Chapter 4: Comprehension, Memory, and Cognitive Learning

dostats

Russian word that can be roughly translated as "acquiring things with great difficulty"

framing

a phenomenon in which the meaning of something influenced (perceived differently) by the information environment

golden section

a preferred ratio of objects equal to 1.62 to 1.00

nostalgia

a yearning to relive the past that can produce lingering emotions

information intensity

amount of information available for a consumer to process within a given environment

expertise

amount of knowledge that a source is perceived to have about a subject

social stereotype

another word for social schema

sensory memory

area in memory where a consumer stores things exposed to one of the five senses

ground

background in a message

expectations

beliefs about what will happen in some future situation

meaningful encoding

coding that occurs when information from long-term memory is placed on the workbench and attached to the information on the workbench in a way that the information can be recalled and used later

dual coding

coding that occurs when two different sensory traces are available to remember something

declarative knowledge

cognitive components that represent facts

priming

cognitive process in which context or environment activates concepts and frames thoughts and therefore affects both value and meaning

social schema

cognitive representation that gives a specific type of person meaning

signal theory

explains ways in which communications convey meaning beyond the explicit or obvious interpretation

elaboration

extent to which a consumer continues processing a message even after an initial understanding is achieved

message congruity

extent to which a message is internally consistent and fits surrounding information

credibility

extent to which a source is considered to be both an expert in a given area and trustworthy

trustworthiness

how honest and unbiased the sources isperceived to be

metaphor

in a consumer context, an ad claim that is not literally rue but figuratively communicates a message

haptic perception

interpretations created by the way some object feels

adaptation level

leave of a stimulus to which a consumer has become accustomed

episodic memory

memory for past events in one's past life

memory trace

mental path by which some thought becomes active

associative network

network of mental pathways linking knowledge within memory; sometimes referred to as a semantic network

figure-ground distinction

notion that each message can be separated into the focal point (figure) and the background (ground)

cognitive interference

notion that everything else that the consumer is exposed to while trying to remember something is also vying for processing capacity and thus interfering with memory and comprehension

figure

object that is intended to capture a person's attention, the focal part of any message

PMG

price matching gurantee

habituation

process by which continuous exposure to a stimulus affects the comprehension of, and response to, the stimulus

retrieval

process by which information is transferred back into workbench memory for additional processing when needed

encoding

process by which information is transferred from workbench memory to long term memory for permanent storage

personal elaboration

process by which people imagine themselves somehow associating with a stimulus that is being processed

chunking

process of grouping stimuli by meaning so that multiple stimuli can become one memory unit1

memory

psychological process by which knowledge is recorded

response generation

reconstruction of memory traces into a formed recollection of information

brain dominance

refers to the phenomenon of hemispheric lateralization. Some people tend to be either right-brain or left-brain dominant

long-term memory

repository for all information that a person has encountered

script

schema representing an event

repetition

simple mechanism in which a thought is kept alive in short-term memory by mentally repeating the thought

chuck

single memory unit

tag

small piece of coded information that helps with the retrieval of knowledge

workbench memory

storage area in the memory system where information is stored while being processed and encoded for later recall

echoic storage

storage of auditory information in sensory memory

iconic storage

storage of visual information in sensory memory and the idea that things are stored with a one-to-one representation with reality

physical characteristics

tangible elements or the parts of a message that can be sensed

social identity

the idea that one's individual identity is defined in part by the social groups to which one belongs

comprehension

the way people cognitively assign meaning to (i.e. understand) things they encounter factors affecting: 1) characteristics of the message 2) characteristics of the message receiver 3) characteristics of the environment (information processing situation)

multiple store theory of memory

theory that explains memory as utilizing three different storage areas within the human brain: sensory, workbench, and long-term

prospect theory

theory that suggests that a decision or argument can be framed in different ways and that the framing affects risk assessments consumers make

counterarguments

thoughts that contradict a message

support arguments

thoughts that further support a message

semantic coding

type of coding wherein stimuli are converted to meaning that can be expressed verbally

rumination

unintentional but recurrent memory of long-ago events that are spontaneously (not evoked by the environment) triggered

figurative language

use of expressions that send a non literal meaning

spreading activation

way cognitive activation spreads from one concept (or node) to another

construtal level

whether or not we are thinking about something using a concrete or an abstract mindset