INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING, INFORMATION PROCESSING AND MEMORY

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Consumer Psychology (PSY - 514)

LESSON32

INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING, INFORMATION PROCESSING AND MEMORY

CHAPTER 5: INDIVIDUAL DETERMINANTS OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Understanding:

· Instrumental Conditioning

· Information processing and memory

Instrumental (Operant) Conditioning

Instrumental Conditioning theorists hold that stimulus that is linked to the most satisfactory response will be

learnt. They believe that learning occurs through a trial and error process with habits formed as a result of rewards

received for certain responses or behaviors. B.F.Skinner (a learning theorist) believed that most learning takes

place in a controlled environment in which individuals are "rewarded" for choosing an appropriate behavior.

Instrumental Conditioning at a Glance

Reinforcem

ent of Behavior

Two types of Behavior reinforcements are discriminated in Instrumental Conditioning:

Positive Reinforcement

Consists of the events that increase the likelihood of a specific response. An individual may purchase cosmetics to

achieve a desired impact in physical appearance.

Negative Reinforcement

An unpleasant or negative outcome that serves to encourage a specific behavior. An individual may purchase Life

insurance policy to avoid mishaps in the future.

2. Information Processing and Memory

Cognitive Learning Theory

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Consumer Psychology (PSY - 514)

Learning based on mental activity is called Cognitive Learning. Human beings learn through problem solving

which enables individuals to gain some control over their environment. Learning involves complex mental

processing of information.

Information Processing

Information processing relates to consumer's cognitive ability and complexity of information. Consumers process

product information related in terms of a product's attributes, brand, comparisons between brands and a

Combination of these factors.

The more experience a consumer has with a product category, the greater his/her ability to make use of product

information. Greater familiarity with product also increases cognitive ability and learning during a new purchase

decision, particularly with regards to technical information

A research study found that people exert huge cognitive efforts in processing information about products. They

sometimes experience a process induced negative effect toward alternatives. So they are more likely to choose a

product that required less effort to evaluate. The negative effect, however, did not influence product choice for a

clearly superior product

Imagery

Imagery is ability to form mental images. Individual differences in imagery may measured with the help of specific

tests. Some of these tests are:

Imagery Vividness

Processing Style

Daydream (fantasy) content and frequency

Learning by Analogy

Some consumers learn by analogy. They transfer the knowledge about products they are familiar with to new or

unfamiliar products in order to enhance their understanding.

How Consumers Store, Retain, and Retrieve Information

It is important for Cognitive Psychologists to understand how people store, retain and retrieve information.

Following concepts are used to understand the information processing:

Sensory Store

Short Term Store

Long Term Store

1. Sensory Store

All data comes to us through our five senses. Senses do not transmit whole images. Each sense receives a

fragmented piece of information and transmits it to the brain. In brain perceptions of a single instant are

synchronized and perceived as single image in a single moment of time. The image of a sensory input just lasts for

a second or two in the mind's sensory store. If it is not stored it is lost forever.

Implications for Marketers

We are constantly bombarded with stimuli from the environment and we subconsciously block a lot of

information that we don't need or cannot use. For marketers it means that although it is relatively easy to get

information into the consumer's sensory store it is difficult to make a lasting impression

Brain automatically and subconsciously tags all perceptions with a value either "positive" or "negative". This

evaluation added to the initial perception in the first micro second of cognition tends to remain unless further

information is processed. This would explain why our first impressions tend to last and why it is hazardous for a

marketer to introduce a product prematurely into the market

2. Short term Store

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Short Term Store is known as working memory. The stage of real memory in which the information is processed

and held just for a brief period of time. Information in the short term store undergoes the process of rehearsal.

Rehearsal is the silent mental repetition of the information. It is then referred to the long term store.

The transfer from short term to long term store takes about 2-10 seconds. If the information is not stored or

rehearsed it is lost in about 30 seconds or less. The amount of information that can be held in short term storage is

limited to about 4 or 5 items.

3. Long Term Store

Long-term store retains information for relatively extended periods of time. It is possible to forget something

within a few minutes after the information has reached in the long term store. It is more common for data in long

term storage to last for days, weeks, months or even years. Almost all of us can remember the name of our first

grade teacher.

Information Processing through memory Stores

Rehearsal:

The amount of information available from Short Term and Long Term Memory Storage depends upon how

much rehearsal it is given. Rehearsal is done by repeating the information or associating it with something else.

Information can also be lost because of competition for attention. If the short term store receives a great number

of inputs simultaneously from the sensory store its capacity may be reduced to only 2 or 3 pieces of information.

Encoding

Encoding is the process by which we select a word or a visual image to present a perceived object. Marketers help

consumers encode brands by using brand symbols such as role model cricketers or cartoons.

Retention

Information does not just sit in the long term memory store waiting to be retrieved. Information is constantly

organized and reorganized as new links between chunks of information are forged.

Information Overload

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Consumer Psychology (PSY - 514)

When the consumers are presented with too much information this is called Information Overload. Consumers

may encounter difficulty in encoding and storing it all. Consumers can become cognitively overloaded when they

are given too much information in a short span of time.

Activation

Information processing theorists believe that long term memory store is a network consisting of nodes (concepts)

with links between and among them. As individuals gain more knowledge about a subject they expand their

network of relationships and sometimes seek more information. This process is known as activation. Consumers'

memory for the name of a product may also be activated by relating it to the spokesperson used in its advertising.

The total package of associations brought to mind when a cue is activated is called a schema.

Retrieval

Retrieval is the process by which we recover information from the long term storage. When we are unable to

remember something with which we are familiar we are experiencing a failure of retrieval system.

Marketers maintain that consumers tend to remember the products benefits than its attributes. Advertising

messages are mot effective when they link the product's attributes with the benefits that consumers seek from the

product.

Interference Effect

The greater the number of competitive ads in a product category, the lower the recall of brand claims in a specific

advertisement. This is called interference effect. Interference effects are caused by confusions by competing ads

and make retrieval difficult. Ads can also act as retrieval cues for competitive brands. Advertising that creates a

distinct image can assist in retention and retrieval of message contents

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