the cognitive organization of product information: effects of attribute category set size on...

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY, 2(4), 329-357 Copyright © 1994, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

The Cognitive Organization of Product Information: Effects of Attribute Category Set Size on

Information Recall

Jong-Won Park Korea University

Robert S. Wyer, Jr. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This research investigates the way product information is organized in memory. Two types of organization are postulated. In the first, consumers mentally categorize each piece of information in terms of the attribute it exemplifies. In the second, they determine the favorableness of each information item independently of the attribute to which it pertains and organize these items around a more general evaluative concept of the product. Subjects in three experiments read items of information about a stereo color television with instructions either to form an overall evaluation of it or to make more specific judgments of its sound quality and picture quality. Recall data suggested that subjects with an attribute- judgment objective organized the information in memory according to the attribute to which it pertained. Subjects with an overall-evaluation objective also formed attribute-specific representations. In addition, however, they formed a more general, evaluation-based representation of the product as a whole. These findings were generally consistent with the dual representation model of impression formation proposed by Wyer and Srull (1989). We discuss implications of these results for product impression formation and judgment.

To make a product evaluation, consumers must often consider several different attributes. A stereo color television set, for example, might be evaluated in terms of both its sound quality and its picture quality. Consumers may have acquired information about these attributes f rom such sources as advertising,

Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert S. Wyer, Jr., Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, 603 East Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820.

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Consumer Reports, a salesperson, or word-of-mouth communication, and some of this information is likely to be recalled for use in making a decision at hand (e.g., Kisielius & Sternthal 1984; Lynch, Marmorstein, & Weigold, 1988). However, the likelihood of recalling any particular subset of this information depends on both the retrieval cues that are available at the time of recall (e.g., Keller, 1987, 1991) and the way the information was initially encoded and organized in memory. Our research provides some insight into the nature of these dependencies.

BACKGROUND

The role of memory in product judgments and purchasing decisions has been extensively investigated (for reviews, see Alba, Hutchinson, & Lynch, 1991; Cohen & Chakravarti, 1990; Kardes, 1994). This earlier research addressed two issues. First, what information is stored in memory as a result of encoding processes that occur at the time the information is received? Second, which subset of this information is actually retrieved at the time a decision is to be made? If an evaluative concept of the product as desirable or undesirable was formed at the time the information was presented, this concept might later be retrieved and used as a basis for judgment without considering individual product features (Lichtenstein & Srull, 1985). In many cases, however, consumers' goals at the time of retrieval are not the same as those that existed at the time information was first received. For example, although people may initially wish to form an overall evaluation of a product at the time they receive information about it, they may later be called upon to judge its specific attributes (e.g., picture quality). Alternatively, consumers may focus their attention on specific attributes of a product at the time they first acquire information about it, but may later wish to make a more general evaluation of the product. In such cases, not all of the original information is likely to be recalled and used. To this extent, the way information is organized and stored in memory could affect the likelihood of its being recalled, and, therefore, could determine the information's influence.

Some insight into the variables that influence the organization of product information in memory has been gained from previous research. These variables include the purpose for which subjects receive the information (Biehal & Chakravarti, 1982, 1983), the format in which the information is presented (Biehal & Chakravarti, 1982) and the familiarity of the product (Bettman & Park, 1980; Johnson & Russo, 1984). The effects of these variables are not always independent (Johnson & Russo, 1984). Although this previous research is provocative (for more details, see Kardes, 1986, 1994), several limitations on its generality should be noted. Subjects in this research typically received information about several different products simultaneously. Moreover, the

COGNITIVE ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCT INFORMATION 331

attribute dimensions to which the information pertains are typically quite diverse (e.g., warranty, price, ease of use, size, etc.; see Biehal & Chakravarti, 1986), and only one piece of information pertaining to any given dimension is conveyed about each product. This type of information may predispose recipi- ents to compare the products along each dimension separately, and then to compute their relative preference for the products on the basis of these comparisons. (This may be particularly true when the type of product in question is unfamiliar, and subjects have no a priori basis for evaluating the product information with reference to a previously formed general concept of what the product should be like; see Bettman & Park, 1980.)

The conditions considered in this earlier research are important. In some cases, however, consumers are either unable or unmotivated to make direct comparisons of alternative products. This may be particularly true for the viewing of television commercials, when only a single brand of product is available. Then, viewers may assess the quality of this product independently of any alternatives that may be available. Moreover, the attributes that consumers wish to consider in making some product evaluations are often not captured by a single piece of information, but must be inferred on the basis of several different pieces. For example, two attribute dimensions that are important in evaluating a stereo color television are sound quality and picture quality. However, many variables enter into an assessment of these qualities (e.g., tint, brightness, contrast, etc., in the case of picture quality), and consumers must consider several different criteria in making these assessments.

A consideration of these matters raises questions that have not been addressed in previous research. For example, when subjects are given information about a product, do they first consider its implications for each attribute to which it pertains and then, after doing so, combine their evaluations of each attribute into an overall evaluation? Or, do they assess the favorableness of each piece of information independently and base their overall evaluation on these assessments without regard to the specific attributes to which the information pertains? To answer these questions, some insight must be gained into the manner in which the information is organized in memory and, therefore, how it is likely to be retrieved and applied to subsequent judgments.

Impression Formation: Theoretical Considerations

In conceptualizing the way product information may be organized in memory, we drew upon research and theory on the cognitive bases of impressions formed in other domains (Carlston & Skowronski, 1986; Hamilton, Katz, & Leirer, 1980; Hastie, 1980; Seta & Seta, 1990; Wyer & Carlston, 1994). Of the theoretical formulations that have been developed in these domains, the most detailed and comprehensive is the model of person impression formation proposed by Wyer and Srull (1989; see also Srull & Wyer, 1989). This formula-

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tion specifies both the encoding and organizational processes that occur when information is first received and the retrieval processes that occur when information is later required for use in recall and judgment. These processes are now described briefly.

Encoding and organization. Under the conditions in which the model has usually been applied, subjects with the objective of forming an impression of a person receive descriptions of specific behaviors the person has performed. Theoretically, subjects respond to this information in two ways.

First, subjects spontaneously encode each behavior in terms of a trait concept that it exemplifies, thereby forming an association between the behavior and the concept. When several different behaviors become associated with the same trait, a trait-behavior cluster is formed. This cluster can be conceptu- alized as consisting of a central trait concept to which the behaviors are associatively linked. A number of such trait-behavior clusters might be constructed pertaining to different, sometimes contradictory attributes (e.g., kind, unkind, honest, dishonest, etc.).

