Eeg Analysis Of Consumer Brand Extension Evaluation And Decision Making Research

Decision Neuroscience is a fast - growing interdisciplinary research area, including in management science. It can extend managemenr science into neural aspect with the studying of "black box" theory in traditional decision science, especially in consumer decision-making. Event-related Potential (ERP) is a mature brain scan technology in Cognitive Neuroscience. Its endogenous neural indicator is superior to explicit evaluation techniques in cognitive processing studies.Brand extension is one of common marketing methods and is used to reduce the cost of new products and the risk new brands. Over the past two decades and more, scholars made attempts at expounding the process of brand extension evaluation and consumer decision - making. Aaker and Keller's model (1990) and the succession, the leading theory in brand extension, focused in the variables of "Brand Quality", "Fit", "Category" and so on, but little in the process of cognitive and affective processing of evalustion and decision-making. It is an urgent issue for many disputes in this area and a task to test the classic model, revamp the defects of leading theory and explain the conflict.In research methodology, this study based on the comman theory of associative memory model in decision science, consumer behavior and congnitive neuroscience, designed an experimental paradigms of "Stimulus 1brand name- Stimulus 2 product name" (prime-probe) , and build multistage hypothesis. With the process-based measurement of ERP, we test the the relationships of variables in the hypothesis and build a decriptive evalution and decision-making model and tested it with traditional methods. In research content, this study build a five-stage model: the priming of "brand quality", a dual process mechanism for "categorization" with the valve effect of "similarity" and be congruous in "fittness", be affective evaluated in "attitude" and get the decision output of behavior.With the ERP laboratory of international standard, this study designed and conducted four laboratorial study in two years, and found the ERP evidences for the critical variables in every stage of the brand extension evaluation and decision -making, so to support the hypothesis. What's more, we analysised the ERP and behavior data in the time interval between stages and build "five-stage model " of brand extension evaluation and decision-making based on the neural mechanism. We also used focus-groups to get the practical support and used surveies with 2448 cases scale to test the model. With the analysis of OLS and SEM Path analysis, we found the "five-stage model" had a better explanatory ability than A&K model, and can also give a unified explaination to many disputes. In the last, this study also analysised the trends of decision neuroscience in top journals of management and science, and designed several study program which can get breakthrough of the frond domain.The conclusion of this study is as following:(1) There is a priming of "brand quality" (Stage 1). It can be indexed by LPC, which can be elicited by memory retrieval and incidental affect processing.(2) There is a "similarity match"(Stage 2). It can be indexed by N270, which can be elicited by mismatch processing.(3) There is a "categorization"(Stage 3). It can be indexed by P300, which can be elicited by categorization, working memory update and attention.(4) There is a "fit"(Stage 4). It can be indexed by N400, which can be elicited by conflict processing. N400 can also be regressed by N270 and P300. It means that "fit" is an automatic processing with the homing of "similarity match" and performing of "categorization".(5) There is a dual categorization process mechanism (category-based processing and piecemeal integration processing) for attitude formation for brand extension and only "categorization" and "fit" relate to it.(6) There is an "Attitude"(Stage 5). It can be indexed by LPP, which can be elicited by affective evaluation processing. The behavior result can be regressed by N400 and LPP. It means that there is a dual-attitude system in brand extension evaluation and decision-making: "fittness" is cognitive and automatic processing and "attitude" is affective and controlled processing.The innovation of this study is as following:(1) Following the trend of decision neuroscience, we used brain scan technology (ERP) to study consumer decision-making.(2) We supported the classic theory by neural evidence, and perfect the model of brand extension evaluation and decision-making.(3) "Five-stage model" gave a uniform explaination to the literatural disputes by neural mechanism. For example, the priming effect of brand can explain why "brand quality" was not be supported in A&K model; the categorization supports "fit" (Tauber, 1988) and "evaluation" (Bhat and Reddy, 2001) as the intervening variable; the interaction of the priming effect of brand and conflict congruent effect of "fit" can support the schema theory of Mandler (1982) and explain why Martin and Stewart(2001) could find the inverse "U" in brand extension evaluation but most literatures not.