TOPIC; CONSUMER LEARNING STARTS HERE: “PERCEPTION”

DEFINING LEARNING AND PERCEPTION

 Learning- change in behavior resulting from some interaction
between a person and a stimulus.
 Perception- consumer’s awareness and interpretation of
reality.

EXPOSURE, ATTENTION, AND COMPREHENSION

 Exposure- process of bringing some stimulus within proximity
of a consumer so that the consumer can sense it with one of
the flue human senses.
 Sensation- consumer’s immediate response to a stimulus.
 Attention- purposeful allocation of information processing
capacity toward developing an understanding of some
stimulus.
 Sensing- is an immediate response to stimulus that have come
into contact with one of the consumers.

ORGANIZATION
 Cognitive Organization- process by which the human brain
assembles sensory evidence into something recognizable.

(3) THREE REACTION OF STIMULUS

1. Assimilation- state that results when a stimulus has
characteristics such that consumers readily recognize it as
belonging to some specific categories.
2. Accommodation- state that results when a stimulus shares
some but not all of the characteristics that would lead it
to fit neatly in an existing category, and consumers must
process exception to rules about the category.
3. Contrast- state that results when a stimulus does not share
enough in common with existing categories to allow
categorization.
 Reacting- the perceptual process ends with a reaction.
 SELECTIVE PERCEPTIONS
 Selective Exposure- process of screening out certain stimuli
and purposely exposing oneself to another stimuli.
 Selective Attention- process of paying of a stimulus that
can be perceived.
 Selective Distortion- process by which consumers interpret
information in ways that ae biased by their held beliefs.
 Exposure- occurs when some stimulus is brought within the
proximity of a consumer so that it can be sensed.

SUBLIMINAL PROCESSING
 Subliminal Processing- way that the human brain deals with
very low-strength stimuli, so how that the person has no
conscious awareness.
 Absolute Household- minimum strength of a stimulus that can
be perceived.
 Subliminal Persuasion- behavior change included by
subliminal processing.

APPLYING THE JND CONCEPT

 Justice Noticeable Difference (JND): condition in which one
stimulus is sufficiently stronger than another so that
someone can actually notice that the two are not the same.
 Weber’s Law: law stating that a consumer’s ability to detect
differences between two level of stimulus de creases as the
intensity of the initial stimulus increases.

JUSTICE NOTICEABLE DIFFIRENCE (JND) HAS NUMEROUS IMPLICATIONS FOR

MARKETERS
1. Pricing- consumers do not perceive every small difference.
in price as truly different.
2. Quantity- small difference in quantity are often not
perceived as being different.
3. Quality- small improvements in quality may not have any
Impact on consumers.
4. Add-on Purchase- a small additional purchase tacked onto a
large purchase may not create the perception of increased
spending.
 JMD: Justice Meaningful Difference- smallest amount of
change in a stimulus that would influence consumer
consumption and choice.

IMPLICIIT AND EXPLICIT MEMORY

 Explicit Memory- memory that develops when a person is

exposed to, attends to, and tries to remember information.
 Implicit Memory- memory for things that a person did not try
to remember.
 Pre-attentive Effects- learning that occur without
attention.
 Mere Exposure Effect- (Represent another way that consumer
can learn unintentionally). Is the idea that consumer will
prefer stimuli they have been previously exposed to over
stimuli which they have not.
 Familiarity- all things equal, consumers prefer the familiar
to the unfamiliar. Familiarity plays a big role in
understanding the way pre-attentive processes can improve
attitudes and the mere exposure effects highlights this.

SEVERAL RELEVANT POINTS CAN BE MADE ABOUT THE MERE EXPOSURE

EFFECT:

 The Mere Exposure Effect- is created in the absence of

attention.
 Preferences Associated- with the mere exposure effect are
easy to elicit. Thus, marketers can use this effect to
improve attitudes.
 The Size of the Effect- is not very strong relative to an
effect created by a strong cohesive argument.
 Product Placements- products that have been placed
conspicuously in movies or television shows.
 Attention- is the purposeful allocation of cognitive
capacity toward understanding some stimulus.
 Involuntary Attention- attention that is beyond the
conscious control of a consumer.
 Orientation Reflex- natural reflex that occurs as a response
to something threatening.
 FACTORS THAT GET ATTENTION

 Intensity of Stimuli- all things equal, a consumer is more

likely to pay attention to stronger stimuli than to weaker
stimuli.
 Contrast- contrasting stimuli are extremely effective in
getting attention.
 Movement- with electronic billboards or electronic retail
shelf tags, marketer attempts to capture consumer attention
by the principle of movement.
 Surprising Stimuli- unexpected stimuli gain consumer
attention.
 Size of Stimuli- all else equal, larger items garner more
attention than smaller ones.
 Involvement- refers to the personal relevance a consumer
feels toward a particular product.
 COMPREHENSION- is an especially important topic for
marketers because it allows consumers to interpret messages
in the intended way.

LO6 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INTENTIONAL AND UNINTENTIONAL

LEARNING:
 Intentional Learning- process by which consumers set out to
specifically learn information devoted to a certain subject.
 Unintentional Learning- learning that occurs when behavior
is modified through a consumer stimulus interaction without
any effortful allocation of cognitive processing capacity
towards that stimulus.

BEHAVIORISM AND COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES

 Behaviorist Approach to Learning- theory of learning that
focuses on changes in behavior due to association without
great concern for the cognitive mechanics of the learning
process.
 Information Processing Perspective- approach that focuses on
changes in though and knowledge and how these precipitate
behavioral changes.

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
 Classical Conditioning- change in behavior that occurs
simply through associating some stimulus with another
stimulus that naturally causes some reaction.
 Unconditioned Stimulus- stimulus with which a behavioral
response is already associated.
 Conditioned Stimulus- object or event that does not cause
the desired response naturally but that can be conditioned
to do so by pairing with an unconditioned stimulus.
 Unconditioned Response- response that occurs naturally as a
result of exposure to an unconditioned stimulus.
 Conditioned Response- response that results from exposure to
conditioned stimulus that was originally associated with the
unconditioned stimulus.

INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING
 Instrumental Conditioning- type of learning in which a
behavioral response can be conditioned through reinforcement
either punishment or rewards associated with undesirable or
desirable behavior.
 Positive Reinforcers- come in many forms in the consumers
environment and often take the form of some type of reward.

DISCRIMINATIVE STIMULI, REINFORCEMENT, AND SHAPING

 Discriminative Stimuli- are stimuli that are differentiated

from other stimuli because they signal the presence of a
reinforcer.
 Reinforcement- occurs after the behavior has been performed.
 Shaping- process through which a desired behavior is altered
overtime in small increments.

 Punishers- represent stimuli that decrease the likelihood

that a behavior will occur again.
 Negative Reinforcement- on the other hand, refers to the
removal of bad stimuli as a way of encouraging behavior.
 Extinction- behaviors after cease when reinforcer are no
longer present.
 Final Thought on Behavioral Conditioning- represent a type
of learning because it focuses on behavioral change that
occurs through a consumer’s interaction with the
environment.