In article ,
"Arny Krueger" wrote:
"MiNe 109" wrote in message
In article ,
"Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Peter Wieck" wrote in message
The psychology of all this is very old news indeed.
Bringing it here is naught but a troll.
Interesting how someone who revels in 1960's audio
technology sees a January
2008 paper on a topic that may make him uncomfortable
as being "naught but a
troll".
Perhaps Peter your readings in psychology are far more
up to date than January 2008, and there is something
relevant that you could share with us before you find
it to be "very old news indeed".
It is, Arny. Those of us who studied marketing or
applied psychology have known about it since the '60's.
Then Harry you should have no problem citing a paper
from the 60's that essentially duplicates the paper I
cited.
Of course anybody who has done sales has strongly
suspected and was aware of common wisdom that many
people are unaware of the vagaries of purchasing
high-priced products. They think that spending a lot of
money guarantees really good performance.
But, most of us can differentiate common wisdom from
something for which scientific evidence exists.
The news in the paper you cite is the MRI that creates an
objective measure of perceived pleasure. Here's a
commentary:
http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/...-Perception-of
-Quality.html
Nice reference. Thanks.
"I think many of us have instinctively known this for
years. But in this study it is proven once and for all by
hard science. Essentially the finding were that higher
prices have a real impact on perceived quality (which
will then influence sales) rather than people just saying
they think its better (which will not)."
It appears that Mr. Carmichael and the prestigious "The Economist" sees the
same value in the paper that I did and that Harry could not:
"I think many of us have instinctively known this for years. But in this
study it is proven once and for all by hard science."
Mr. Carmichael and "The Economist" thinks that the paper was new Science
just like I did. Harry wants us to think that there was a comparable
scientific study back in the 1960s. Pretty difficult given that NMR imaging
(MRI) was first demonstrated in the laboratory in 1977.
However, studies of price and quality perception do go way back. It's
literally textbook knowledge.
" My interpretation is that the study shows that lacking
hard definitive information about the quality of a
product, the consumer searches for other sources of
information to determine the quality of one thing over
another. In this case, the price of the product itself
creates the real perception of higher quality."
Mr. Carmichael also makes a common-sense application of the paper itself.
People have a general tendency to believe that more expensive products have
higher quality, even when they don't. I have no problem with that, within
reason. However, when high end charlatans charge almost $3000 for a CD
player whose sound quality is probably indistinguishable from one costing
less than $50, we have a clear case of the Emperor's new clothes.
Yes, but the Emperor is now scientifically proven to enjoy his clothes
more with no loss of utility.
Stephen