Neuroeconomics Meets Aquaponics: An Eye-tracking Pilot Study on Perception of Information about Aquaponics

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper addresses an interesting topic that is not investigated so far. Some changes should be included:

Line 90ff: this is results and should not be included into the introductory paragraph

Section 2.2.1 Stimuli:

Did every participant received the same stimuli? Some information here could be clarifying.

Line 135-36: was the order randomized? If not, what does this possibly means for the results? (especially with regard to the two farms. I would expect an order effect.)

Line 141: ‘and’ is missing?

Figure 1: Please ensure that the text is readable. In the current version, I cannot read the text in this figure.

Line 192: Can you give the Cohen's kappa for inter-rater agreement?

Line 204 and 205: how many points had the Likert?

Line 268: Please mention Table 2 in the text where the numbers for the correlation are given

Line 273: You indicate that the answers do correlate negatively with each other but that the results are not statistically significant. Why?

Figure 4: Please change the colours in the figure if printed in black and white. The two rather categories cannot be distinguished very well from each other

Figure 5: Please make the figure description to stand on its own. Include the meaning of the groups in the descriptions

Line 402: what would this mean for interpreting the results? Would you expect people that inspect the flyer but do not take part in a survey to behave differently? How representative are your results with regard to this aspect?

Discussion: I am wondering about the conclusions drawn for communication with laypeople from the results. As study participants were kind of experts for agriculture, or at least have a comparably strong connection to agriculture, they can be rarely considered as laypeople. The authors should be more careful with the transferability of results to laypeople. One of the main problems in communication between agriculture and the public is that pictures used in communication are chosen by experts in the field – sometimes having completely different perceptions of such pictures compared to laypeople. I therefore suggest a clearer distinction of the study results and implications made for the general public. I further suggest to insert headlines in the discussion in order to structure the text better and make it easier readable. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

It is a very good paper with high rate of originality. 

Good luck with your future research!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript and for your kind words.

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting article taking a new point of view toward estimating the future perspectives of aquaponics and how to evaluate the interest for the method and the products. The number of participants was small but since it is a pilot study and this is pointed out by the authors this could be regarded as sufficient. Lines 13, 15, 90, 220, 243, 281, 387, 390, 498: 1. person "we" should be avoided. Line 162: Figure 1 is too small, impossible to read. Line 188: Missing dot end of sentence. Line 227: Figure 2, explain "X" Line 260: Table 1, be consistent using capital letters or not, e.g. Fixation count vs. fixation time and average fixation time. Line 264: Change Figure "2" to Figure "3". Line 293: Change "valuation" to "evaluation"? Line 332: Figure 5 is difficult to read

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf