PSYC 495 Learning and Memory Fall 2024 PDF

Learning and Memory P SYC 4 9 5 DR. E R I N S HA N AHAN FA L L 2 0 2 4  Outline 1. Behavioural Learning 2. Cognitive Learning 3. Case Study: Self-Driving Cars 4. Practice!  Relevant Student Questions ◦ How do you build a positive reputation among consumers? ◦ What are the...

Learning and Memory P SYC 4 9 5 DR. E R I N S HA N AHAN FA L L 2 0 2 4  Outline 1. Behavioural Learning 2. Cognitive Learning 3. Case Study: Self-Driving Cars 4. Practice!  Relevant Student Questions ◦ How do you build a positive reputation among consumers? ◦ What are the steps to building a brand?  Introduction ◦ Businesses rely on consumers remembering product brand names, their attributes, how they can be used, their price compared with their competitors, and of course how the consumer feels about the brand ◦ For consumers to retain this information they need to store it in their memory, and to do this they must have gone through the process of learning about the brand Approaches to learning Learning: the activity or process of acquiring knowledge, skill, or behavioural change by studying, practising, or experiencing something ◦ Two main approaches ◦ Behavioural ◦ Cognitive Behavioural Learning Classical Conditioning ◦ Classical conditioning: a form of unintentional behavioural learning that occurs through repeated association of a previously neutral stimulus with another stimulus that naturally produces a particular response ◦ E.g., Pavlov’s Dogs Example: Sex Appeals in Advertising ◦ Sexual images serve as an unconditioned stimulus that produce a biological response ◦ The product serves as a conditioned stimulus that becomes desirable due to its pairing with these images ◦ Owning the product becomes associated with being appealing to others  Classical Conditioning and Extinction ◦ Maintaining associations learned through classical conditioning requires continued pairing of the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) and the Unconditioned Stimulus (US). ◦ If the US is removed from, over time the learned response will be removed ◦ This is known as extinction ◦ Extinction may be planned or unplanned ◦ Can you think of any cases where a brand might want certain associations to become extinct? Seasonal Flavours Rebranding/Repositioning ◦ Brands may want to change their positioning (how they are viewed in the minds of consumers) for several reasons ◦ Outdated associations ◦ Lack of differentiation from competitors ◦ Changes in consumers’ needs/wants Celebrity Endorsements ◦ The use of celebrities to endorse products is a form of classical conditioning ◦ Product becomes associated with a public figure who already elicits a positive response ◦ The “match-up” hypothesis: use of celebrities in advertisements will be most effective when there is a degree of commonality between the celebrity and the product they are endorsing  Discussion ◦ What are some examples of brands that use celebrity endorsers that match-up well? ◦ Can you think of any celebrities who don’t match the brands they are endorsing? ◦ What effect might this mis-match have on consumer’s behaviour?  Stimulus Generalization ◦ Stimulus generalization: when a stimulus similar to a conditioned stimulus elicits a similar conditioned response ◦ In other words, people respond similarly to stimuli that are alike in some way ◦ Impacts how consumers respond to: ◦ Brand extensions ◦ Private-label Products  Brand Extensions ◦ Use the same font, colour, packaging, logo etc. on the new product so that the associations that people already have with existing product generalization to the new product Can you think of other brands that have done this effectively? Or any brands that have introduced new products that don’t connect well with the existing brand?  Private-Label Products ◦ Private label brands may use colours, fonts, packages, shapes etc. on their products that are similar to those used by national brands so that positive attitudes transfer to their products  Stimulus Discrimination ◦ Passing Off: marketing a product in a way that enables it to be mistaken for another brand ◦ Laws exist in many countries to protect trademarks from misrepresentation and infringement  Operant Conditioning ◦ Operant conditioning: the changing of behaviour through consequences of actions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDZCyObMfkA  Operant Conditioning in Marketing Behaviour Consequence Response Positive Reinforcement Shopping at a retail There are many bargains Will likely return to that (positive consequence) outlet on designer brands outlet  Strengthens Response Behaviour Consequence Response Positive Reinforcement Shopping at a retail There are many bargains Will likely return to that (positive consequence) outlet on designer brands outlet Negative Reinforcement You take an Allergy symptoms Will likely buy that brand (removes a negative antihistamine because decrease of antihistamine again consequence) you have allergies  Strengthens Response Behaviour Consequence Response Positive Reinforcement Shopping at a retail There are many bargains Will likely return to that (positive consequence) outlet on designer brands outlet Negative Reinforcement You take an Allergy symptoms Will likely buy that brand (removes a negative antihistamine because decrease of antihistamine again consequence) you have allergies Punishment (negative Buy winter boots The boots let in water Less likely to buy that consequence) and aren’t warm brand of boots again  Strengthens Response Behaviour Consequence Response Positive Reinforcement Shopping at a retail There are many bargains Will likely return to that (positive consequence) outlet on designer brands outlet Negative Reinforcement You take an Allergy symptoms Will likely buy that brand (removes a negative antihistamine because decrease of antihistamine again consequence) you have allergies Punishment (negative Buy winter boots The boots let in water Less likely to buy that consequence) and aren’t warm brand of boots again Extinction (removal of You use a website that The site removes this Less likely to use the site positive consequence) offers free shipping and service again returns  Loyalty/Rewards Programs ◦ Leverage positive reinforcement to encourage repeat purchases and brand loyalty ◦ Continuous-reinforcement schedules deliver consistent quality or rewards every time the product is purchased ◦ E.g., MacDonald’s Happy Meal ◦ Fixed-ratio schedules apply reinforcement after a specific number of responses ◦ E.g., Points/Rewards cards  Reinforcement Schedules ◦ Fixed-interval schedules provide reinforcement after a specific known period of time ◦ E.g., Lush Boxing Day Sale ◦ Variable-ratio schedules provide reinforcement on an irregular basis, after an unknown (to the person behaving) number of responses ◦ E.g., Tim Horton’s Roll Up The Rim ◦ Variable-interval schedules provide reinforcement after an unspecified period of time, at some unknown but consistent rate ◦ E.g., sales leading up to Diwali Cognitive Learning  Cognitive Learning ◦ Cognitive learning is concerned with internal mental processes ◦ Based on the view that humans are broadly rational and use the information available in their environment to make decisions Information Processing ◦ The information-processing model explains how communications are received by the consumer and then interpreted, stored in the memory, and later retrieved in a logical and sequential fashion Memory ◦ Memory: a system and a process whereby information is received, sorted, organized, stored, and retrieved over time ◦ Central to understanding how consumers make decisions ◦ There are three critical steps to information’s being remembered: 1. Encoding 2. Storage 3. Retrieval  Memory Encoding and Marketing ◦ Brand messages need to be unambiguous to be understood and stored ◦ May include main benefit of product in the name ◦ E.g., Mr. Clean or Head and Shoulders ◦ May use descriptive taglines ◦ E.g., Buckley’s “It tastes awful. And it works.” ◦ May use simple pared down ads to avoid ambiguity ◦ E.g., Medication Commercials  Memory Storage ◦ Sensory Memory: Information is received in its sensory form (sight, smell, touch, taste, or hearing) ◦ Retained very briefly, no longer than the amount of time the sensation is experienced ◦ Short-Term Memory: Processes currently relevant information ◦ Can only hold small amount of information at a time (approx. 