Second, subjects with the objective of forming an overall impression about someone encode the behaviors evaluatively (as favorable or unfavorable) as well, and use them to extract an overall evaluative concept of the person as either likeable or dislikeable. Subsequent behaviors that are thought about in relation to this concept become associated with it, forming a more general, evaluation-based representation of the person. Furthermore, behaviors that are evaluatively inconsistent with the overall concept are often thought about in relation to other behaviors in an attempt to reconcile their occurrence and thereby become associated with these other behaviors.

There are at least two general implications of this conceptualization. First, several different representations are formed from a given set of information. Second, behaviors are often included in more than one representation (i.e., both the overall person-based representation and a trait-behavior cluster; for a summary of evidence supporting these implications, see Wyer & Srull, 1989). Consequently, the likelihood of retrieving the behavior from memory depends on which representation happens to be accessed. In this regard, representations of a person are theoretically formed only if they are relevant to processing objectives that exist at the time information about the person is received. For example, if the subjects' goal at the time they read the information is to infer the specific traits of a person rather than to form an overall impression, trait-behavior clusters would presumably be formed, but a more general, evaluation-based representation of the person would not be.

Storage and retrieval. Wyer and Srull (1986, 1989) further postulated that the various representations formed of a given referent are stored independently in memory at a single location, or bin. Representations are sent to the


bin in the order they are formed. Consequently, the most recently constructed or used representation is typically on top and, therefore, is most likely to be retrieved and used later for purposes to which it is relevant. In the conditions to which the impression formation model has typically been applied, subjects receive information with the goal of forming an overall impression of a person. Thus, the trait-behavior clusters and the overall evaluation-based representation are constructed as the relevant pieces of information are received. How- ever, because the evaluation-based representation is most directly relevant to the processing objectives that exist at the time, it is thought about more extensively than the trait-behavior clusters, and therefore, it is likely to be stored last, on top of the trait-specific representations.

When these subjects are later asked to recall the information they have received about a person, presumably, they identify the bin that pertains to this person. Then, they retrieve the first representation they find that is relevant to this objective, and they report its contents. To do this, subjects begin at the central node of the representation and progress along the pathways emanating from it to the items on which the pathways terminate. I f subjects are asked to recall information about a person in general, they are likely to retrieve and search the contents of a general, evaluation-based representation of the person (provided such a representation has been formed), because it is at the top of the bin. On the other hand, if subjects are asked to recall information pertaining to a particular attribute, they are likely to retrieve and use a relevant trait-behavior cluster that pertains specifically to the attribute in question.

These assumptions apply only when subjects receive information for the purpose of forming an overall impression of the person being described. If subjects receive information for the purpose of judging the specific traits of a person, only trait-behavior clusters are likely to be formed at the time the information is presented. That is, a more general, evaluation-based representation, which is not relevant to the subjects' processing objective, should not necessarily be constructed. Consequently, the subjects' later recall of the information is necessarily based on the more specific trait-behavior clusters, regardless of whether they are asked to recall information about a particular attribute or information about the person in general.

Application to Consumer Information Processing

The person impression formation model proposed by Wyer and Srull (1989) is unlikely to apply to many of the conditions described earlier in this article, in which consumers are called upon to make comparative judgments of products that differ in terms of their values along specific attribute dimensions. How- ever, it seems potentially quite useful in conceptualizing the representations formed of a single product when (a) more than one piece of information bears on each of several product attributes and (b) consumers are motivated either

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to evaluate each attribute independently or, alternatively, to evaluate the product as a whole. Suppose, for example, consumers receive information about a stereo color television that includes (a) three favorable items and one unfavorable item about its sound quality and (b) three favorable items and one unfavorable item about its picture quality. According to the model, consumers who wish to form an overall evaluation of the product will first encode each piece of information in terms of the attribute it exemplifies (e.g., high sound quality, poor sound quality, high picture quality, and poor picture quality), forming four attribute-item clusters. The nature of these clusters is shown metaphorically in Part A of Figure 1. In addition, consumers encode each information item evaluatively and organize it with reference to a more general evaluative concept of the product. Moreover, they may think about items that are inconsistent with the evaluative concept of the product in relation to others in order to reconcile their occurrence, establishing associative linkages between the inconsistent items and the others. Therefore, if the overall evaluative concept formed of the product is favorable, the resulting representation would resemble the model shown in Part B of Figure 1.

Note, however, that the evaluation-based representation shown in Part B of Figure 1 should only be formed when consumers receive the information for the purpose of forming an overall impression of the product being described. Suppose consumers have a more limited objective in mind, such as judging a television set's specific attributes (sound quality and picture quality). Although consumers with this objective are also likely to encode each piece of information in terms of the attribute it exemplifies (forming specific attribute-item clusters of the sort described previously), they should not form a more general representation of the product as a whole.

These considerations suggest that the types of representations that subjects form on the basis of information should depend on their processing objectives at the time the information is received. However, their recall of the information should also depend on which of the representations they have formed happens to be retrieved. The Wyer and Srull (t986, 1989) formulation assumes that all representations of a referent (in this case, the product) are stored independently of one another in a bin, with the one most recently formed and used on top. If consumers receive product information for the purpose of judging a specific attribute, only attribute-item clusters are presumably formed and stored in memory. Therefore, they must later use these clusters as bases for recalling information about the product, regardless of why they want this information. However, if consumers wish to make an overall evaluation of the product at the time they receive information about it, they should also form an evaluation-based representation of the product and store it in memory on top of the attribute-item dusters. Consequently, they should retrieve and use this evaluation-based representation when they are later asked for information


A. A t t r i bu te - i tem c lus te rs

aood sound

/ S. S+

Door sound

S. S_ P.

aood ~icture

P+ P+ P+

poor picture

B. E v a l u a t i o n - b a s e d r e p r e s e n t a t i o n

PE

p ~ S+

V P+ S. S+

FIGURE 1 Hypothetical representation of the product formed by subjects with an overall evaluative objective. These representations include (a) attribute-item clusters and (b) an evaluation-based representation that is formed from three items of information implying good sound quality (s + ), one item conveying poor sound quality (s - ), three items conveying good picture quality (p + ), and one item conveying poor picture quality (p - ). Pathways connecting elements in the representation denote associations formed as a result of thinking about the elements in relation to one another. The general concept of the product (PE) is assumed to be favorable, and the interitem associations are assumed to result from attempts to reconcile the inconsistency of the unfavorable attribute items with this concept.

about the product in general. In other words, consumers are likely to retrieve and use the attribute-item clusters as a basis for recall only if they are asked to recall information about the specific attributes to which the clusters are relevant, rather than about the product as a whole.

