This research examined the influence of the physical design of gambling venues on emotion. Two competing casino designs were identified. According to Kranes's playground model, casinos should include environmental elements designed to induce pleasure, legibility, and restoration. In contrast, Friedman proposed a set of design principles focusing on the machines as the dominant feature of the décor. Three exemplars of each design were identified. Measures of emotional reactions to the casinos were collected from 22 people who had gambled in all six casinos. Kranes-type casinos yielded significantly higher ratings than did Friedman-type casinos on pleasure and restoration (relief from environmental stress). Future research should focus on design variations that can be built into a Friedman-type setting to enhance restoration.

This research examined the effects of a casino's auditory character on estimates of elapsed time while gambling. More specifically, this study varied whether the sound heard while gambling was ambient casino sound alone or ambient casino sound accompanied by music. The tempo and volume of both the music and ambient sound were varied to manipulate temporal engagement and introspection. One hundred and sixty (males = 91) individuals played slot machines in groups of 5-8, after which they provided estimates of elapsed time. The findings showed that the typical ambient casino auditive environment, which characterizes the majority of gaming venues, promotes understated estimates of elapsed duration of play. In contrast, when music is introduced into the ambient casino environment, it appears to provide a cue of interval from which players can more accurately reconstruct elapsed duration of play. This is particularly the case when the tempo of the music is slow and the volume is high. Moreover, the confidence with which time estimates are held (as reflected by latency of response) is higher in an auditive environment with music than in an environment that is comprised of ambient casino sounds alone. Implications for casino management are discussed.

No abstract

Research in positioning strategy suggests that a product schema, when presented in a moderately incongruent fashion, can evoke a greater degree of positive evaluation than if presented congruently with consumer expectations. This phenomenon has been coined the schema congruity effect. To date, one of the limitations of the phenomenon is that it has been applied almost exclusively to taxonomic stimuli, with little reference to thematic, eventlike stimuli. Two experiments verified that taxonomic and thematic product categories differ with respect to their unique characteristics. Consequently, despite successful replication of the schema congruity effect during taxonomic interpretation, when pushed thematically, the schema congruity effect failed to manifest. Furthermore, both experiments confirmed that, unlike taxonomic product categories that benefit from abstract and moderately incongruent positioning, thematic product categories benefit from concrete and congruent positioning. Implications for understanding the moderating role of thematic positioning on congruity-based product evaluation as well as the differences between taxonomic and thematic stimuli are discussed.

Les effets d'une amorce sur les mémoires implicite et explicite à propos d'un produit placé dans un texte ont été mis à l'épreuve sous deux conditions, l'une où l'attention était orientée vers (encodage intentionnel) ou détournée du produit (encodage incident). Dans la première expérience, les caractéristiques positives d'un produit avaient plus de chances que les négatives d'être restituées, ce qui a conduit à un effet d'assimilation dans une condition témoin. Par contre, lorsque les particularités du produit étaient en amorec, le rappel explicite des caractéristiques négatives augmentait, débouchant sur un effet de contraste. L'impact de l'amorce était limité à la condition d'encodage intentionnel, ce qui signifiait un effacement de l'information incompatible avec l'amorce. Dans la deuxième expérience, les épreuves de mémoires implicites perceptuelle et sémantique ont montré des effets d'amorce équivalents suite à l'encodage du produit, qu'il soit intentionnel ou incident. Par suite et contrairement à la mémoire explicite, la mémoire implicite du produit n'était pas conditionnée par l'attention. L'identification de ces limites de l'amorçage est utile aux gens de marketing qui envisagent ce consevoir une publicité exploitant les mémoires explicite et implicite d'un produit.The effects of priming on explicit and implicit memory about a product placed within a narrative were tested under conditions in which attention was drawn to (intentional encoding) or away from (incidental encoding) the product. In Experiment 1, positive features of a product were more likely to be recalled than negative features leading to an assimilation effect in a baseline condition. When the product characteristic was primed, however, explicit recall of the negative features increased resulting in a contrast effect. The impact of priming was restricted to the intentional encoding condition reflecting resolution of information incongruent with the prime. In Experiment 2, perceptual and semantic implicit memory tests revealed equivalent priming effects following both intentional and incidental encoding of the product. Thus, unlike explicit memory, implicit memory for the product was not limited by attention. Recognition of