Consumer Behavior Ch 4

Priming

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

Exemplar

A concept within a schema that is the single best representative of some category; schema for something that really exists.

Framing

A phenomenon in which the meaning of something is influenced (perceived differently) by the information environment.

Schema

A portion of an associative network that represents a specific entity and thereby provides it with meaning.

Chunking

A process of grouping stimuli by meaning so that multiple stimuli can become one memory unit.

Repetition

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

Mental tagging

A small piece of coded information that helps with the retrieval of information.

Spreading activation

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

Nostalgia

A yearning to relive the past that can produce lingering emotions.

Right vs. Left Brain

Also known as "brain dominance", this refers to the phenomenon of hemispheric lateralization. Some people tend to be either left or right side brained.

Expertise

Amount of knowledge that a source is perceived to have about a subject.

Sensory Memory

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

Figure / ground

An object that is intended to capture a person's attention, the focal part of any message / background in a message.

Rumination

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

Social stereotype

Another word for social schema

Dual Coding

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

Declarative knowledge

Cognitive components that represent facts.

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.

Message Congruity

Extent to which a message is internally consistent and fits surrounding information.

Trustworthiness

How honest and unbiased the source is perceived to be.

Episodic memory

Memory for past events in one's life.

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.

Script

Schema representing an event.

Prototype

Schema that is the best representative of some category but that is not represented by an existing entity.

Elaboration

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

Credibility

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

Adaptation level

The level of stimulus to which a consumer has become accustomed.

Cognitive Interference

The notion that everything else that the consumer is exposed to while trying to remember something is also vying for processing.

Encoding

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

Echoic Memory

The storage of auditory information in sensory memory.

Iconic Memory

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

Prospect Theory

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

Comprehension

The way people cognitively assign meaning to (i.e. understand) things they encounter

Counterarguments

Thoughts that contradict a message

Support Arguments

Thoughts that further support a message.