Assessment of Cognit ive Organizat ion

If subjects receive information describing several different attributes of a product, at least two possible criteria may be used to infer the nature of the mental representations they form. If subjects form attribute-item clusters at the time they receive the information (Part A of Figure 1) and if they later retrieve these

336 PARK AND WYER

representations to use as a basis for recalling this information, they are likely to identify and report the items contained in one representation before access- ing a second. This means that the items of information they recall should be clustered according to the attributes to which the items are relevant. If, on the other hand, subjects retrieve and use a more general, product-based representation (Part B of Figure 1) as a basis for recalling the information, the items they recall would not necessarily be clustered by attribute. Although this criterion has been applied in other research (cf. Hamil ton, 1981; Hamil ton et al., 1980), the numbers o f items representing each attribute category in our studies were too small (only one or three items in each category) for reliable clustering indices to be computed. In addition, differences in clustering can often reflect differences in the retrieval strategies that subjects use at the time of recall, rather than the manner in which the information was organized in memory at the time it was first received (Wyer & Srull, 1988).

An alternative criterion for inferring differences in cognitive organization involves the use o f category-set-size effects.' I f pieces o f information are organized in terms of a certain concept or category at the time they are received, the likelihood of later recalling any given one o f these pieces should be less when the number o f other category members presented is large than when it is small (Gordon & Wyer, 1987; Srull, 1983; Srull & Brand, 1983). 2 Thus, if subjects receive a different number o f information items pertaining to each attribute and form multiple representations of the information similar to those shown in Part A of Figure 1, they should be more likely to recall the items pertaining to poor sound and poor picture than the items pertaining to good sound and good picture. The use o f category-set-size effects as a basis for inferring betwecn-condition differences in cognitive organization avoids the methodological and interpretive problems surrounding the use o f clustering methodology (for a detailed discussion of these problems, see Wyer & Srull, 1988). Moreover, in this study, the use o f set-size effects has the additional

~These effects should be conceptually distinguished from the effects of set size on judgments, which typically refer to the increase in the extremity of judgments with the number of pieces of judgment-relevant information presented (N. H. Anderson, 1971, 1981; Fishbein & Hunter, 1964).

2Several associative interference interpretations of these set-size effects have been proposed that differ in detail depending on the particular theoretical framework within which the effects have been investigated (J. R. Anderson, 1983; Gillund & Shiffrin, 1981; Srull & Brand, 1983; Wyer & Srull, 1989). These conceptualizations have two assumptions in common. First, once an item in a category has been retrieved, the likelihood of retrieving it again in a random search of the category for additional items increases, and thus, the likelihood of identifying other items in the category correspondingly decreases. Second, the search of a category stops after a given number of failures to retrieve new items occurs. In combination, these assumptions imply that, as the number of items in a category increases, the likelihood that the search is terminated before all category items are recalled is greater, or, alternatively, the overall probability of recalling a given item decreases.


advantage of being applicable even when the number of to-be-recalled items in each category is small?

We performed three studies that examined the nature of cognitive organization of product information. In each experiment, we provided subjects with descriptions of a television set that concerned both its sound quality and its picture quality. Some of the attribute descriptions had favorable implications and others had unfavorable implications. In Experiments 1 and 2, the number of items that pertained to each attribute dimension was varied, whereas the proportion of favorable and unfavorable items was held constant. In Experi- ment 3, the number of items at each level of favorableness was varied, and the number that concerned each attribute dimension was held constant. Thus, the first two experiments tested the hypothesis that attribute information is organized according to attribute dimension but did not take into account its value along the dimension. In contrast, Experiment 3 evaluated the extent to which information is organized in terms of its polarity independently of the dimension to which it is relevant. The three studies, in combination, were, therefore, expected to demonstrate that separate attribute-item clusters were formed around concepts that embody both factors, as the Wyer and Srull (1989) model implied (see Figure 1). The specific predictions we made in each experiment are described later.

EXPERIMENT 1

Subjects in this study received information about a stereo color television set. Some subjects were told to make an overall evaluation of the product (overall- evaluation conditions). Others were told to evaluate its sound quality and its picture quality separately (attribute-judgment conditions). The total amount of information presented was the same in all conditions but the number of items pertaining to each attribute dimension varied. Specifically, each subject received three favorable and three unfavorable items of information along one attribute dimension (e.g., sound quality) but only one favorable and one unfavorable item along the other. After a short delay, subjects were first asked to recall as much information about the product as they could (free-recall instructions). Then, they were asked to consider each attribute dimension in turn and to recall items that pertained to this dimension (cued-recall instructions).

3A retrieval-based interpretation of set-size effects can not be entirely discounted. However, several ad hoc assumptions are often required (of. Wyer, Lambert, Budesheim, & Gruenfeld, 1992). Moreover, differences in set-size effects as a function of experimental manipulations that occur at the time of input (cf. Srull & Brand, 1983) are difficult to explain on the basis of output processes considered in isolation. A further evaluation of the role of retrieval processes in the present study is provided later in this article.

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Subjects who are told to judge the product along each attribute dimension separately were expected to organize the information around specific attribute concepts, without forming an overall concept of the product as a whole. In other words, they should form attribute-item clusters similar to those shown in Part A of Figure 1, but should not form a more general, product-based representation. If this is so, these subjects should use the attribute-item clusters as a basis for both free recall and cued recall, and so category-set-size effects should be evident in both cases.

Subjects who read the information for the purpose of making an overall evaluation of the product also should form attribute-item clusters. In addition, however, they should form a more general, product-based representation similar to that shown in Part B of Figure 1. If they are asked to recall information about each attribute dimension separately, they should retrieve and use the attribute-item clusters as a basis for recall, leading to category-set-size effects similar to those that occur under attribute-judgment conditions. How- ever, instructions to recall all of the information about the product without regard to attributes are likely to stimulate the retrieval and use of the representation that is most easily accessible in memory (Wyer & Srull, 1986, 1989). As noted previously, this is likely to be the general, product-based representation. To the extent this representation is used, attribute-category-set-size effects should not be apparent.

These predictions can be summarized in two hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1 (H1): When subjects are asked to recall items pertaining to each attribute category separately (cued-recall conditions), the proportion of items recalled in a given category will decrease as the number of items presented in the category increases. Moreover, this attribute-category-set-size effect will occur regardless of whether subjects initially receive the information for the purpose of making an overall product evaluation or for the purpose of judging each attribute separately.

Hypothesis 2 (H2): When subjects are asked to recall all of the information presented without regard to category (free- recall conditions), attribute-category-set-size effects will occur only when subjects first receive the information with the objective of judging each attribute separately. That is, set-size effects will not be evident when subjects' objective is to make an overall product evaluation.


