Atten Percept Psychophys (2014) 76:2189–2192 DOI 10.3758/s13414-014-0768-2
Labels affect both liking and preference: the better the stimuli, the bigger the preference Debra A. Zellner & Kaila Hoer & Juliann Feldman
Published online: 20 September 2014 # The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2014
Abstract When hedonic contrast causes stimuli to become less good, it also reduces subjects’ preferences between them (hedonic condensation). Here we investigated whether the reduction in preference is a by-product of hedonic contrast or can occur as a result of other manipulations that increase the negativity of the stimuli. Subjects smelled and rated their degrees of preference for each of two sets of paired cheese samples (some subjects were told that they were smelling cheeses, and the others, body odor samples). They then smelled each of the four samples, labeled as before, one at a time, and rated their intensity and liking for each sample. We found no effect of label on the intensity ratings, but subjects who were told that the samples were body odor liked them less and showed less of a preference between paired samples. Thus, increasing the negativity of pairs of stimuli reduces subjects’ preference between them, even in the absence of hedonic contrast. More-negative stimuli might be attended to less than more-positive stimuli, resulting in less hedonic discrimination of hedonically negative than of positive stimuli. Keywords Attention . Olfaction . Smell . Hedonic contrast . Preference Hedonic context effects have been found with many different kinds of stimuli, including photos of buildings (Tousignant & Bodner, 2014), paintings (Dolese, Zellner, Vasserman, & Parker, 2005), female faces (Cogan, Parker, & Zellner, 2013), birds (Zellner, Rohm, Bassetti, & Parker, 2003), beverages (Zellner et al., 2003), and music (Parker, Bascom, Rabinovitz, & Zellner, 2008). Both positive and negative hedonic contrast have been shown. Positive hedonic contrast D. A. Zellner (*) : K. Hoer : J. Feldman Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA e-mail: [email protected]
occurs when hedonically negative stimuli precede more hedonically neutral test stimuli, resulting in the neutral test stimuli being rated as more hedonically positive (e.g., Dolese et al., 2005). Negative hedonic contrast occurs when hedonically positive stimuli precede more hedonically neutral test stimuli, resulting in the neutral stimuli being rated as more hedonically negative (e.g., Zellner et al., 2003). These changes in hedonic ratings have been found to be accompanied by changes in the size of preference ratings between stimuli presented as pairs (Zellner, 2007; Zellner, Allen, Henley, & Parker, 2006; Zellner et al., 2010). When hedonically negative stimuli precede more hedonically neutral stimuli, not only do they make those more neutral stimuli more hedonically positive (positive hedonic contrast), but they also increase the size of the preference between them (hedonic expansion; Zellner et al., 2010). On the other hand, when hedonically positive stimuli precede more hedonically neutral stimuli, not only do they make those more neutral stimuli less hedonically positive (negative hedonic contrast), but they also reduce the size of the preference between them (hedonic condensation). So, if things become more hedonically positive, people also report greater preferences between them, and as they become more hedonically negative, people report smaller preferences between them. Zellner et al. (2006) demonstrated the condensation effect by having subjects rate their degrees of preference between paired mediocre test juices, either when those juices were preceded by pairs of hedonically positive juices or when they were presented alone. Subjects who first tasted the hedonically positive juices not only reported liking the mediocre juices less than did those subjects who tasted only the mediocre juices (negative hedonic contrast), but they also reported smaller preferences between the paired mediocre test juices. Similar results were found with subjects evaluating the attractivenesses of pictures of birds (Zellner, Mattingly, & Parker, 2009).
2190
Here we investigated whether the reduction in preference (hedonic condensation) that accompanies negative hedonic contrast is uniquely the result of contrast—of comparing the judged stimuli to the preceding superior context stimuli. Can condensation also be induced by other manipulations that increase stimulus negativity? In order to address this question, we needed a way to reduce the hedonic value of a set of stimuli in some way other than by producing negative hedonic contrast. Previous research has shown that the hedonic values of odors can be reduced by labeling the odors with a label that subjects find unpleasant. For example, in a study by Herz and von Clef (2001) subjects rated a mixture of isovaleric and butyric acid as less pleasant when it was labeled as “vomit” than when it was labeled as “parmesan cheese.” A similar effect was found when a mixture of isovaleric acid and cheddar cheese smell was labeled as either “cheddar cheese” or “body odor” (de Araujo, Rolls, Velazco, Margot, & Cayeux, 2005). In the present study, this labeling technique (“cheese” vs. “body odor”) was used to reduce subjects’ hedonic evaluations of a single set of stimuli by means other than by producing negative hedonic contrast. Calling cheese samples “body odor samples” should cause a reduction in the hedonic value of the cheese odor relative to labeling the samples correctly, as cheese. Since the hedonic values of the stimuli would be shifted without the use of hedonically positive context stimuli (as would be the case in a hedonic contrast study), we would be able to determine whether the hedonic condensation that accompanies negative hedonic contrast is a result of the contrast procedure or whether negative shifts in hedonic value that occur for other reasons can also produce hedonic condensation.
