This research finds that merely touching an object results in an increase in per-ceived ownership of that object. For nonowners, or buyers, perceived ownership can be increased with either mere touch or with imagery encouraging touch. Per-ceived ownership can also be increased through touch for legal owners, or sellers of an object. We also explore valuation of an object and conclude that it is jointly influenced by both perceived ownership and by the valence of the touch experience. We discuss the implications of this research for online and traditional retailers as well as for touch research and endowment effect research. Captain Jean-Luc Picard: It’s a boyhood fan-tasy.... I must have seen this ship hundreds of times in the Smithsonian but I was never able to touch it. Lieutenant Commander Data: Sir, does tactile contact alter your perception?

We propose that advertisement (ad) content for food products can affect taste perception by affecting sensory cognitions. Specifically, we show that multisensory ads result in higher taste perceptions than ads focusing on taste alone, with this result being mediated by the excess of positive over negative sensory thoughts. Since the ad effect is thoughts-driven or cognitive, restricting cognitive resources (imposing cognitive load) attenuates the enhancing effect of the multiple-sense ad. Our results are exhibited across three experiments and have many implications for cognition and sensory perception research within consumer behavior, as well as several practical implications. Food advertising is big business. Kraft Foods spent $1.5billion in 2007 on advertising in the United States alone, whereas PepsiCo spent $1.31 billion and McDonalds spent $1.14 billion (Advertising Age Data Center 2008). The fi-nancial importance of this domain raises the question, how should one advertise for food? A quick glance at current ads shows the obvious: mention the taste of the food. This is expected since the ad is for food after all. The less obvious and consequently seldom used solution is to bring attention to the unique multisensory aspects of taste perception. In this research, we suggest how and why multisensory ad-vertising for food ads can enhance taste perceptions. In this article we explore whether other senses are so phys-iologically closely tied to taste that mentioning them will make no difference and whether an ad in general can have an impact on taste perceptions. By exploring if the ad can affect taste itself, we test an additional possible effect of the ad. While food advertising is typically used to spark interest in the food or an intention to buy it, it is not usually used for affecting taste perception. Further, if the ad does affect taste, then we are also suggesting that taste is affected by cognition and is not automatically incorporated into percep-tions. Besides looking at the effect of ads on taste perception, *Ryan S. Elder

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In a period where multiple studies focused in questioning the consumer about the best packaging profiles in order to optimize sales in the marketplace, this paper proposes to investigate the effect of texture in a packaging in the perception of the product taste. Mc Neal and Ji (2003) highlighted the influence of packaging in persuading the consumer, both in the store and during consumption. In fact, the first contact between the consumer and a product in a purchase situation is the visual and the tactile contact. The present work is focused on the consumer’s perceptions of taste when confronted with a textured packaging congruent with the product nature. Blind experiments were performed, where the participants tasted a tutti-frutti juice while they touched a citrus-textured bottle or a non-textured (smooth) bottle. The results point that the haptic perception of a packaging texture has an influence in the perception of flavor of the packed product. This opens up various questions about this effect. The experiments reported herein cover a convenient sample of sixty people (30 women, average age 27). The methodology used is based on a blind test experiment between

Abstract. What impact do visual and auditory sensory cues as in-store innovations exert on shopper’s approach and touch behaviour at point-of-purchase in a retail setting? The presented research depicts shopper’s behavioral response in relation to the influence of sensory cues for an appealing and attracting store atmosphere and design. The author presents a review of theoretically relevant work and a field study through experimental and observational methods in examining the impact of visual and auditory sensory cues as in-store innovations in a retail setting. In the reported study, the author finds significant behavioral impact of introducing visual and auditory sensory cues on shopper’s approach and touch behaviour. The findings offer guidelines for retail managers in applying sensory cues as retailing innovations in relation to the human senses in creating successful sensory experiences at point-of-purchase.

This article builds a conceptualization for the crossmodal effect of attention on preferences, predicting when and why an irrelevant auditory signal will facilitate or impair preferences for visually processed target products located in the direction of the signal. Extending perspectives on crossmodal attention, this conceptualization posits that the functional tendency to pay visual attention toward an auditory signal will translate to a facilitation effect on preferences. However, given a goal of signal avoidance, crossmodal functionality dictates a lowering of visual attention toward the signal, impairing preferences for targets in that direction. Finally, a twostage model of involuntary and voluntary attention is invoked to reconcile opposing predictions: an aversive noise is held to produce initial facilitation because of an involuntary appraisal mechanism, before a more deliberative attention-allocation process produces impairment. Results from five experiments support these predictions, contributing to the literature on crossmodal information processing and also that on preference formation. Suppose that you are standing in a supermarket aisle,

Malefyt (2014) has opened up a large field of study by highlighting the importance of examining sensory perception in the ritualistic use of products and brands. This area of study has thus far not been explored by psychologists―cognitive and consumer―or by anthropologists. In order to understand why this is an important contribution, I will focus first on what these different fields do. Cognitive and consumer psychologists both focus on mental processes such as thinking, perceiving, remembering, and learning. However, consumer psychologists further focus on the aspects of thinking, perceiving, remembering, and learning as they pertain to the consumer context―situations such as purchasing and consuming. The consumer psychologist may also use marketing stimuli (such as brands and advertisements) to study the basic concepts of thinking, perceiving, remembering, and learning. Whereas cognitive psychologists typically make their home in psychology departments, consumer psychologists are housed in marketing departments of business schools. The differences highlighted here between cognitive and consumer psychologists also apply in a somewhat similar manner to social/cultural anthropologists versus consumer anthropologists.

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In three eye-tracking experiments we find that pleasant scents increase visual attention to ad elements only when they are semantically congruent with the items in the ad. Further, the effect is greater when the items in the ad are more sensorially concrete (vs. abstract).

Device notifications are often administered with vibrotactile sensations (e.g. on mobile phones, wearables), yet little research has examined the psychological and behavioral implications of this haptic feedback. We explore how vibrotactile alerts can represent technologically-mediated social touch, and ultimately influence both performance and certain incidental judgments (e.g. sender attributions).