Categorization reduces the effect of context on hedonic preference

Abstract

When moderately hedonically positive test stimuli are presented following better-liked context stimuli, preferences between the test stimuli are reduced. This reduction in preference, hedonic condensation, occurs in settings that also produce negative hedonic contrast--the phenomenon in which moderately hedonically positive test stimuli seem less positive when they follow better-liked context stimuli. Subjects who were instructed that the context and test stimuli were from different categories exhibited less hedonic condensation. Those categories have smaller hedonic ranges than does the full stimulus set. The increase in preference magnitude with reduction in size of the hedonic range is predicted by Parducci's (1995) range-frequency model.

Attractiveness Difference Magnitude Affected by Context, Range, and Categorization

“…These results show that hedonic condensation and hedonic expansion occur when using the same two sets of images of faces, which occupy opposite sides of the hedonic scale. These results expand the findings of previous studies which showed hedonic condensation and hedonic expansion with juices, images of birds, and paintings (Zellner et al, 2006(Zellner et al, , 2009(Zellner et al, , 2010. The results also support the idea that hedonic condensation and hedonic expansion accompany positive and negative hedonic contrast, since participants in this study saw the same stimuli as did participants in experiment 1 of Cogan et al (2013), where hedonic contrast in both directions was found.…”

“…Experiment 2 expanded on the findings of Zellner et al (2009), which showed that hedonic condensation of hedonically positive stimuli could be influenced by categorization. These results show that, when subjects were instructed to categorize stimuli into two separate categories, the effect of context stimuli on attractiveness difference judgments of the target stimuli was eliminated for the attractive targets.…”

“…Examples of hedonic condensation and negative hedonic contrast co-occurring can be found in Zellner et al (2006) using the juice stimuli, which produced negative hedonic contrast and Zellner, Mattingly, and Parker (2009) using images of tropical birds and North American birds. In both cases, in addition to judging stimuli as less hedonically positive following hedonically positive stimuli, participants also judged them as less hedonically different when presented in pairs.…”

“…It has also been shown to influence preference judgments. For example, Zellner et al's (2009) instructions to categorize context and target sets of birds into separate groups reduced hedonic condensation.…”

Increased hedonic differences despite increases in hedonic range

“…When positive context stimuli are presented before a set of more hedonically neutral test stimuli, both negative hedoni c contrast (Parker, Bascom, Rabinovitz, & Zellner, 2008;Rota & Zellner, 2007;Zellner, Rohm, Bassetti, & Parker, 2003) and a decrease in preference between test stimuli (i.e., hedonic condensation) occur (Zellner, Allen, Henley, & Parker, 2006;Zellner, Mattingly, & Parker, 2009). So negative hedonic contrast and hedonic condensation cooccur when good stimuli precede less good stimuli.…”