Consumer Psychology: Learning and Memory

• Learning and Memory is Lecture 4 in PSYCA328F/PSYC3004AEF Consumer Psychology

Learning

• Learning is a relatively permanent change in potential for behavior caused by experience
• This experience can be direct(using the product) or indirect(observing others use it)
• Learning can be either intentional or unintentional, such as learning about a new product while casually browsing the web.
• Learned knowledge should be distinguished from instinctive knowledge, which is inherited.
• Learned knowledge is different from non-volitional behavior changes caused by biological factors, such as brain injury

Classical Conditioning

• Conditioning refers to the process of learning associations
• Learning occurs when a stimulus (anything that elicits a response) acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus
• Conditioning results learning a new stimulus-response association
• Ivan Pavlov first demonstrated conditioning through "dog experiments."
• Feeding the dog meat powder, which was an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) for it naturally caused the dog to salivate.
• Pairing the UCS meat powder with a bell, a neutral stimulus (NS) that did not naturally elicit a salivation response.
• After repeated pairings of UCS (meat) + NS (bell), the bell itself became a conditioned stimulus (CS).
• The conditioned stimulus is triggered as the dogs learned to associate the bell with the meat powder and began to salivate at the sound of the bell alone, even without the food!
• The drooling of these canine consumers over the bell sound alone was a conditioned response (CR).
• A conditioned response is considered evidence of learning
• The UCS is preferably a biologically significant stimulus, such as food, a loud sound, or sexual image, which is capable of naturally eliciting responses.
• Sexual imagery is one of the commonly used marketing techniques to condition viewers.
• First-order conditioning - a CS is linked directly with a UCS, e.g., tea (UCS) + teacup (NS) → teacup (CS) alone elicits thirst
• Higher-order conditioning - after repeated pairings with an established conditioned stimulus (CS1), a new neutral stimulus (NS) becomes a second conditioned stimulus (CS2).
• Example of higher order conditioning: Family gathering (UCS) + Christmas time (NS) → Christmas time (CS₁) alone can make you happy (CR)
• Example of higher order conditioning: Christmas (CS₁) + a drink brand (NS) → that drink brand alone (CS₂) evokes happy feelings even not during Christmas (and in the absence of family)
• Repeated exposures work by classical conditioning to make one associate a particular product/brand with a particular response
• Repetition is important to strengthen the initial stimulus-response association (learning) and prevent the memory decay of these associations.
• Advertising wear-out (habituation) can occur when the marketing stimulus no longer has the impact
• The spacing effect tells us we tend to recall printed material more effectively when the target item is repeated periodically, rather than presenting it repeatedly in a short time period.
• A combination of spaced exposures that alternate the medium used, e.g., TV commercial complemented by printed media, is the more effective repetition strategy
• Extinction happens when the effects of prior conditioning diminish and finally disappear.
• This happens when the product (CS) is not always paired with UCS
• Extinction happens when the product (CS) is overexposed so its original allure is lost
• Stimulus generalization occurs when a stimulus similar to a CS evokes a similar responses, e.g., Pavlov's dogs drool over the sound of jangling keys as well
• It's often central to branding and packaging decisions that attempt to capitalize on consumers' positive associations with an existing brand or company name, e.g.,
• Look-alike packaging - similar packaging to evoke similar consumer response (similar quality is signaled)
• Product line extensions - adding related products to an established brand
• Family branding - using a company name or positive corporate image to sell different product lines
• Stimulus discrimination occurs when a stimulus similar to a CS is not followed by a UCS, the response will decline and hence one will discriminate against that CS
• Well-established brands have been trying hard to emphasize differences and urge consumers not to buy "cheap imitations."

