Educational material covering Unit IV of a consumer behaviour course. The document explains how consumers notice, organise and give meaning to market stimuli through the perception process. It details the three stages of perception: sensation, organisation and interpretation. It also covers factors affecting perception including stimulus characteristics, context and consumer characteristics, as…
This is a set of lecture notes for a consumer behaviour course, specifically Unit IV on perception and learning. It is intended for students studying marketing or consumer psychology.
The document begins by defining perception as a highly individual process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting and organising sensory information. It explains that identical stimuli can produce different meanings for different consumers based on their needs, values and expectations.
It then describes the three linked stages of the perception process: sensation (immediate response of sensory organs), organisation (grouping stimuli and connecting with memory), and interpretation (attaching meaning, liking, value and judgement). A pizza example illustrates how taste, smell and touch are sensed, organised with prior experiences and interpreted as good or bad.
The notes cover factors affecting perception: stimulus characteristics (sensory qualities and information content), context (social, cultural and organisational setting), and consumer characteristics (prior knowledge, experience, feelings and expectations). It explains how these three sources interact to shape perception.
Finally, the document addresses selection in the perceptual process, distinguishing between selective exposure (deciding which messages to encounter), selective attention (ignoring messages despite exposure), selective interpretation (distorting information to fit expectations) and selective blocking (tuning out unwanted stimuli).