In addition to evaluating these hypotheses, we considered two additional factors. First, we speculated that subjects would be more inclined to organize information in terms of the attributes to which it refers if all items pertaining to a given attribute were presented together than if they were not (Biehal & Chakravarti, 1982; Srull, 1983). Second, we thought that information might be more likely to be organized around a single concept of the product if the information was accompanied by a picture of the product, thereby producing a set to consider the product as an integrated whole, than if this visual representation was not provided. That is, a product picture may serve as a basis for organizing information items (Childers & Houston, 1984; Swarm & Miller, 1982). To examine these possibilities, the presentation format and presence of a photograph of the product were varied. In fact, neither of these factors had an appreciable impact on the organization of the information in memory, and so we will not discuss them in detail.

Method

Subjects and design. Seventy-two male and female undergraduate business administration students participated in the experiment to earn extra course credit. Twelve subjects were assigned to each combination of task objectives (overall-evaluation vs. attribute-judgment) and presentation format (blocked, mixed with picture, or mixed without picture). Half of the subjects in each condition received six items of information about the product's sound quality and two items about the product's picture quality. The remaining subjects received six items of information about the product's picture quality and two items about its sound quality. These stimuli are described later in more detail.

Stimulus materials. A color television was selected as the product to be evaluated. This choice was made because (a) television was of interest to members of the population from which the subjects were drawn, (b) the presence of at least two attribute dimensions was generally considered to be important in judging the product, and (c) several specific items of information could be generated pertaining to each attribute. The product was assigned a fictitious brand name.

A pool of 15 pieces of information about color television sets was created on the basis of magazine advertisements and articles in Consumer Reports. They included three favorable and three unfavorable sound-quality items and three favorable and three unfavorable picture-quality items. These items are listed in Table 1 along with their normative favorableness ratings. The remaining 3 items in the pool concerned other attributes and were relatively neutral

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in their evaluat ive implicat ions (e.g., "Average war ran ty per iod (six months)

is provided.") . These st imuli were used to cons t ruc t six lists o f 11 i tems each. The three

neutral i tems were c o m m o n to all lists. In three lists, the o ther eight i tems included all three favorable and all three unfavorable i tems per ta in ing to picture quali ty, bu t only one favorable and one unfavorable i tem per ta in ing to sound quali ty. (The par t icular sound-qual i ty items included var ied over the lists.) In the remaining three lists, the items included three favorable and three unfavorab le sound-qual i ty items, bu t only one favorable and one unfavorable p ic ture-qual i ty i tem (with the par t icu lar p ic ture-qual i ty items selected varying over the three lists). Thus, pooled over the six lists, each sound-qual i ty i tem and each pic ture-qual i ty i tem was represented the same p ropor t ion o f t imes when the set size was large (n = 3) as when it was small (n = 1).

Presentation format. The neutra l i tems were presented at the beginning, in the middle , and at the end o f each list. Unde r blocked-presentation conditions, all sound-qual i ty i tems were presented either before or after all picture- quali ty items. In mixed-presentation condi t ions , the items per ta in ing to the two at t r ibute d imensions were dis t r ibuted evenly th roughout the list. Final ly , ha l f o f the subjects in mixed-presenta t ion condi t ions were given a p h o t o g r a p h of the product , and the remaining subjects (as well as subjects in b locked-presen-

ta t ion condi t ions) were not.

TABLE 1 Information Items About Television Sets

Information Items Valence

Sound-quality items You can control bass and treble sounds separately to meet personal taste. 7.24 It has a much lower background-noise level than most other brands. 6.94 It has a much lower distortion in bass than most other brands. 6.41 Occasionally, you may notice some hiss sound in the high pitch. 1.82 The poor location of built-in speakers (below the screen) weakens stereo 2.24 effects. It sometimes produces exaggerated tone in the mid-range frequency. 2.65

Picture-quality items Color levels on screen are very consistent from channel to channel. 8.24 It generates more natural colors on screen than most other brands. 7.65 It produces sharp pictures on screen, thanks to a high resolution technique. 8.41 There may be a slight distortion of images at the edges after long use. 2.65 It causes too much reflection of room lighting on screen at times. 2.35 It has poor contrast in black/white spectrum compared to most other brands. 2.12

Note. The valence of each item was obtained from a pretest in which 17 subjects judged the favorableness of each item on a 9-point scale ranging from very negative (1) to very positive (9).


Procedure. Subjects were run in groups of 10 to 16. Upon arrival, they were randomly assigned to one of the six combinations of task objectives and presentation format and were given a folder containing instructions appropri- ate to their condition. In addition, they were given an information booklet containing the information items and a questionnaire booklet.

Subjects were told that (a) we were interested in evaluations consumers make of a product on the basis of information about features, (b) they would see product feature descriptions of a stereo-equipped color television set, (c) the product was among those brands currently on the market, and (d) the feature descriptions were obtained from an article in Consumer Reports. Then, subjects under overall-evaluation conditions were asked to imagine that they wanted to purchase a television set and to evaluate the overall quality of the particular set to be described. In contrast, subjects under attribute-judgment conditions were told to imagine that they wanted to select two brands: one that provided the best picture and one that provided the best sound, and thus to evaluate the TV set in terms of its picture quality and its sound quality based on the information to be conveyed. These instructions were followed by a list of the product information items in one of the three formats described earlier. Subjects were given as much time as they wanted to consider this information.

Product judgments. After reading the information, subjects under overall-evaluation conditions evaluated the overall quality of the product along a 9-point scale ranging from very bad (1) to very good (9). Subjects under attribute-judgment conditions reported evaluations of the product's sound quality and picture quality along a similar scale but did not make an overall evaluation.

Free recall. After making product judgments, subjects completed a 5-min questionnaire unrelated to the present study. Then, they were told that to understand people's decision-making processes it is sometimes useful to know what information they can remember. On this pretense, they were given a blank sheet of paper and asked to write down all of the information items they could remember in the order the items came to mind. They were told to use the original wording if possible, but if they could only recall the main idea, to write just that. Subjects were given 3 min to perform this task.

Cued recall. After completing the free-recall measure, subjects were re- minded that the information list they had seen earlier contained items pertaining to the product's sound quality as well as items pertaining to the product's picture quality. Then, they were given a second sheet of paper and asked specifically to recall information items that concerned the sound quality. Fi- nally, they were asked to recall information items pertaining specifically to the

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picture quality. In each case, subjects were urged to recall as many items as possible. They completed each task within 3 rain.

Scoring. Recalled items were scored according to a gist criterion by two independent judges. That is, items were scored as correct if they conveyed the same idea as the original item regardless of wording. Reports of attributes that were not actually mentioned, or had dramatically opposite implications as an original item, were scored as incorrect. Interjudge agreement was 95.5% for free recall and 94.8% for cued recall. Disagreements were resolved through discussion.

