Embodied Cognition, Sensory Marketing, and the Conceptualization of Consumers’ Judgment and Decision Processes: Introduction to the Issue

Abstract

eople experience the world and interact with it through their bodily senses. This has mental and behavioral consequences. Most notably, the representation and use of information about the world depends on the sensory modality in which it was acquired and the motor modality in which it is enacted. Recent research in psychology and consumer behavior addresses the implications of this basic aspect of being in the world under the labels of embodied cognition and sensory marketing (for consumerbehavior-oriented overviews, see Krishna [2012], Krishna and Schwarz [2014a], and the contributions in Krishna [2009] and Krishna and Schwarz [2014b]). It highlights that cognition and sensorimotor experience are intertwined, with predictable consequences for consumers' thought, feeling, judgment, and behavior.The novel phenomena documented in this area of work are difficult to reconcile with amodal models of the mind that have dominated consumer research since the 1970s' cognitive revolution in psychology. According to amodal models of information processing, all information is stored and used independent of the sensory modality in which it was acquired. This assumption is consistent with the computer metaphor that guided early information processing models (for a history, see Gardner [1987], and for an authoritative contemporary treatment, Lachman, Lachman, and Butterfield [1979]), but incompatible with accumulating evidence from behavioral and neuroscientific studies in the last two decades.The emerging body of work's profound implications for how to properly conceptualize consumer judgment and decision making, unfortunately, have often received less attention than the cuteness and surprise value of the particular effects observed. This state of affairs reflects, in part,

Effect of congruent scent diffusion on individual creative fluidity: Mental imagery instruction and iconic stimulus as possible moderators

“…These results also support, at least partially, previous results that support an influence of the senses on the cognitive capacities of individuals ( Embodied Cognition , Krishna et al, 2017). On the other hand, it should also be noted that only two senses were stimulated (sight and olfaction), but the five senses must be understood in a global way because the perception of individuals is holistic and interaction effects could be highlighted if several senses were stimulated.…”

“…The influence of sensory stimuli on the creativity of individuals is an emerging field of research, the majority of which has focused on sight to the detriment of the other senses (Zhu & Mehta, 2017). Today, however, there is a growing body of research that focuses on the sensory perception of individuals and the fact that our sensory perceptions could guide our thinking, according to the principles of embodied cognition (Krishna et al, 2017). Indeed, recent research shows that individuals' senses can sometimes change their perceptions with underlying processes that need to be better understood (Lee, 2016) and that have an impact on judgements and decision‐making (Lee & Schwartz, 2014).…”

It’s not all about function: investigating the effects of visual appeal on the evaluation of industrial products using the example of product color

“…sensory appeal and perception of product design) provides additional evidence supporting the importance of product appearance. Additionally, these findings extend the current literature on sensory product perception (Haase and Wiedmann, 2018; Krishna et al , 2017) and product design research (Candi et al , 2017; Haase et al , 2018) by combining these factors in the specific case of industrial products.…”

Aplicación de las técnicas de marketing sensorial en los establecimientos de moda: el caso de Zara y Stradivarius

“…Por otro lado, el color (Bagchi y Cheema 2013; Mehta y Zhu, 2009), la orientación de la cartelería (Romero y Biswas, 2016), la disposición del mobiliario (Jiang Et al., 2016) o el dinamismo en la ubicación y rotación de productos (Roggeveen Et al., 2015;Krishna Et al., 2017) son también factores habitualmente estudiados en las investigaciones sobre marketing visual. Rodríguez (20018) afirma que aquellos establecimientos de moda que implementan estrategias de marketing visual mejoran el reconocimiento de marca, mejorando el posicionamiento e influyendo de manera positiva en la decisión de compra.…”