Notes

What is the main function of cognitive process?
o to interpret, make sense of, and understand our personal experiences
o To process (or think about) these interpretations or meanings when carrying out cognitive tasks such as identifying goals, evaluating alternative courses of action and carrying out behaviours
Cognitive processing
o The amount and intensity of cognitive processing varies widely across situations, products and consumers.
o Many behaviours and purchasing decisions are made with minimal cognitive processing e.g. the habitual, mundane repetitive purchases
Additional characteristics of the cognitive system
o Activation – the process by which product knowledge is retrieved from the memory for use in interpreting and integrating information.
o It is often automatic and largely unconscious (to the extent that little or no conscious effort is involved)
o Activation can also occur with intentional recall of information
o Unconscious – 90-95% of human mental activity is unconscious. People aren’t usually aware of interpretation or integration processes
o Spreading activation – activation of one meaning concept may trigger related concepts and activate those.
o Limited capacity – people can consciously consider only a small amount of knowledge, suggesting interpretation and integration processes during consumer decision making are fairly simple e.g. consumers will consider only a few attributes of a brand when forming an attitude or intention to buy.
o Automatic processing – ability to handle complex cognitive tasks becomes easier (or more automatic) with experience, e.g. grocery shopping.
Interpretation processes
o Attention – how consumers select which information to interpret and ignore
o Comprehension – how consumers determine the subjective meanings thereby creating personal knowledge and beliefs
o Knowledge, meanings, and beliefs – often used interchangeably to refer to consumers’ subjective understanding of information produced by interpretation processes