Method Subjects A total of 20 undergraduate students from Montclair State University (four males and 16 females) served in the experiment. Their mean age was 20.4 years, and the subjects were tested individually. The study was approved by the Montclair State University Institutional Review Board.
Atten Percept Psychophys (2014) 76:2189–2192
Procedure The 20 subjects were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the cheese group or the body odor group. Subjects in the cheese group were told that they would be smelling and rating different cheese samples, whereas the subjects in the body odor group were told that they would be smelling and rating different samples of body odor. Preference judgments The subjects were first given pairs of the cheeses to rate (Provolone paired with Swiss, Muenster paired with Parmesan). They were handed two bottles at the same time and were told to smell them both. They were allowed to sniff the two bottles as much as they wanted to in order to make a judgment. They then indicated whether they liked one sample more than the other. If they did, they were then asked which one they preferred and how much more they liked it than the other. They indicated their degree of preference using a 10-point rating scale, on which 1 indicated liking the preferred sample slightly more, 4 indicated somewhat more, 7 indicated a lot more, and 10 indicated very much more than the other sample of the pair. If a subject had no preference between a pair of odors, the experimenter assigned a preference rating of 0 for that pair. Liking judgments Subjects were then given all four samples, one at a time in random order. They smelled an odor as much as they desired and rated how much they liked each odor using a 201-point bipolar hedonic scale. A rating of –100 indicated that the subject thought the cheese/body odor sample was the most unpleasant imaginable; 0 indicated that the subject found it neither pleasant nor unpleasant; and +100 meant that the subject found that sample the most pleasant imaginable. Intensity judgments Subjects were then given the four samples a third time, one at a time in random order. They smelled each odor as much as they desired and rated the intensity of each sample using a 0 (no odor) to 100 (most intense odor imaginable) scale.
Results Stimuli Preference The four stimuli were 2-g samples of four cheeses. The cheeses were Muenster, Provolone, Swiss, and Parmesan purchased at a local grocery store deli counter. The cheeses were wrapped in a small piece of cheesecloth secured with a small piece of masking tape. The samples were put into small, 100ml clear glass bottles with screw caps and allowed to reach room temperature before testing began.
For each subject, the preference ratings given for the two pairs of odors were averaged to produce an average preference rating. Only the size of the preference judgment, not which odor was preferred, was noted. Subjects in the cheese group rated the preference for one odor over the other in the pair (M = 4.20, SD = 1.06) as being significantly larger than did the
Atten Percept Psychophys (2014) 76:2189–2192
body odor group (M = 3.05, SD = 1.09), t(18) = 2.39, p = .03, Cohen’s d = 1.13. Liking The average hedonic rating given to the four odors was calculated for each subject. The body odor subjects rated the odors (M = –30.75, SD = 28.22) as being significantly less pleasant than did the cheese subjects (M = –7.02, SD = 13.20), t(12.8) = 2.41, p = .03, Cohen’s d = 1.14. Intensity The average intensity rating given to the four odors was calculated for each subject. There was no significant difference in average intensity ratings for the odors between the body odor subjects (M = 51.05, SD = 20.12) and the cheese subjects (M = 48.38, SD = 8.21), t(11.9) = 0.39, p = .70, Cohen’s d = 0.18.