Operant Conditioning

• Operant conditioning (or instrumental learning) occurs as the individual learns to perform behaviors that produce rewards or avoid punishment
• Unlike the involuntary response by classical conditioning, responses by operant conditioning are made to operate on the environment to get the outcome.
• Desired behavior is learned over a rewarding shaping process
• Operant Conditioning occurs by reinforcement and punishment:
• By positive reinforcement – perform a behavior to have a rewarding outcome, e.g., increasing flying in a particular airline to earn mileage prizes (frequency marketing rewards)
• By negative reinforcement - perform a behavior to avoid a negative outcome, e.g., increasing use of deodorant to get rid of body odor
• By punishment - not to perform a behavior to avoid a negative outcome, e.g., decreasing eating unhygienic food to avoid disease
• Extinction occurs when the contingent outcome (reward or punishment) does not follow, weakening the response.
• Continuous reinforcement schedule - the reward is given every time for the contingent response to establish the link, e.g., 'thank you' (reward) after your every purchase (response)
• Intermittent (or partial) reinforcement schedule- a reward is given occasionally to maintain the behavior.
• Fixed Ratio: Reinforcement occurs after a specific number of responses, e.g., buy-five-get one free; flight class upgrade by a specific mileage.
• Variable Ratio: Reinforcement occurs after a varying set of responses, e.g. a big-win that may or may not come when playing the slot machine
• Fixed Interval: Reinforcement occurs after a specific period of time, e.g. a loyalty bonus after one-year membership
• Variable Interval: Reinforcement occurs at some unknown time interval, e.g., special offer available at some uncertain point of the year

Drive Reduction Theory

• Drive reduction theory (Hull, 1943) explains learning in the behaviorist tradition It consists of five elements
• Internal drive:
  • An urgent basic need arisen from physiological or psychological tension, deficiency, or imbalance (e.g., thirst, affection, curiosity) that impels one to action to satisfy it
• Cue stimulus:
  • An external stimulus, e.g., a soft-drink vending machine, that a person notices to direct response
• Response:
  • As elicited by drives and directed by cues that aims to reduce the drive
  • Response (e.g. to buy the drink) is what one does and learnt
• Reinforcement:
  • A positive outcome resulting from a consumption
  • e.g., satisfaction from using the product or affirmative feedback from others' approval
  • If inadequate or negative, the consumer will continue to try different purchases until the need is satisfied.
• Retention:
  • Whether or not the learned experience reaches the long-term memory and be remembered

Observational Learning

• Observational learning occurs when people watch the actions of others and note the outcomes that follow
• Learning occurs by vicarious (indirect) learning rather than direct experience.
• There are four conditions for modelling (imitation) to occur:
  • Paying attention to the model - especially those who are similar, attractive, competent and superior
  • Storing the observed events in memory
  • Converting the stored information into actions
  • Having the motivation to perform the actions
• This learning is seen in examples where we order the same delicious dish your friend is eating; take vitamin supplements as your health-conscious friends do
• Although the consequence - reinforcement or punishment – of the behavior observed can be influential, learning can also occur simply by observation regardless of the outcome (Bandura, Ross and Ross, 1963)
• In general, the degree to which a person emulates someone else also depends on that model's level of social attractiveness
• Attractiveness can come from physical appearance, expertise, or similarity to the evaluator → So, fans just emulate what their admired idol does and buys

Memory

• Memory is an active mental system that receives, stores, organizes, alters and recovers information (Baddeley, 1990).
• Most consumer decisions are dependent on memory – how we identify, perceive and evaluate products and alternatives
• Encoding stage - information is transformed and represented into the system (brain)
• Storage stage - Information goes into memory and gets integrated
• Retrieval - Starts with activation, e.g., a brand name, or when needed → Information activated (e.g., product features) is retrieved from long-term memory to short-term memory
• Encoding determines how information will be represented in memory
• Sensory meaning - physical attributes, like color or shape, e.g., a product's package
• Semantic meaning - (deeper processing) factual knowledge and symbolic associations, e.g., 'wearing leather is cool'
• Episodic memories - (deeper processing)
  • The memories of personally experienced, often significant, events associated with a particular time and place, often emotionally charged
  • As a result, a person's motivation to retain these memories will likely be strong, e.g. couples often remember the restaurant of their first date.
  • Similarly, product information told in a narrative, a story, is remembered and liked better

