Abstract: The development of digital technology has made virtual visual elements prevalent. This study aims to investigate the impact of virtual visual elements on consumers' creativity and their propensity to adopt new products and elucidate the underlying psychological mechanisms through three online experiments and a field experiment. Experiment 1 demonstrated a significant improvement in consumers' performance on a creativity task after exposure to virtual visual elements compared to real ones. Experiment 2 utilized a moderation-based approach to explore the psychological mechanism of this effect. It was found that real visual elements could also enhance consumers' creativity when a nontraditional mindset was activated. However, in the control group, only virtual visual elements positively impacted creativity. Experiment 3 extended the main effect of virtual visual elements on enhancing creativity to consumer decision-making. The results showed that virtual visual elements could significantly enhance consumers' willingness to adopt new products, and the mediating effect of a nontraditional mindset was directly measured and tested. Experiment 4 demonstrated the effect of virtual visual elements on new product adoption in a field setting and the results suggested that viewing virtual(vs. real)visual elements increased real choice of the new product. The present re- search provides important insights into visual design, creativity, and valuable marketing implications for enterprises promoting new products.

Key words: virtual visual elements, creativity, nontraditional mindset, new product adoption