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Chapter 3
Consumer Learning Starts Here: Perception
Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter, students should be able to accomplish the following objectives.
3-2 List and define phases of the consumer perception process.
3-4 Contrast the concepts of implicit and explicit memory.
3-6 Understand key differences between intentional and unintentional learning.
Lecture Example
Food safety remains a primary area of concern for consumers who are conscious of the food they
eat at home or in restaurants. Topping the list of consumer concerns is the level of mercury found
in fish and other seafood. Import alerts generated by the FDA for mercury in fish are enough to
make consumers anxious about the safety of what they consume. Consumers are believed to have
a better understanding of the food safety issue facing them, and their perception often becomes
the reality. Retailers and restaurateurs must therefore act proactively to help regain consumer
confidence that is already on a steep decline.
Lecture Outline with PowerPoint® Slides
LO 3-1: Define learning and perception and how the two are connected.
I. Defining Learning and Perception [Instructor PPT Slide 4]
Marketers cannot help create value for consumers unless they can effectively communicate the
value proposition to consumers in a way that they perceive and learn about the potential benefits.
Learning refers to a change in behavior resulting from the interaction between a person and a
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stimulus. Perception refers to a consumer’s awareness and interpretation of reality. Sometimes,
consumers set out to intentionally learn marketing-related information. Other times, consumers
learn unintentionally (or incidentally) by simply being exposed to stimuli and by forming some
kind of response to it.
A. Consumer Perception [Instructor PPT Slide 5]
Consumer researchers expend a great deal of effort trying to understand consumer perception,
because one way or another, consumer perception shapes learning and thus behavior.
Perception and reality are distinct concepts because the perceptions that consumers develop
do not always match the real world. Perception simply doesn’t always match reality.
Perception can also be ambiguous. Exhibit 3.1 illustrates this point.
B. Exposure, Attention, and Comprehension [Instructor PPT Slide 6]
During the perceptual process, consumers are exposed to stimuli, devote attention to stimuli,
and attempt to comprehend stimuli. Exposure refers to the process of bringing some stimulus
within the proximity of a consumer so that it can be sensed by one of the five human senses
(sight, smell, taste, touch, or sound). The term sensation describes a consumer’s immediate
response to this information.
Comprehension occurs when consumers attempt to derive meaning from information they
receive. Of course, marketers hope that consumers comprehend and interpret information in
the intended way, but this is not always the case.
Q: Ask students to explain the phases of exposure, attention, and comprehension that
occur when an individual is shown a particular advertisement.
©2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
LO 3-2: List and define phases of the consumer perception process.
II. Consumer Perception Process [Instructor PPT Slides 7–9]
In its most basic form, perception describes how consumers become aware of and interpret the
environment. Accordingly, one can view consumer perception as including three phases. These
phases, sensing, organizing, and reacting are shown in Exhibit 3.3.
A. Sensing
Sensing is an immediate response to stimuli that have come into contact with one of the
consumer’s five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, or sound). However, sensing alone does not
allow a consumer to make sense out of something. This leads to the second stage of the
B. Organizing [Instructor PPT Slide 10]
Cognitive organization refers to the process by which the human brain assembles the sensory
evidence into something recognizable. This is an important part of perception. Exhibit 3.3
may help visualize the process. As consumers’ brains organize perceptions, some
comprehension takes place in the form of an interpretation. This interpretation provides an
initial cognitive and affective meaning. The term cognitive refers to a mental or thinking
process.
Consumers cannot organize everything they sense so easily. When a consumer encounters a
stimulus that is difficult to categorize, the brain instinctively continues processing as a way of
reconciling inconsistencies. When even this extra effort leaves a consumer uncertain, he or
she will generally avoid the stimulus. In general, depending on the extent to which a stimulus
can be categorized, the following reactions may occur (Exhibit 3.4).
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©2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
that allow it to fit neatly in an existing category.
• Contrast occurs when a stimulus does not share enough in common with existing
categories to allow categorization.
C. Reacting
The perceptual process ends with a reaction. If an object is successfully recognized, chances
are some nearly automatic reaction takes place.
Applications to Consumer Behavior
D. Selective Perception [Instructor PPT Slide 11]
Consumers encounter thousands of stimuli each day. If all stimuli were consciously
processed, their minds would truly be overloaded. Rather than processing all stimuli,
consumers practice selective perception. Selective perception includes selective exposure,
selective attention, and selective distortion. That is, consumers are selective in what they
expose themselves to, what they attend to, and what (and how) they comprehend.
