Chapter 4 Comprehension, Memory, and Cognitive Learning

1. Chapter 4 Comprehension, Memory, and Cognitive Learning

2. Learning Outcomes • Identify the factors that influence consumer comprehension • Explain how knowledge, meaning, and value are inseparable using the multiple stores memory theory • Understand how the mental associations that consumers develop are a key to learning

3. Learning Objectives • Use the concept of associative networks to map relevant consumer knowledge • Apply the cognitive schema concept in understanding how consumers react to products, brands, and marketing agents

4. Comprehension • Refers to the interpretation or understanding that a consumer develops about some attended stimulus in order to assign meaning • Internal factors within the consumer powerfully influence the comprehension process • Comprehension includes both cognitive and affective elements • Every message sends signals

5. Factors Affecting Consumer Comprehension • Characteristics of the message • Characteristics of the message receiver • Characteristics of the environment (information processing situation)

6. Characteristics of the Message • Physical characteristics • Simplicity–complexity • Message congruity • Figure and ground • Message source

7. Message Receiver Characteristics • Intelligence/ability • Prior knowledge • Involvement • Familiarity/habituation • Expectations • Physical limits • Brain dominance

8. Environmental Characteristics • Information intensity • Framing • Prospect theory • Priming • Timing

9. Memory • It is the psychological process by which knowledge is recorded

10. Multiple Store Theory of Memory • Views the memory process as utilizing three different storage areas within the human brain

12. Mental Processes Assisting Learning • Repetition • Dual coding • Meaningful encoding • Chunking

13. Long-Term Memory • Long-term memory is a repository for all information that a person has encountered • Represents permanent information storage • Semantic coding - Means the stimuli are converted to meaning that can be expressed verbally • A memory trace is the mental path by which some thought becomes active

14. Long-Term Memory • Mental tagging helps consumers to retrieve knowledge • Rumination refers to unintentional but recurrent memory of long-ago events that are not triggered by anything in the environment • These thoughts frequently include consumption related activities

15. Elaboration • Refers to the extent to which one continues processing a message even after he/she develops an initial understanding in the comprehension stage • Personal elaboration - A person imagines himself or herself associating with a stimulus being processed • Provides the deepest comprehension and greatest chance of accurate recall

16. Associative Network • It is a network of mental pathways linking knowledge within memory

17. Declarative Knowledge • Refers to cognitive components that represent facts • Represented in an associative network when two nodes are linked by a path • Nodes - Represent concepts in the network • Paths - Show the association between nodes in the network

18. Cognitive Schemas • Schema - A type of associative network that works as a cognitive representation of a phenomenon that provides meaning to that entity • Exemplar - A concept within a schema that is the single best representative of some category • Prototype - Characteristics more associated with a concept

19. Script, Episodic Memory, and Social Schemata • Script - A schema representing an event • Episodic memory - Refers to the memory for past events, or episodes, in one’s life • Social schema - Cognitive representation that gives a specific type of person meaning • Social stereotype