Memory Systems

• Memory consists of 3 separate components: sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory
• Sensory memory
  • Storing information received through different input modalities (i.e. vision, touch, smell, taste, and hearing) for a few seconds (about 0.5 secs for visual and 2 secs for auditory information)
  • Though very brief, it enables the individual to extract the most important features for further analysis, e.g., a 'red' dress caught your attention whilst sauntering in a busy shopping mall
• Short-term memory (STM)
  • Sensory information, if of interest, passes on to STM
  • Still limited capacity - processing 7+/- 2 items at a time
  • Possible to increase the STM amount by chunking, i.e., grouping information together into meaningful units of information, e.g., chunk the product attributes under a brand name
  • Lasts longer than sensory memory but still brief (less than 20 sec)
  • People recall information better if it was either presented at the beginning (primacy) or at the end (recency) (McCrary & Hunter, 1953).
  • The primacy effect occurs because the first few data have entered long-term memory after some rehearsal
  • The recency effect occurs because the last few data are still held in short-term memory at the time of recall
• Long-term memory (LTM)
  • STM may go into LTM after elaborative rehearsal – deeper processing including thinking about the meaning and its association with other data
  • LTM retains information for a long (even infinitely) period.
  • Marketing tricks, like slogans and jingles, are to help the elaborative rehearsal process for their products
  • Long-term memory (LTM) as an associative network
    • It contains many bits of related information categorized and interconnected in people's idiosyncratic way, e.g. jeans, pop music, fast-food and sunglass are connected for some people
    • New information (e.g. a brand's new promotion) is connected with old information (e.g. the established brand values or the brand's competitors) in LTM

Aiding Memory

• Enhancing salience
  • Salience refers to its prominence or level of activation in memory.
  • The distinctiveness effect (von Restorff effect)
  • Odd or unusual information, relative to its immediate context, is better remembered because it gets attention, e.g. unusual packaging improves recall
  • Other means to enhance salience:
    • Adding a surprise or humor element
    • Mystery ads, where the ad does not identify the brand until the end, are useful esp. for new brands, as they allow time for viewers to build associations between the product category and the brand
• Pictorial vs verbal cues
  • Visual stimuli are more likely to capture attention and to be recalled than words → usu. looking at pictorial info (e.g. product picture) first before reading the textual info
  • Pictures that are more meaningful and complex also encourage deeper-level processing and so better recalled
  • High-imagery words evoking images more easily are better remembered for they are able to form both verbal and visual codes in the memory, e.g. Apple
  • Picture image can complement an otherwise low-imagery word to enforce memory,
  • e.g. "We sell knowledge online.”
• Repetition and spacing
  • Repeated exposures increase chances of recall
  • Avoid automaticity when extreme familiarity can result in inattention without much processing by varying the message content; spacing the communication over a longer period of time; or using unique cues
• Encoding specificity
  • Better able to retrieve when encoding and retrieval take place in the same context or environment
  • E.g. in-store design similar to the ad context can aid recall of product information
• State-dependent retrieval
  • Better able to retrieve if our internal state (e.g. mood, arousal level) is the same at the time of recall as when the information was learned.
  • E.g. printing the same slogan or icon on the product to cue the positive mood and evaluation suggested in a TV ad
• Viewing context
  • Products are better recalled and evaluated if:
    • viewers also enjoy the program
    • the marketing message is consistent with the theme or events in the program.

Forgetting

• Memories generally decay with the passage of time
• Forgetting also occurs due to interference
  • Retroactive interference occurs when consumers forget old associations if they learn new responses to the same or similar stimuli.
  • Proactive interference occurs when prior learning interferes with new learning
    • E.g., even knowing that the supermarket's layout has changed, we may still walk towards the old shelves instead of the new ones.
  • The greater the similarity between memory traces, the greater the degree of interference → products or brand names need to be distinctive lest cueing other names to interfere

Nostalgia

• Nostalgia describes the bittersweet emotion that arises when we view the past with both sadness and longing.
• References to "the good old days" are advertisers' attempts to call up memories of youth and hope that these feelings will promote sales.
• Cherished possessions, e.g. family photos and old toys, often have mnemonic qualities that serve as a form of external memory when they prompt attempts to retrieve episodic memories.