The effect of recycled water information providing on public acceptance of recycled water:An Eye-Tracking Experiment

Public acceptance plays a key role in promoting recycled water. This study attempts to explore how information providing affects public acceptance of recycled water and whether people pay different levels of attention to different types of information for various uses of recycled water. Two experimental groups were provided with information of recycled water for toilet flushing and drinking, respectively. We surveyed the acceptance of recycled water by questionnaires, and compared the acceptance of participants in two experimental groups with those without information. We found that information providing increased the acceptance of recycled water for drinking but decreased that for flushing. An eye-tracking experiment was conducted to explore whether there were differences in the levels of attention to the various types of information for different uses. Results showed that for drinking used recycled water, people spent more time on processing new information, and resolving the incongruity between information and existing schema.