Results

Product judgments.. Product evaluations were analyzed under each task objective condition separately as a function of presentation format (blocked vs. mixed with and mixed without a product photograph) and stimulus composition (six sound-quality and two picture-quality items vs. six picture-quality and two sound-quality items). Neither presentation format nor stimulus composition per se had any influence on overall evaluations. Ratings of the product under overall-evaluation conditions were close to the scale midpoint (M -- 5.45). Ratings of sound quality and picture quality under attribute-judgment conditions were 5.13 and 6.06, respectively. Neither attribute judgment was significantly influenced by either presentation format or stimulus composition.

Free recall. Th6 extent to which subjects based their free recall of product information on attribute-item clusters should be indicated by the presence of category-set-size effects. These effects were expected to occur under attribute- judgment conditions, in which subjects theoretically formed only attribute- item clusters at the time they received the information, and, therefore, had only these representations available in memory at the time of recall. Subjects with an overall-evaluation objective, however, theoretically formed a more general, evaluation-based representation of the product (in which items were not organized by attribute) and used this representation as a basis for their free recall. Consequently, set-size effects were not expected in this condition.

These hypotheses were supported. Table 2 shows the proportion of attribute items recalled as a function of the set size of the category containing them and task objectives. The proportion of items recalled under attribute-judgment conditions was substantially greater when the set size was small (M = .78) than when it was large (M = .50), F(1, 35) = 27.91, p < .01. Under overall- evaluation conditions, however, this difference was negligible (.63 vs..58), F(1, 35) < 1. These conclusions are confirmed by an analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the proportions of recalled items as a function of task objectives, set size,

COGNITIVE ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCT INFORMATION

TABLE 2 Proportion of Items Recalled as a Function of Attribute Category Set Size

and Task Objectives in Experiment 1

343

Set Size

Task Objectives SmalP Large b

Free recall Overall-evaluation .63 .58 Attribute-judgment .78 .50

Cued recall Overall-evaluation .76 .57 Attribute-judgment .76 .53

an = l. bn= 3.

and presentation format. This ANOVA revealed a significant interaction of task objectives and set size, F(1, 66) = 7.35, p < .01, that was independent of presentation format. The interaction is primarily due to the relatively poor recall of items under overall-evaluation relative to attribute-judgment conditions when the set size was small. This pattern of results is consistent with our assumptions. That is, the items contained in the representation used as a basis for recall in overall-evaluation conditions are all organized around a single evaluative concept. Therefore, the effective category set size in these conditions is large regardless of the number of items pertaining to each individual attribute, and thus, the recall of the information items should be relatively low. (Processing objectives could, of course, produce baseline differences in overall recall that are independent of set size. Therefore, this interpretation should be treated with caution.)

Cued recall. The absence of set-size effects on the free recall of items under overall-evaluation conditions could indicate that subjects with an overall-evaluation objective did not categorize the items of information in terms of the attribute to which they pertained. That is, they only evaluated the items in terms of their favorableness, forming a representation similar to that shown in Part B of Figure 1, and used this representation as a basis for reporting the items later. If this had been the case, however, set-size effects should not have been evident under either cued-recall instructions or free-recall instructions. (That is, the name of an attribute category should not cue the recall of individual items unless these items were encoded in terms of this category at the time they were first encountered.) In contrast, suppose subjects with an overall- evaluation objective formed attribute-item clusters as well, but simply did not use them as bases for their free recall. Then, set-size effects should be apparent under cued-recall conditions, to which attribute-specific representations are more directly relevant. This was, in fact, the case.

344 PARK AND WYER

The proportion of items recalled under cued-recall conditions is shown in Table 2 as a function of set size and task objectives. The effect of set size is virtually identical under each task objective condition and, moreover, is similar in magnitude to the effect of set size on free recall under attribute-judgment conditions. These conclusions are confirmed by an ANOVA, which revealed only a main effect of set size, F(1, 66) = 24.53,p < .01, that was not contingent on either task objectives or presentation format, F < 1.

Summary. The results of Experiment 1 were quite consistent with expec- tations. Subjects appeared to organize the information they received about the product into attribute-item clusters under both attribute-judgment and overall-evaluation conditions. This is evidenced by the category-set-size effects on cued recall. However, subjects with an overall-evaluation objective also formed a more general concept of the product as a whole and organized the information items around this concept, as well. This representation, in which items were encoded evaluatively and were not organized according to attribute, was used as a basis for free recall, and so set-size effects were not apparent.

EXPERIMENT 2

It is important to note that subjects in Experiment 1 performed the cued-recall task after having already tried to perform the free-recall task. Although we assumed, in designing Experiment 1, that cued recall would be unaffected by free recall, it was necessary to ensure that this assumption was correct. Experi- ment 2 provided this assurance.

The design of this study and the procedures employed were identical to those used in Experiment 1, except that subjects, after reporting their judgments and performing the distraction task, were asked to recall information pertaining to each attribute dimension in turn without having first performed the free recall task. Seventy-two subjects participated in this experiment. They were distributed over conditions in the same manner as described in Experi- ment 1.

The proportion of items recalled was again analyzed as a function of task objectives, set size, and presentation format. The effect of set size was significant, F(1, 66) = 42.19, p < .01, and was not contingent on either task objectives or presentation format (F < 1). Specifically, the proportion of items recalled in a given category was greater when the number of items in the category was small (M = .80) than when it was large (M = .57), and this was true under both overall-evaluation conditions (.78 vs. .56) and at-


tribute-judgment conditions (.82 vs..59). Thus, the effects of cued recall obtained in the first experiment were not a result of asking subjects to perform free recall first.

EXPERIMENT 3

The results of Experiments 1 and 2 under overall-evaluation conditions appear consistent with Wyer and Srull's (1989) impression formation model. By themselves, however, the experiments are not sufficient to establish that the organization of information according to attribute is of the sort that the model postulates. In particular, the model assumes that four different bipolar attribute- item dusters are formed in the course of processing the initial information, one pertaining to each pole of the two attribute dimensions in question (see Figure 1). In Experiments 1 and 2, however, the number of items that exemplified each pole of a given dimension (e.g., high sound quality and poor sound quality) was the same. An alternative interpretation of the results, therefore, might be that subjects categorized the information items by attribute dimension (sound quality vs. picture quality) but did not form four separate bipolar attribute-item clusters of the sort the model postulates. Although most models of social cognition (Higgins, Bargh, & Lombardi, 1985; Smith, 1984; Wyer & Carlston, 1979; Wyer & Srull, 1986, 1989), as well as memory more generally (J. R. Anderson, 1983; Collins & Loftus, 1975; Gillund & Shiffrin, 1981), assume that cognitions are organized into discrete categories rather than along dimensions per se (for evidence, see Judd & Kulik, 1980), this possibility should not be discounted (Pratkanis & Greenwald, 1989).