Exposure
Exposure occurs when some stimulus is brought within the proximity of a consumer so that
it can be sensed. As such, exposure represents a first and necessary step to learning.
E. Subliminal Processing [Instructor PPT Slide 12]
Subliminal processing refers to the way in which the human brain senses low-strength
stimuli, that is, stimuli that occur below the level of conscious awareness. Such stimuli have a
strength that is lower than the absolute threshold of perception, the minimum strength
needed for a consumer to perceive a stimulus. This type of “learning” is unintentional,
because the stimuli fall below the absolute threshold.
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Subliminal persuasion is behavior change induced or brought about based on subliminally
processing a message. Popular conceptions about subliminal persuasion have fueled interest in
it for many years. The belief is that communication can influence consumers through mere
exposure to subliminal stimuli. Exhibit 3.5 illustrates the way this process reportedly took
place.
Q: Ask students to give examples of advertisements they have seen that have used
anthropomorphism to sell products. How did they react to such advertisements? Ask
students to give their opinion on how effective these advertisements have been in
capturing their attention.
LO 3-3: Apply the concept of the just noticeable difference.
III. Applying the JND Concept [Instructor PPT Slides 13–15]
The concept of the absolute threshold as representing a level of strength a stimulus must have or
surpass to activate the perceptual process. A closely related concept deals with changes in the
strength of stimuli. The JND (just noticeable difference) represents how much stronger one
stimulus has to be relative to another so that someone can notice that the two are not the same.
In general, the ability to detect differences between two levels of a stimulus is affected by the
original intensity of the stimulus. This is known as Weber’s Law. The law states that as the
intensity of the initial stimulus increases, a consumer’s ability to detect differences between two
levels of the stimulus decreases. The JND has numerous implications for marketers who attempt
to provide value for consumers, including:
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noticed.
A. Just Meaningful Difference
A topic closely related to the JND is the JMD (just meaningful difference). The JMD
represents the smallest amount of change in a stimulus that would influence consumer
consumption and choice. For instance, how much of a change in price is really needed to
influence consumer behavior and learning? Retailers generally follow a rule that states than an
effective price drop need to be at least 20%.
Q: T@E Inc., a software company, released a new version of its statistical software tool
for students called Celtics 9.0. The difference between version 9.0 and 8.0 was that 9.0
included a scientific calculator function in the tools menu. A few months after the
release, the company found that there were not many takers for 9.0. Research showed
that most customers were satisfied with version 8.0. Explain this outcome using the
concept of the JND (just noticeable difference).
LO 3-4: Contrast the concepts of implicit and explicit memory.
IV. Implicit and Explicit Memory [Instructor PPT Slide 16]
When one thinks about learning, he or she thinks of people studying and paying close attention,
like when one reads a book. The knowledge one obtains from this type of experience is stored in
explicit memory, that is, memory for information one is exposed to, attends to, and applies
effort to remember. However, this is not the only kind of memory we develop. Implicit memory
represents stored information concerning stimuli one is exposed to but does not pay attention to.
Implicit memory creates preattentive effects, learning that is developed in the absence of
attention.
A. Mere Exposure Effect [Instructor PPT Slide 17]
The mere exposure effect represents another way that consumers can learn unintentionally.
The mere exposure effect is the idea that consumers will prefer stimuli they have been
previously exposed to over stimuli they have not seen before. This effect occurs even when
there is no recall of the previous stimulus. Exhibit 3.6 illustrates a classical approach to
studying the mere exposure effect.
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Familiarity
All things equal, consumers prefer the familiar to the unfamiliar. Once exposed to an
object, a consumer exhibits a preference for the familiar object over something unfamiliar.
An interesting application involves marketing of music. 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.
Note on Subliminal and Mere Exposure Effects
A subliminal message is one presented below the threshold of perception. With the mere
exposure effect, the stimulus is evident and people could pay attention to it if they wanted
to.
Mere Association [Instructor PPT Slide 17]
Sometimes, consumers’ judgments are influenced by mechanisms that have little to do
with reasoning. One effect closely related to mere exposure effect is the mere association
effect. This effect occurs when meaning transfers between two unrelated stimuli that a
consumer gets exposed to simultaneously.
Product Placements
B. Attention [Instructor PPT Slide 18]
Attention plays a key role in distinguishing implicit and explicit memory. Attention is the
purposeful allocation of cognitive capacity toward understanding some stimulus. Intentional
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learning depends on attentive consumers. However, consumers don’t pay attention only to
things they wish to. Involuntary attention is autonomic, meaning that it is beyond the
conscious control of the consumer and occurs as the result of exposure to surprising or novel
stimuli. When attention is devoted to a stimulus in this way, an orientation reflex occurs. An
orientation reflex is a natural response to a threat from the environment. In this way, the
orientation reflex represents a protective behavior.
