Hospitality Marketing, Sales and Advertizing Day 5 5 - perception.pdf · 11. Perception, Worlds of Sensations B) Process 5 Cognitive elaboration involving the integration of sensations

S&M 5 Prof. Dr. P. Zamaros 2014 1

Hospitality Marketing, Sales and Advertizing

Day 5


DAY 5

11. Perception, Worlds of Sensations

Purpose: understand the role of perception in consumption

12. Experience, Learning and Knowledge

Purpose: account for knowledge in consumption



A) Principles

If perception refers to the way one senses and interprets the

world surrounding us, consumer perception is about sensing and

making sense of consumer products, practices and spaces. Put

in another way, sensing consumer products brings about

consumer sensation.

Consumer sensory stimuli, triggered by consumer products and

events, bring about sensory presentations: mental (i.e. cognitive)

constructs in a process, the consumer perceptual process.



A) Principles

The consumer perceptual process is

premised on a differential change in

the sensory stimuli. Such differential

involves sensory thresholds of two types

Absolute threshold: the lowest sensory input that is detected by

the various sensory receptors and necessary to bring about

sensation.

Example: the use of background music in shopping malls



A) Principles

Differential threshold: the minimum change in sensation

necessary for a person to detect it – Weber’s law stating that

difference is noticeable according to the strength of sensory

stimulus

Example: discounts are noticeable when the price change is

important relative to the initial price (i.e. Price elasticity of

demand is important)



B) Process

As a function of the geno-ideo-pheno-

typical complex the consumer perceptual

process consists in the following

integrated aspects:

1 Pre-attentive processing involves

the use of senses to monitor events on a

continuous basis (i.e. consumers are

continuously exposed to product-related

sensory stimuli)



B) Process

2 Perceptual selection involving

the voluntary or involuntary use of

one portion of the sensory stimuli for

conscious processing – focal

attention, while other sensory stimuli

remain operative (i.e. in an off-focal

condition) (i.e. consumers are

attracted by some products and

events)



B) Process

3 Perceptual organization

involving the comparison between

a perceived event and (primitive)

categorical knowledge (involving

grouping, foregrounding and

closure) (i.e. consumers compare

that which they know and that

which they experience)



B) Process

4 Cognitive interpretation

involving the use of (Kantian)

schemata and scripts to make

sense of sensations as such, or to

go beyond them – perceptual

inferences (i.e. consumers cognize

sensations)



B) Process

5 Cognitive elaboration involving the integration of sensations in

prior knowledge and the transformation of the latter in various

directions even opposite – boomerang effect (i.e. consumers learn or

re-discover a consumption experience)



B) Process

With cognitive interpretation and

elaboration, perceptual judgments

are made concerning the quality

of products by means of cues, namely

Extrinsic: price, brand name, store name, country of origin, color, and

prior experience with the product

Intrinsic: taste, texture, aroma and aesthetic qualities



A) Principle

If consumers are able to interpret

products and consumption events

it is because of the interplay

between the dynamic processes

of experiencing, learning and

knowing.



B) Experiencing

Experiencing concerns the physical, cognitive and emotional

interactions with an environment.

In particular, consumer experiences are the physical, cognitive and

emotional interactions consumers have with products and consumer

events.



B) Experiencing

Events mark and define time:

• Past: remembered consumption (rituals, telling stories,

comparing, daydreaming, memorabilia)

• Present: purchase experience (choice, payment, transport,

service, environment), consumption experience (sensing,

satiation, satisfaction, arousal, transformation)

• Future: anticipated consumption (purchases, plans,

daydreaming, fantasizing)



C) Learning

Learning is the adaptive process involving the transformation of

behaviors and knowledge through experiencing. In particular

consumer learning is about adapting to new products and consumer

events involving (after Russell):

Learning by description, constituting knowledge through consumer

stories and myths

Learning by acquaintance, constructing knowledge through a direct

experience with products



C) Learning

Consumer learning can be seen to be a function of

Consumer habits or stimulus generalization premised on the idea

that similar consumer sensory stimuli bring about similar

consumer responses (classical conditioning theory) (Pavlov)

Response or instrumental conditioning premised on the idea that

consumer behavior is shaped by social rewards and punishments

(Skinner)



C) Learning

Memory involves the re-creation of experience through knowledge

and learned elements that have been selected through

experiencing.

In particular, consumer memory is about recreating and

reconstructing consumer experiences that involves:

Sensory memory: information processed as a function of the

senses



C) Learning

Short-term memory: information processed as a function of prior

knowledge (i.e. for current use) involving the processing of images

– imagery processing, and texts – discursive processing



C) Learning

Long-term memory: information processed as a function of future

knowledge (i.e. for future use) involving recalled events

associated

• either with a sense of when they have been acquired: episodic

memory,

• or without a sense of when they have been acquired: semantic

memory (i.e. consumer knowledge)



C) Learning

Given the lapses in memory (fading, absentmindedness, blocking,

misattribution, bias, persistence) consumers are to be aided by

means of memory recalls .



D) Knowledge

Knowledge can be seen to be the

(calibrated) information used for

identifying and naming things.

In particular, consumer knowledge is

about the ability to name (i.e.

categorization) and use products for

consumer intentions.



D) Knowledge

Consumption as knowledge is a meaningful act in the sense that

as a social phenomenon it is associated with the production and

consumption of meanings i.e. of signs whose function is to stand

for something else – semiosis that involves

• The sign as that which stands for the product

• The product as that which is referred to or signified by the sign



D) Knowledge

• The interpretant as the person who encodes or decodes signs

(i.e. produces or consumes the meanings associated with the

product)



D) Knowledge

Consumption then involves the transfer of meanings in a semiotic

exchange: The transfer of meanings from culture on the products

and the transfer of meanings from the products to culture.



D) Knowledge

In this exchange, semiotic articulation refers to the use of

promotional activities to articulate (i.e. bring together) both sides of

the semiotic exchange by means of culturally-based symbolic

conventions (similes, metaphors, symbols, persona)

This is premised on the idea that such conventions are able to

summon consumers – process of interpellation (Althusser),

appellation (Goldman & Papson) or apostrophe (Arnould at al.).

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Hospitality Marketing, Sales and Advertizing Day 5 5 - perception.pdf · 11. Perception, Worlds of Sensations B) Process 5 Cognitive elaboration involving the integration of sensations