To provide evidence that polarity plays a role in the construction of attribute-item clusters, we held constant the number of information items that pertained to each attribute dimension, but varied the relative number of items that exemplified the poles of these dimensions. Specifically, all subjects read four items pertaining to sound quality and four items pertaining to picture quality. In some cases, however, three items along each attribute dimension had favorable implications and one had unfavorable implications. In other cases, these proportions were reversed. Finally, under cued-recall conditions, subjects were specifically asked to recall items that exemplified each level of favorableness, rather than items pertaining to each attribute dimension per se. Because the number of items representing each bipolar attribute category varied, our conceptualization implies that set-size effects should occur under these conditions as well as the conditions investigated in Experiments 1 and 2. If, however, subjects spontaneously organized the items according to attribute dimension per se rather than bipolar attribute category, these set-size effects should not be detected.

346 PARK AND WYER

Differences in the relative numbers of favorable and unfavorable items presented in this study raised additional considerations under free-recall conditions. These considerations arise from an assumption of the Wyer and Srull (1989) model that did not come into play in Experiments 1 and 2. In the first two studies, where an equal number of favorable and unfavorable items were presented, the evaluative concept that subjects extracted under overall-evaluation conditions was relatively neutral and did not vary over treatment conditions. In the third experiment, however, where either six out of eight items were favorable or six out of eight items were unfavorable, the concept that subjects formed of the product was likely to be evaluatively polarized. According to the impression formation model, subjects who have formed a favorable or unfavorable concept of an object are likely to think more extensively about items of information that are evaluatively inconsistent with the concept in an attempt to reconcile their occurrence. In the course of doing so, they consider the inconsistent item in relation to other items, forming interitem associations (see Part B of Figure 1). As a result of these associations, the inconsistent items become more accessible in memory and, therefore, are better recalled later than items that are consistent with subjects' evaluative concept of the object. (For evidence of this effect in early person impression research, see Hastie & Kumar, 1979, and Srull, 1981; for summaries of more recent research, see Wyer & Srull, 1989).

Note that if these inconsistency-resolution processes occur under overall- impression conditions of the third study, they should produce an apparent effect of set size under free-recall conditions similar to that predicted under cued-recall conditions. The evaluative concept that subjects form of the product is presumably favorable when the majority of items are favorable and is unfavorable when the majority of items are unfavorable. This means that items that are inconsistent with this concept are theoretically contained in attribute- item clusters of small set size, whereas consistent items are contained in clusters of large size. Consequently, the former items should be recalled better regardless of whether subjects use attribute-item clusters or their more general, evaluation-based representation of the product as a basis for their recall. In other words, in contrast to Experiments 1 and 2, set-size effects should be evident in both free-recall and cued-recall conditions when subjects are asked to make an overall evaluation, albeit for quite different reasons.

These predictions can be summarized in the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3 (H3): The proportion of items recalled in a given attribute category will decrease as the number of items presented in the category increases. Moreover, this set-size effect will occur regardless of task objectives and should occur under both free-recall and cued-recall conditions.


Method

Subjects. Ninety-two undergraduate business administration students participated in the study for extra course credit. They were distributed over conditions in the same manner as described in Experiment 1. Of these, 56 participated in overall-evaluation conditions and 36 in attribute-judgment conditions. Within each condition, an equal number of subjects received each set of stimulus materials.

Se/ection of stimu/us items. Stimulus items were selected from the same pool that was used to construct materials for Experiments 1 and 2 (see Table 1). Each list of presented items included three neutral items, four items pertaining to sound quality, and four items pertaining to picture quality. In half of the lists, three sound-quality items and three picture-quality items were favorable, and the remaining item of each type was unfavorable. In the other lists, the proportions of favorable and unfavorable items were reversed. Three different versions of each type of list were constructed in a manner analogous to that employed in Experiment 1. Thus, pooled over lists, each stimulus item occurred the same proportion of times in both large category size and small category size conditions.

Presentation format. The items were presented in formats that were analogous to those described in Experiment 1. In blocked-presentation conditions, items were blocked by evaluative category and were randomly ordered with respect to attribute dimension. In mixed-presentation conditions, favorable and unfavorable items were interspersed.

Procedure. Instructions to subjects were identical to those employed in Experiment 1. However, instead of asking subjects after the free recall task to recall items pertaining to each attribute dimension, we asked them to recall all of the items that they considered to be favorable, followed by all of the items they considered to be unfavorable. That is, we cued the recall of items by favorableness rather than by attribute dimension.

Results

Product judgments. Overall product evaluations and attribute (sound quality and picture quality) judgments were each analyzed as a function of presentation formation (blocked vs. mixed with and mixed without a photograph) and stimulus composition (predominantly favorable vs. predominantly unfavorable). Not surprisingly, subjects with an overall-evaluation objective judged the product more favorably when the information items were predomi-

348 P A R K A N D WYER

nantly favorable than when they were predominantly unfavorable, (M = 6.38 vs. M = 4.00), F(1, 48) = 33.59, p < .01. Similar differences occurred under attribute-judgment conditions with respect to judgments of sound quality (M = 6.82 vs. M = 3.94), F(1, 29) = 24.55, p < .01, and picture quality (M = 6.71 vs. M = 4.22), F(1, 29) = 16.26, p < .01. In no case were these differences contingent on presentation format, F < 1.

Free recall. We expected that subjects would have greater recall of items that were in the minority with respect to favorableness and, therefore, were inconsistent with the general concept that subjects formed of the product. Under overall-evaluation conditions, this difference was expected to result from inconsistency-resolution processes of the sort postulated by Srull and Wyer (1989). Under attribute-judgment conditions, in which an overall product evaluation is theoretically not formed, it was expected to result from differences in attribute-category-set size (that is, in the number of items contained in the attribute-item clusters that were formed). Data relevant to these hypotheses are shown in Table 3, which presents the proportion of items recalled as a function of set size and task objectives. As expected, subjects recalled a greater proportion of items from small categories (M = .72) than from large ones (M = .63), F(1, 86) = 3.63,p < .06. Although this difference appears greater under overall-evaluation conditions than attribute-judgment conditions, the interaction of set size and task objectives was not reliable, F(1, 86) = 2.23, p > .10. None of these differences was contingent on presentation format, F < 1.

Cued recall. I f subjects formed only two separate attribute-item clusters, one pertaining to each attribute dimension, then the number of items in each cluster would be the same (n = 4) and no effects of category set size should occur. On the other hand, suppose subjects formed four separate clusters, one

TABLE 3 Proportion of Items Recalled as a Function of Evaluative Category Set Size and Task Objectives in Experiment 3

Set Size

Task Objectives Small a Larg eb

Free rccaU Overall-evaluation .76 .61 Attribute-judgment .67 .65

Cued recall OveraU-evaluation .75 .60 Attribute-judgment .72 .64

an = l. bn = 3.


pertaining to each pole of the two attribute dimensions, as shown in Figure 1. Then, subjects should have better recall of items exemplifying a particular pole when the number of such items presented is small (n = 1) than when it is large (n = 3). This was, in fact, the case.

The proportion of items recalled under cued-recall conditions is shown in Table 3 as a function of task objectives and evaluative category set size. Subjects recalled a greater proportion of items from small categories than from large ones (M = .74 vs. M = .62), F(1, 86) = 9.18, p < .01, and this effect was similar in magnitude regardless of task objectives, F < 1. Thus, these findings support the assumption that both subjects with an overall-evaluation objective and those with an attribute-judgment objective organized the information into separate attribute-item clusters that were each defined by a different pole of the attribute dimensions in question and that they did not simply classify the items according to attribute dimension without regard to polarity.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

As we noted earlier, the situations of concern in the present research do not capture all of the conditions in which consumers are called upon to make product evaluations of purchasing decisions. For example, the organizational processes we identified are unlikely to occur when people make comparative judgments of several products along specific attribute dimensions (Bettman & Park, 1980; Biehal & Chakravarti, 1982, 1983, 1986). Nevertheless, our conclusions apply to an important class of situations in which consumers evaluate a single product and this evaluation requires them to construe the implications of several pieces of information for a specific attribute as well as for the product as a whole. The results of Experiments 1 through 3 provide new insight into people's cognitive responses to product information under such conditions and the mental representations of the information that result from this processing. The implications of the results are most easily conveyed by considering each task objective condition in turn.

Overall-Evaluation Objectives

Subjects with the objective of making an overall evaluation of the product appeared to encode each information item in terms of the judgment-relevant attribute it exemplified (high sound quality, poor picture quality, etc.), leading to the formation of attribute-item clusters. This conclusion is supported by the consistent effects of category set size on the cued recall of information items. The fact that these effects occurred when the size varied over levels of favorableness (Experiment 3) as well as when it varied over attribute dimensions (Experiments 1 and 2) indicates that the concept defining each attribute-item

350 PARK AND WYER

cluster was based on the pole of each attribute dimension rather than simply the dimension alone.

In addition, subjects with an overall-evaluation objective encoded the information items evaluatively and organized them around a general evaluative concept of the product. Later, instructions to recall all of the information presented about the product stimulated subjects to retrieve this product-based representation, rather than more specific attribute-item clusters. Therefore, when the concept of the product was relatively neutral, as in Experiment 1, no differences in free recall occurred as a function of set size. When the central concept was evaluatively polarized, however, as in Experiment 3, subjects thought more extensively about items that were inconsistent with this concept in relation to other items in the representation, forming associations between the inconsistent item and the others. Because of this cognitive activity and the interitem associations that resulted from it, the inconsistent items became more easily identified than consistent ones (Srull & Wyer, 1989) and, therefore, had a recall advantage.

Attribute-Judgment Objectives

Subjects with the objective of evaluating specific product attributes appeared to encode and organize the information in terms of the poles of the judgment-relevant attribute dimensions that it exemplified, forming attribute- item clusters. Unlike subjects with an overall evaluation objective, however, they did not form an additional, evaluation-based representation of the product as a whole. Therefore, both their cued recall of the information pertaining to specific attributes and their free recall of the information were based on the attribute-item clusters, and thus, set-size effects were apparent in both cases.

In evaluating this conclusion, it should be noted that the effect of category set size on subjects' free recall under the attribute-judgment conditions of Experiment 3 was very small (see Table 3). If subjects under these conditions only formed attribute-item clusters at the time the information was presented and based their later recall on these clusters, category-set-size effects should have been more apparent. Considered in isolation, the negligible effect of set size in these conditions might suggest that subjects organized the attribute items according to dimensions alone (i.e., picture quality vs. sound quality) and did not consider valence. I f this were true, however, no set size effects should occur under cued-recall conditions either. In fact, these effects were quite apparent (see Table 3). Because the overall effect of set size was reliable in free-recall conditions and was not significantly less under attribute-judgment than under overall-evaluation instructions, we are inclined to treat the effect as real, albeit low in magnitude. Nevertheless, some caution should be taken in accepting this conclusion pending replication.


Alternative Interpretations

With the possible exception of the anomaly just noted, the results of the research reported in this paper are quite consistent with the model of impression formation proposed by Wyer and Srull (1989; Srull & Wyer, 1989) and, therefore, suggest that the model is applicable to impressions formed of products as well as persons. In addition, they support two assumptions of the general model that had not previously been firmly established. First, they provide direct evidence that separate attribute-based and evaluation-based representations are formed simultaneously. Although the coexistence of these separate representations is implied by previous research (Gordon & Wyer, 1987; Wyer & Gordon, 1982; Wyer & Unverzagt, 1985), it had not previously been demonstrated in a single study. Second, Experiments 1 and 3, considered in combination, provide the first direct evidence that items are organized around concepts defined by each pole of an attribute dimension, rather than simply being organized according to dimension, independently of polarity.

Alternative interpretations of the results should, nevertheless, be considered. For example, one might speculate that people with an overall-evaluation objective form a single hierarchical representation of the product that consists of a central evaluative concept of the product as a whole, with which attribute- specific concepts are associatively linked. Individual items of information might then be linked to these lower order concepts. I f this sort of representation were formed, however, it should be used as a basis for retrieving and reporting information under both flee-recall and cued-recall conditions. In other words, the set-size effects that occurred in the cued-recall conditions of Experiment 1 should be evident under flee-recall conditions as well. This was not the case. Consequently, a single-representation conceptualization appears untenable. (Additional evidence that this conceptualization is not viable has been obtained in person memory research; see Wyer & Gordon, 1982; Wyer & Unverzagt, 1985.) 4

A second possibility is that subjects with an overall-impression objective organized the information around an evaluative concept of the product as a whole without forming at tr ibute-i tem clusters at all. Thus, when they were

"A hierarchical model of the sort described here might be somewhat more tenable if one assumes that the strength of the association between the concepts that denote attribute-item clusters and the central evaluation concepts increases with the number of items contained in these clusters. Then, although the accessibility of the individual items contained in each cluster might decrease as set size increases, the accessibility of the cluster as a whole might increase with set size. These effects could offset one another under free-recall conditions, producing the null effect of set size that we observed in Experiment 1. Although this interpretation is plausible considered in isolation, it would also imply the absence of a set-size effect under free-recall conditions of Experiment 3. (If items are organized into attribute-item clusters, inconsistency resolution of the type that produces the differential recall of items under these conditions should not occur.)

