Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2016
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
Business
Advisor
David Luna
Committee Members
Lauren Block
Stephen Gould
Paul Connell
Subject Categories
Marketing
Keywords
Consumer Behavior, Memory
Abstract
It is proposed that an individual’s expectations regarding the modality by which to-be-remembered brand names will be communicated in the future can impact memory accuracy for those brand names. Specifically, we hypothesize that the likelihood of malapropistic errors (i.e., false recognition of phonetically similar brand names) increases with greater attention to phonemic codes relative to orthographic codes. Attention to these memorial representations is driven by expectations as to whether retrieval will be written or spoken. When visually presented with brand names, those expecting text-based retrieval pay relatively greater attention to the visual forms or orthographies of brand names, as this information is necessary for successful written reproduction. Individuals expecting to orally communicate brand names discount the orthographic information at encoding in favor of internally generated phonetic representations (i.e., the way the brand names sound when spoken), as the spellings of the brand names are immaterial for successful spoken reproduction. The formats by which stimuli are presented (i.e., sequentially vs. simultaneously) are shown to interact in predictable ways with modality expectancies, such that mere exposure effects are maximized only when presentation format is optimal for a specific expected modality—sequentially when spoken recall is expected and simultaneously when written recall is expected. These conditions generate relatively high-quality memorial representations, which result in relative metacognitive ease of retrieval on subsequent recognition tasks. Consequently, downstream variables including purchase likelihood and willingness-to-pay for products featuring those brand names can be impacted via this perceptual fluency.
Recommended Citation
Rubin, Daniel, "The Impact of Modality Expectancy on Memory Accuracy for Brand Names" (2016). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1280