Module 4: Learning and Memory

Module 4

Learning objective 1

Explain fundamental learning models—including classical conditioning, operant conditioning, social learning, and cognitive learning—and their applications in consumer behavior.

Learning objective 2

Differentiate between short-term and long-term memory, emphasizing the importance of long-term memory in storing marketing information and influencing consumer decisions.

Learning objective 3

Analyze the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in consumer decision-making, understanding its functions, applications, and potential biases in both high and low involvement learning contexts.

Learning Definition

Ongoing process were change in content or organization occurs in a person’s long-term memory, relatively permanent

Learning Qualifications

• Learning is not observable

• Behavioral changes caused by experience

• Effects are typically long-term

• Covers overt activates and cognitive processes

Low-Involvement Learning

• Less motivated to process material to learn

• Often S1 processing

• Habituated or Routinized Decisions

High-involvement Learning

• We are motivated to process info to be learned

• Often S2 processing

• Moderate to Complex Decisions

Behavioral Learning

Occurs to some external event

• routine and automatic

• experience is shaped by feedback we receive

Cognitive Learning

Occurs as a result of mental activity

4 Learning Models in Consumer Behavior

1. Classical Conditioning

2. Operant Conditioning

3. Social Learning

4. Cognitive Learning

Classical Conditioning

Type of Behavioral Learning

• When your brain connects two things together because they keep happening at the same time

Ex: Pavlov’s Dog and the bell

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) → Unconditioned Response (UCR)

Before anything is learned, there' is a natural reaction

Ex: seeing delicious food (UCS) makes you hungry (UCR)

Conditioned Stimulus (CS) + Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) → Unconditioned Response (UCR)

Companies pair their brand (CS) with something you already like (UCS).

Ex: A fast-food commercial always shows hot, tasty burgers (UCS) that make you hungry (UCR).

Conditional Stimulus (CS) → Conditional Response (CR)

Now, just seeing the brand (CS) makes you feel hungry (CR), even without the actual food!

Ex: You see the golden arches of McDonald's and immediately crave fries.

3 Conditions for Classical Conditioning

1. Repetition: how often a conditioned stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus are paired together

   • too much can lead to wear-out

2. Proximity: how close things are in space or time when they are paired together

3. Contingency: the conditioned stimulus comes before the unconditioned stimulus, making the response happen faster

Stimulus Generalization

Inability to tell apart similar stimuli

Ex: Pavlov’s Dog can’t tell difference between different bell, to him bell means meat powder

Stimulus Discrimination

Ability to tell the difference between similar stimuli

• leads to strong positioning

• design can create differentiation

• logos can build uniqueness

Ex: Classic shape of pringles can

Extinction

when the effects of a previous condition are gone

Classical Conditioning Recap

• Behavioral Learning

• Learning based on paired associations

• Requires repetition

• Typically low involvement

• Stimulus Generalization vs Discrimination

• Extinction

Operant conditioning

Type of Behavioral Learning

• learning through rewards and punishments for behavior.

Reward: + outcome; increases repeat behavior

• loyalty card—buy 5 coffees, get 1 free

Punishment: - outcome; diminishes target behavior

• late fee if you don’t pay on time

Negative Reinforcement: - outcome; increases repeat behavior

• "ad-free experience"; removing annoying ads (- outcome), the company encourages users to subscribe (increases repeat behavior).

Operant conditioning: Reward

+ outcome; increases repeat behavior

• loyalty card—buy 5 coffees, get 1 free

Operant conditioning: Punishment

- outcome; diminishes target behavior

• late fee if you don’t pay on time

Operant conditioning: Negative Reinforcement

- outcome; increases repeat behavior

• "ad-free experience"; removing annoying ads (- outcome), the company encourages users to subscribe (increases repeat behavior).

Operant Conditioning Recap

• Consumers perform behaviors that lead to + outcomes and avoid behaviors that lead to - outcomes

• Learning is result of an outcome experience or anticipated outcome, not associated outcome

• Learning outcomes: Positive, Negative, and Punishment

Social Learning Theory

Theory that we learn by watching others

• Makes us feel freer to act when we see others doing it

• Can be cognitive and deliberate or spontanious

Cognitive Learning

People learn by thinking, understanding, and remembering information

• actively processing info to solve problems

• More S2 and info processing models

• Learning occurs from: observation, direct experience and reasoning

Cognitive Learning Tactics

• Product Reviews and Articles

• Comparison Shopping

• Direct Engagement

Memory

Where we put info, we attend to and comprehend

• Short-term

• Long-term

Short-term Memory

Where we store information we're currently thinking about or experiencing (sensory inputs)

• Recency effect: We remember the most recent things best.

Long-term Memory

Place where we store information for future use

• Primacy effect: We remember things seen first the most.

• Organized by meaning: Information is grouped by what it means.

• Permanent: The information stays in our memory.

How Can AI Impact Search

*remember: we move to internal search of out memory once we recognize problem

• Personalized Results: provides more relevant items

  • increase efficiency

• Voice and Conversational AI: provides hands-free searching

  • Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant

• Visual search: simplifies product discovery

  • drives impulse buying

• Predictive Search: uses historical preferences for suggesting

  new items and nudging choices

Associative Networks

Webs of knowledge structures that link pieces of information

Information RetrievalWhen information fades from your mind and is hard to remember, especially when it’s stored in your automatic, unconscious memory (S1).

Looking through your memory to find and use stored information.

• important for marketing because it helps people remember products or brands when they need them.

Forgetting

When information fades from your mind and is hard to remember, especially when it’s stored in your automatic, unconscious memory (S1).

Retroactive Interference

When new information you learn makes it harder to remember or enjoy something you learned before.

• overshadows prior know products

Proactive Interference (Bias)

When older information you already know makes it harder to learn or accept something new.

• prior know products interfere w/ adoption of new products

• creates bias