352 PARK AND WYER

asked to recall the items under free-recall instructions, they retrieved this representation and reported the items contained in it. When they were asked to recall items pertaining to each attribute separately, however, the attribute concept cued the recall of the items that exemplified it, even though the items had not been organized around the concept at the time they were first learned. Although this possibility cannot be entirely discounted, it seems problematic for several reasons. For one thing, in order for a concept to serve as an effective retrieval cue for a stimulus item, the item must have been encoded in terms of this concept at the time it was first presented (for an elaboration of this reasoning, see Winter & Uleman, 1984). Thus, unless subjects spontaneously encoded the items in terms of attribute concepts at the time they first encountered the items, providing these concepts as retrieval cues at the time of recall should have little effect. Thus, this interpretation also seems questionable? '6

Further research is nevertheless desirable to confirm the conclusions we have drawn. In this regard, the criteria that we used in this study to infer the organization of information in memory were, of course, limited. In future research, in which a larger amount of information is conveyed about each product attribute, additional criteria might be applied to confirm the conclusions we have drawn. These criteria might involve a protocol analysis of subjects' thoughts about the product (Bettman & Park, 1980), a clustering analyses of free-recall data (e.g., Hamilton et al., 1980), part-list cuing procedures (Rundus, 1973), and the analyses of conditional recall probabilities and interitem response time (Srull, Lichtenstein, & Rothbart, 1985).

One further consideration is worth noting in evaluating the implications of our interpretation, however. The Wyer and Srull (1989) model assumes that subjects' better recall of information items that are evaluatively inconsistent with their general concepts of a stimulus object results from attempts to reconcile these inconsistencies by thinking about the inconsistent items in

5R. C. Anderson and Pichert (1978) reported evidence that providing a retrieval cue at the time of recall increased subjects' mention of items that had not been encoded in terms of cue-relevant concepts at the time of learning. However, their results were likely an artifact of conscious efforts by subjects to selectively report items in which the experimenter was ostensibly interested. Wyer, Srull, Gordon, and Hartwick (1982) showed that when explicit demands to use the information-relevant concepts as retrieval cues were eliminated, the salience of these concepts at the time of recall did not increase memory for concept-relevant items over and above the effects that resulted from the salience of the concepts at the time of learning.

'It is conceivable that, although subjects encoded items in terms of attribute concepts at the time they first encountered them, they nevertheless did not organize them in terms of these concepts. Rather, they formed separate attribute-item pairs that were stored independently of one another in memory. Klein and Loftus (1990) found some evidence supporting this possibility in person impression research. However, other results in this domain are very difficult to explain on the basis of this assumption (e.g., Gordon & Wyer, 1987). Moreover, to the extent attribute- item pairs were stored separately in memory, it is unclear why the effect of using attribute concepts as retrieval cues should depend on set size (but see Gillund & Shiffrin, 1981).


relation to others. This assumption is quite plausible in the case of person impression formation, where individuals' behaviors are assumed to be interde- pendent and to result from more general characteristics of the individuals' personalities. Product features, however, are more independent. Thus, information that a stereo color television has separate base and treble sound con- trois does not help to understand why its speakers are poorly located. It is conceivable that the more extensive processing that underlies the better recall of items that are inconsistent with one's general evaluation of a product does not result from an attempt to reconcile the inconsistencies per se. Perhaps subjects who encounter an item that is inconsistent with their initial impression of the product think about the item more carefully in order to decide if it is sufficiently important to justify a change in their overall evaluation of the product's quality. This more extensive processing, which may or may not involve a consideration of the items in relation to other product features, might be sufficient to give the item a recall advantage later (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Wyer & Hartwick, 1980). In this regard, it is worth noting that the time subjects were given to consider each item in the present studies was not con- trolled. Perhaps if subjects are forced to spend equal amounts of time thinking about each item, differences in the amount of processing given to consistent and inconsistent items and, therefore, differences in the recall of these items, would be eliminated.

Judgment Processes

If the impression formation model considered in this article is applicable for describing the processes of product evaluation that occur under conditions similar to those we have investigated, it may have implications for judgment processes as well. According to the model, subjects who are asked to make a judgment search for a representation whose central concept bears directly on this judgment. If they succeed in identifying such a concept, they use it as a basis for their judgment without considering other criteria. This means that subjects typically base their evaluation of a product as a whole on the general concept that defines their evaluation-based representation but base their judgments of specific attributes on the concepts that define more circumscribed, attribute-based representations. As a result, subjects' overall product evaluations can sometimes appear inconsistent with their judgments of specific product attributes. Moreover, their evaluations may not be strongly related to either the amount of information they initially received or the amount of judgment-relevant information they can recall when explicitly asked to do so. These conclusions converge with those drawn by Lichtenstein and Srull (1985).

This fact does not necessarily diminish the importance of understanding the content and structure of the cognitive representations that are formed of a product. In some situations, the information one can recall about a product is

354 P A R K A N D W Y E R

of considerable importance. This is particularly true when consumers make judgments after they have had occasion to recall the information they have received. Once information is recalled about an object, it becomes more accessible in memory (Wyer & Srull, 1989). As a result, this information is more likely to be used in later judgments (Carlston & Skowronski, 1986). Also, consumers might recall and use specific attribute-relevant information if they perceive their product decision to be important (Sanbonmatsu & Fazio, 1990). Consequently, variables that affect the content and structure of the representations that people form of a product and, therefore, influence their likelihood of recalling different aspects of the information, can sometimes have an important influence on the product evaluations that they make subsequently. This possibility warrants further investigation.

One final aspect of our findings is worth noting. We speculated that both the order in which information was presented and the availability of a picture of the product might affect the organization of the information in memory and, therefore, the likelihood of recalling it. This was not the case. The likelihood of organizing the information by either attribute or evaluative category did not depend on either of these variables. Subjects apparently constructed representations of the product online, adding features as they encountered them in the presentation sequence, and the representations that ultimately resulted were very similar regardless of the order in which the information was received or the presence or absence of a product picture. Perhaps the relatively small amount of information conveyed (only one item in the small set-size category) was insufficient to permit the effects of these variables to be detected. It is also conceivable that sound and picture are such salient attributes in evaluating stereo color television products that neither the presentation order nor the picture manipulation could change subjects' inclination to use them as bases for organizing information. If this is so, presentation format might have a more noticeable impact on cognitive organization when the target product is unfamiliar and the importance of its attributes is not immediately apparent. (For evidence that order of presentation has an important influence on the organization of product information in other research paradigms, see Biehal & Chakravarti, 1982). Answers to these questions must await further research.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

These experiments were conducted while Jong-Won Park was a doctoral stu- dent at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This research was partially supported by funds from the Department of Business Administration, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

We thank members of the University of Illinois Social Cognition Group and colleagues at the University of British Columbia for their valuable suggestions


concerning the theoretical basis for the study and the interpretation of the results. Thanks are extended to Barbara Bickart and Manoj Hastak for their comments on earlier versions of this article.

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