7 items) ◦ Chunking: grouping together similar or meaningful pieces of information ◦ E.g., credit card numbers  Long-Term Memory Long-term memory can be represented as a complex set of linked information that forms an associative network ◦ Nodes: concepts (place, time, brands, people etc.) that are linked together Long-Term Memory Schemas: a portion of an associative network that serves as an abstract mental representations of a specific entity ◦ Used to organize information and provide meaning Brand schemas may contain ◦ Brand assets (colour, font, slogan, logo etc.) ◦ Products offered ◦ Brand characteristics (price, category etc.) ◦ Brand associations/attributes ◦ Characteristics of typical consumer Example Brand Schema  Activity Write the first five words that come to mind when you read the following words: ◦ Grey Goose ◦ Google ◦ iTunes ◦ Canada Goose ◦ Heinz  Repetition and Learning ◦ Information can get stored in long-term memory due to repeated exposure ◦ May form the basis of brand choice, even if we haven’t considered to brand consciously prior to making a purchase ◦ Mere exposure effect: developing more favourable attitudes to a stimulus to repeated exposure ◦ Involves rote learning ◦ Iconic rote memory: learning through repetition of visuals ◦ Echoic rote memory: learning through repetition of sounds  Examples of Repetition Can you think of any disadvantages of repetition? If so, what might they be?  Retrieval of memory ◦ Retrieval: the process whereby we remember and access our stored memories ◦ We retrieve information from our memories through ◦ Recollection: reconstructing memory through a range of different narratives and bits of memory ◦ Recognition: remembering something by experiencing it again ◦ Relearning: learning something you had previously learned Case Study: Self-Driving Cars  Background ◦ The number of Canadians getting driver’s license and buying cars have both declined ◦ Most people report that they don’t like to drive with traffic and boredom during commute as key reasons ◦ Estimated to be about 150,000 car accidents each year in Canada with about 3,000 resulting in death ◦ Predicted that self-driving cars would lead to a reduction in accidents ◦ Google and Uber both predicted that self-driving vehicles would be fairly common by 2020  Currently ◦ Many vehicles have some autonomous driving technology (e.g., automatic cruise control, lane assist, park assist) ◦ Waymo (formerly Google’s Self-driving Car Project) provides an autonomous vehicle ride sharing service in a small number of US cities ◦ However, it’s not clear that mass production of fully autonomous vehicles will occur in the near future  Barriers ◦ Consumer acceptance is the biggest challenge for self-driving/autonomous vehicles to overcome ◦ For more than 100 years we have been driving ourselves around ◦ Central node of our associative network for automobiles is that we drive them ourselves ◦ Have a powerful schema for this form of transportation  Discussion ◦ What associations do you currently hold with self-driving vehicles? And how are these associations similar to or different from your schemas of traditional vehicles? ◦ What associations do you think manufacturers need to be trying to build to increase acceptance of self-driving vehicles? ◦ Based on the theories of learning we discussed how might manufacturers help consumers learn these associations? ◦ Are there certain existing brands that might be able to do this more easily than others?  Review Questions ◦ Distinguish between behavioural and cognitive approaches to learning. ◦ Describe classical conditioning and provide an example of how this is applied in marketing/advertising. ◦ Define stimulus generalization and discuss its relationship to brand extensions and private-label products. ◦ Define the mere-exposure effect and discussion the role of repetition in learning.  Review Questions ◦ Describe operant conditioning and discuss the implications of different types of reinforcement/consequences on consumer behaviour. ◦ Describe the different reinforcement schedules and provide examples of how these are utilized by brands. ◦ Describe the main stages of information processing ◦ Discuss how information about brands is stored and organized in our long-term memory. Practice Questions  Question 1 ________ conditioning is a form of unintentional behavioural learning the occurs through associating some neutral stimulus with another stimulus that naturally causes a response. A. Responsible B. Natural C. Operant D. Classical  Question 2 You try a new brand of socks that are softer and more durable than the brand you usually buy. As a result, you buy the new brand the next time you shop. This is an example of the effects of _____________ on behaviour. A. Negative Reinforcement B. Positive Reinforcement C. Punishment D. Neutral Reinforcement  Question 3 When viewers develop positive feelings and attitudes toward a brand by seeing or hearing the brand name repeatedly, they are exhibiting the __________ effect. A. Quick Exposure Effect B. Strong Exposure Effect C. Mere Exposure Effect D. Memory Exposure Effect