Memory and Learning

Naveen Kashyap, PhD

Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Email: [Link]@[Link]
 Memory
● Our memory of past experiences with products is the
single most influential factor in our future responses to
marketing information about those products

● Information is organized in memory in terms of an

associative network in which each concept in
memory, a node, is connected to other concepts by
links
 Memory

● Storing episodes and scripts allows the organization

of information in memory in such a way that it can be
easily retrieved when needed in appropriate situations
 How Information Is Captured
And Stored in Memory
● When information first enters the brain, it is captured by
sensory memory, where it may register as little more than
a sensation and may last for only fractions of a second

● Transmitted from sensory memory, information is first

analyzed and assigned meaning in short-term memory

● Information rehearsed in short-term memory is transmitted

to long-term memory
 How Information Is Retained in Memory
● Retention can be defined as the amount of material
previously learned that is remembered
● How retention is influenced by incoming information
– Repetition – Repetition of information increases the
chance of retention and strengthen consumers
belief regarding incoming information

– Relevance – retention is greater when new

information fits into array of stimuli the consumer
considers important
How Information Is Retained in Memory
– Competing information – previously learned
message is forgotten when new learning occurs

– Completeness of information – Zeigarnik effect

suggests that if the message is incomplete people
will attempt to retain it for future completeness

– Time – forgetting happens as a logarithmic function

of time elapsed since the information was learned
 How Information Is Retained in Memory
How retention is influenced by the information recipient
– Consumer’s mood – positive mood enhances the
encoding of information in memory

– Consumer familiarity or experience – familiarity

effects retention as – a) familiar consumers are
more likely to remember new information and b)
familiarity improves memory organization (attribute
based vs brand based categorization)
 How Information Is Retained in Memory
How retention is influenced by the information recipient
– Consumer motivation – motivation consumers
process information at deeper levels of memory
and retain it much longer with higher accuracy than
unmotivated consumers. Motivation at exposure
influences level of retention.
– Motivated consumers engage in directed learning
rather than incidental learning which leads to higher
goal-directed learning
How Information Is Retrieved from Memory

● Retrieval cues
– Information retrieval is determined mostly by the
particular retrieval cues available at the time

● Interference from competing cues

– Marketers can inhibit the consumer’s ability to recall
information on competing brands from memory
How Information Is Retrieved from Memory
● Consumer’s state of mind
– A consumer is more likely to recall product information if
his or her mood or level of interest is similar to that of
the environment in which the information was first
learned
 Storage in Memory
● Recall of numerical coded information is better than
verbal information
● Surface-level processing refers to storing information
as is, without analyzing its meaning
● Meaning-level processing stores the meaning of the
information, not the “raw” information per se
● Consumers should be encouraged to process
advertising information meaningfully
 How Memory Can Be “Artificially” Reconstructed

● Imagination inflation: when recently generated

images become accessible in mind, people forget the
source and retain the new images, overshadowing
images from the past
● Consumer post experiences can be overshadowed by
advertising messages
● Truth effect: message repetition may cause
consumers to reconstruct memory
 Learning: Probability Theory
● Probability theory treats learning as the formation of
habits whose strength depends on reinforcement
● Brand loyalty (frequent purchasers-brand loyal)
● Brand acceptance (high volume user-difficult to win)
● Brand switching (low brand loyal-high switching)
● New product forecasting (based on new user)
Classical Conditioning
 Classical Conditioning
● Number of pairings Strength of the unconditioned stimulus
● Forward versus backward versus simultaneous
conditioning
– Forward conditioning occurs when the conditioned
stimulus is presented first, followed by the unconditioned
stimulus
– Backward conditioning occurs when the unconditioned
stimulus is presented first, followed by the conditioned
stimulus
● New versus existing products
 Operant Conditioning
● Operant or instrumental conditioning is “a process
in which the frequency of occurrence of a bit of
behavior is modified by the consequences of the
behavior”
● Operant conditioning is especially relevant to low-
involvement purchases
● Behavior is most easily modified when little thought is
necessary for adequate decision making
Rewards and Punishments
 How Rewards and Punishments
Influence Consumer Behavior
● Reward and punishment schedule
– A reinforcement schedule is a schedule of
rewards or punishments used for learning
– An intermittent reinforcement schedule rewards
or punishes at least some responses on a fairly
regular basis
– With continuous reinforcement the response
occurs frequently
 How Rewards and Punishments
Influence Consumer Behavior

● Shaping responses through rewards and punishments

– Shaping is a form of operant conditioning in which
consumers are gradually trained to produce a
desired response

● Quality and quantity of rewards and punishments

 Generalization
● The tendency to respond in similar ways to similar
stimuli is known as generalization
● An advertiser building up drive for a product must be
careful not to create a desire for just the generic
product—the desire must be for the specific brand
● To take advantage of the generalization principle, a
company’s product should be readily available
 Discrimination
● Discrimination training involves teaching a person who
instinctively responds identically to two stimuli to respond
to each differently
● Discrimination is a process through which consumers
restrict their range of responses and attach themselves to
a particular brand
● When products are generically equal and undifferentiated,
the challenge is to encourage consumers to perceive one
brand as different from the others
 Modeling

● Modeling is the process through which an individual

learns a behavior by observing the behavior of others
and the consequences of this behavior
● Characteristics of the model
● Characteristics of the modeled behavior
● Characteristics of the observers
● Characteristics of the modeled behavior consequence
 Cognitive Theory
● Cognitive theory is an alternative to behavior
analysis that emphasizes the thinking rather than the
doing aspects of learning
● Formulation of hypotheses
● Exposure
● Encoding
● Integration
 How Consumers Turn
Hypotheses into Beliefs
● Familiarity with a product or service affects consumer
learning by making the consumer less likely to be influenced
by new or conflicting information in the marketplace
● When experience is clear (low in ambiguity), the consumer
learns quickly and information in the marketplace plays only
a secondary role
● If experience is unclear (high in ambiguity), however,
information in the marketplace becomes a primary source of
influence
 The Value of Cognitive
Theory to Marketers
● Strategies for marketing top dogs
– Reinforcement
– Blocking
– Explaining

● Strategies for marketing underdogs

– Disruption
– Facilitating trial