on consumer trust in chatbots in e-commerce settings.
Further, this study has executed EEG experiment to
overcome this gaps.
Second, there are few studies to date that have
attempted to integrate the effects of consumer trust in
chatbots and consumer trust in sellers on consumers’
purchase intentions. Despite the fact that considerable
scholarly attention has been focused on multidimen-
sional trust and behavioural outcomes (Ridings,
Gefen, and Arinze 2002; Hsu et al. 2007; Lu, Zhao,
and Wang 2010), there has been little exploratory
research on the relationship among trust in chatbots,
trust in sellers, and purchase intention. It is indisputa-
ble that conversational commerce development and
chatbot usage offer multifaceted benefits for modern
businesses. This outcome is crucial because challenges
associated with how humans interact with chatbots
Paired t- p- can affect consumers’ trust in sellers. In particular,
test value
this study has highlighted the significance of trust pre-
8.659 0.000
dictors pertaining to chatbots and, in turn, trust in sell-
3.385 0.001 ers and purchase intention.
Third, although recent studies have seen the nascent
integration of chatbots in online stores in the context
of social and psychology theory (Qiu and Benbasat
2010; Beldad, Hegner, and Hoppen 2016; Liew and
Tan 2018), few have focused on dual chatbot character-
istics, i.e. a social actor and a new technology. Accord-
ingly, this study has drawn upon social and psychology
theory while emphasising the integration of a holistic
effect among machines, HCI, and human consumers’
trust in chatbots.
Several literatures have demonstrated that directly
measuring eye movements through eye tracking is a
major concept of human brain and information inter-
action in social neuroscience (Eckstein et al. 2017; Poz-
harliev, Verbeke, and Bagozzi 2017). Other future
research is expected to help provide insights into
human social behaviour and agent condition relevance
decision dynamics through eye tracking. There is the
potential for the valuable application of techniques
using eye tracking and EEG in cognitive processes for
the assessment of human social behaviour.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by Ministry of Science and
Technology.
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