No abstract

Studies have revealed that consumers are susceptible to price framing effect, a common cognitive bias, due to their limited capacity in processing information. The effect of price framing in a bundling context and its neural correlates, however, remain not clearly characterized. The present study applied the event-related potentials (ERPs) approach to investigate the role of price framing in information processing and purchase decision making in a bundling context. Three price frames were created with practically identical total prices (with a maximum difference of ¥0.1, which was about equal to 0.016 US dollars) for a bundle with two components, a focal product and a tie-in product. In normal price condition (NP), both the focal and tie-in products were offered at a normal discounted price; in zero price condition (ZP), the tie-in product was offered free while the total price of the bundle remained the same as NP; whereas in low price condition (LP), the tie-in product was offered at a low token price (¥0.1), and the focal product shared the same price as the focal product of ZP. The behavioral results showed a higher purchase rate and a shorter reaction time for ZP in contrast to NP. Neurophysiologically, enlarged LPP amplitude was elicited by ZP relative to NP, suggesting that ZP triggered a stronger positive affect that could motivate decision to buy. Thus, this study provides both behavioral and neural evidence for how different price framing information is processed and ultimately gives rise to price framing effect in purchase decision making.

Deceptive behavior is common in human social interactions. Researchers have been trying to uncover the cognitive process and neural basis underlying deception due to its theoretical and practical significance. We used Event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neural correlates of deception when the participants completed a hazard judgment task. Pictures conveying or not conveying hazard information were presented to the participants who were then requested to discriminate the hazard content (safe or hazardous) and make a response corresponding to the cues (truthful or deceptive). Behavioral and electrophysiological data were recorded during the entire experiment. Results showed that deceptive responses, compared to truthful responses, were associated with longer reaction time (RT), lower accuracy, increased N2 and reduced late positive potential (LPP), suggesting a cognitively more demanding process to respond deceptively. The decrement in LPP correlated negatively with the increment in RT for deceptive relative to truthful responses, regardless of hazard content. In addition, hazardous information evoked larger N1 and P300 than safe information, reflecting an early processing bias and a later evaluative categorization process based on motivational significance, respectively. Finally, the interaction between honesty (truthful/deceptive) and safety (safe/hazardous) on accuracy and LPP indicated that deceptive responses towards safe information required more effort than deceptive responses towards hazardous information. Overall, these results demonstrate the neurocognitive substrates underlying deception about hazard information.

Negative feedback has been widely reported to be a demotivator that could frustrate the recipient’s need for competence and erode his intrinsic motivation in the same activity. Nevertheless, little attention has been devoted to the intertemporal effect of negative feedback on one’s intrinsic motivation in another activity. To fill this gap, we arranged participants in a game with two sessions and manipulated the content of feedback as a between-subject factor. In session 1, participants had to complete a time estimation task with moderate difficulty, during which half of the participants received normal performance feedback and the other half received negative performance feedback. In session 2, all participants were guided to accomplish a moderately difficult stopwatch task that was competence-supportive. A more pronounced win-loss difference wave of reward positivity (RewP) was detected in the experimental (negative performance feedback) group compared to the control (normal performance feedback) group during session 2. This finding indicates that negative feedback in an activity may have a positive impact on one’s intrinsic motivation in a following competence-supportive activity.