Q: Students can be asked to give examples of advertisements that have involuntarily
caught their attention. Which aspect of the advertisement attracted their attention?
LO 3-5: Know ways to help get consumers’ attention in a crowded information
environment.
V. Enhancing Consumers’ Attention [Instructor PPT Slide 19]
Consumers face a difficult challenge in penetrating the clutter to pay attention to an intended
message. Getting a consumer’s attention directed toward specific information, voluntarily or
involuntarily, is increasingly difficult, but that’s a goal of effective marketing communication.
These factors can help create attention:
• Intensity of Stimuli: All things equal, a consumer is more likely to pay attention to stronger
stimuli than to weaker stimuli.
Q: Give students a product and ask them to come up with an advertisement (print,
television, or online) that uses some surprising stimuli to gain consumer attention.
LO 3-6: Understand key differences between intentional and unintentional learning.
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VI. The Difference between Intentional and Unintentional Learning [Instructor PPT Slide
20]
There are two types of consumer learning—intentional and unintentional learning. Both types of
learning concern what cognitive psychologists refer to as perceptual processes; however, with
unintentional learning, consumers simply sense and react (or respond) to the environment.
They do not attempt to comprehend the information presented. They are exposed to stimuli and
respond in some way. With intentional learning, consumers set out to specifically learn
information devoted to a certain subject.
A. Behaviorism and Cognitive Learning Theories [Instructor PPT Slide 21]
Psychologists generally follow one of two basic theories of learning. One theory focuses on
changes in behavior occurring as conditioned responses to stimuli, without concern for the
cognitive mechanics of the process. The other theory focuses on how changes in thought and
knowledge precipitate behavior modification. Those in the first camp follow a behaviorist
approach to learning (also referred to as the behavioral learning perspective). This approach
suggests that because the brain is a “black box,” the focus of inquiry should be on the
behavior itself.
The second theory of learning involves an information processing (or cognitive)
perspective. With this approach, the focus is on the cognitive processes associated with
comprehension, including those leading to consumer learning. The information processing
perspective considers the mind acting much like a computer. Bits of knowledge are processed
electronically to form meaning.
B. Unintentional Learning [Instructor PPT Slide 22 and 23]
Unintentional learning occurs when behavior is modified through a consumer-stimulus
interaction without cognitive effort to understand a stimulus. With this type of learning,
consumers respond to stimuli to which they are exposed without thinking about the
information. The focus is on reacting, not on cognitive processing. Unintentional learning can
be approached from two behavioral learning theory perspectives: classical conditioning and
instrumental conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning refers to a change in behavior that occurs simply through
associating some stimulus with another stimulus that naturally causes a reaction. The most
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famous classical conditioning experiment was performed by the behavioral psychologist
Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov conducted experiments using dogs, meat powder (an unconditioned
stimulus that naturally led to a salivation response), and a bell (a conditioned stimulus
that did not lead to the response before it was paired with the powder). The experiment
reveals that the bell eventually evoked the same behavior that the meat powder naturally
caused.
Instrumental Conditioning [Instructor PPT Slide 24]
Much of what people know about instrumental (or operant) conditioning comes from the
work of Skinner. With instrumental conditioning, behavior is conditioned through
reinforcement. Reinforcers are stimuli that strengthen a desired response. The reinforcers
are presented after the initial behavior occurs.
Positive reinforcers come in many forms in the consumer environment and often take the
form of some type of reward. The effects can be seen in marketing efforts that encourage
repeat purchase behavior.
Discriminative stimuli differentiate one stimulus from other stimuli because they signal
the presence of a reinforcer. These stimuli essentially signal that a type of reward will
occur if the consumer performs a specific behavior.
Shaping Behavior
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expected, they are punished. Chances are they won’t buy those same products again.
Behaviors often cease when reinforcers are no longer present. This represents the concept
of extinction.
Final Thought on Behavioral Conditioning
Conditioning effects do modify behavior and thus represent learning. These effects can be
subtly transferred. Researchers demonstrate that even casual association between morally
repugnant behavior and a product can reduce consumption. The reduction in consumption
occurred without any thought about the product, that is, it occurred unintentionally.
Q: Ask students to identify a behavior problem common in their school or university.
How can they use instrumental conditioning to correct this behavior problem?
Video material for this chapter is starting on page 19 of the IM.
End of Chapter Material
Review Questions
(*) Indicates material on prep cards.
1. Define learning.