Discussion This is the first demonstration that odor labels can affect the size of preference judgments. The shift in the size of the preference judgments co-occurred with a shift in the hedonic ratings that was not a result of hedonic contrast. So, a reduction in hedonic rating, whether it is a result of negative hedonic contrast (Zellner et al., 2006; Zellner et al., 2009) or of labeling, affects preference judgments in the same way— reducing them. Condensation does not just accompany negative hedonic contrast, it seems to occur whenever there is a reduction in hedonic value, whatever the cause. When stimuli are less liked, they are also judged as being less hedonically different. Although both the hedonic ratings and the preference ratings of the cheese odors were reduced when the cheese odors were labeled as body odor, the intensity judgments were not affected. This suggests that the affective evaluation of the stimulus is the only thing that changes. This finding is consistent with the findings of de Araujo et al. (2005), for whom labeling an isovaleric acid/cheddar cheese flavor odor as “body odor” resulted in a lower hedonic rating than when the same odor was labeled as “cheddar cheese” but had no effect on intensity ratings. In addition, that study, using an event-related fMRI design, showed that the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was significantly more activated when the subjects thought they were rating “cheddar cheese” than when they thought they were rating “body odor.” The degree of activation of these areas was correlated with the hedonic ratings. These areas are different from the
2191
areas of the brain that appear to be correlated with differences in perceived intensity (i.e., piriform cortex; Rolls, Kringelbach, & de Araujo, 2003). This study suggests that the hedonic condensation effect is not the result of the same mechanism that produces hedonic contrast. One mechanism that has been posited as producing both hedonic contrast and hedonic condensation is the increase in the size of the hedonic range (Parducci, 1995). The introduction of the hedonically positive context stimuli preceding the more hedonically neutral target stimuli that occurs in studies of negative hedonic contrast increases the range of stimuli that the subject experiences. It has been suggested that that increase in range might produce both negative hedonic contrast and hedonic condensation (Zellner et al., 2009). In the present study, the sets of stimuli experienced by the subjects in the two groups (cheese and body odor) were the same. Therefore, some other mechanism must explain hedonic condensation (see also Zellner et al., 2010). One possibility is that the effects on the size of preference have something to do with the structure of the hedonic scale (Parker & Zellner, 1988). When hedonically good stimuli precede mediocre stimuli, the hedonic ratings of those mediocre stimuli are often pushed from slightly above to slightly below hedonic neutrality (e.g., Zellner et al., 2003). In this study, the mediocre test stimuli were moved from slightly below (cheese = –7.02) to moderately below (body odor = – 30.75) hedonic neutrality. It could be that people just do not put a lot of effort into discriminating between two stimuli that are hedonically negative. If the stimuli are clearly not good, people might not care which of the two is slightly better. People also might not have a preference between two stimuli that they find fairly unpleasant. The more pleasant they become, the more valuable it might be to discriminate between them and choose the best one of the pair. This possibility is roughly consistent with Wedell, Hicklin, and Smarandescu’s (2007) view that attentional mechanisms govern discrimination (see also Forsythe, Zellner, Cogan, & Parker, 2014). It requires the additional assumption that for hedonic judgments, attention is not spread evenly over the stimulus range, nor is it governed by stimulus density, but rather that particular regions of the hedonic scale are more attention-grabbing than others. This explanation also suggests that contrast-induced shifts in hedonic evaluations of stimuli are not due simply to changes in the use of the rating scale. Instead, hedonic contrast must cause an actual shift in the perceived hedonic value of the target stimuli that results in hedonic condensation.
Author note The authors thank Scott Parker for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. We also thank Åke Hellström, Linda Bartoshuk, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments. Results from this study were presented at the meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics, Ottawa, Canada, 2012.
2192
References Cogan, E., Parker, S., & Zellner, D. A. (2013). Beauty beyond compare: Effect of context extremity and categorization on hedonic contrast. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 39, 16–22. de Araujo, I. E., Rolls, E. T., Velazco, M. I., Margot, C., & Cayeux, I. (2005). Cognitive modulation of olfactory processing. Neuron, 46, 671–679. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2005.04.021 Dolese, M. J., Zellner, D. A., Vasserman, M., & Parker, S. (2005). Categorization affects hedonic contrast in the visual arts. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, 5, 21–25. Forsythe, M., Zellner, D., Cogan, E., & Parker, S. (2014). Attractiveness difference magnitude affected by context, range, and categorization. Perception, 43, 59–69. Herz, R. S., & von Clef, J. (2001). The influence of verbal labeling on the perception of odors: Evidence for olfactory illusions? Perception, 30, 381–391. Parducci, A. (1995). Happiness, pleasure, and judgment. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Parker, S., Bascom, J., Rabinovitz, B., & Zellner, D. (2008). Positive and negative hedonic contrast with musical stimuli. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2, 171–174. Parker, S., & Zellner, D. A. (1988). The difference between goodness and badness. In H. Ross (Ed.), Fechner Day 88: Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics (pp. 107–108). Stirling, Scotland: Department of Psychology, University of Stirling.
Atten Percept Psychophys (2014) 76:2189–2192 Rolls, E. T., Kringelbach, M. L., & de Araujo, I. E. T. (2003). Different representations of pleasant and unpleasant odors in the human brain. European Journal of Neuroscience, 18, 695–703. Tousignant, C., & Bodner, G. E. (2014). Context effects on beauty ratings of photos: Building contrast effects that erode but cannot be knocked down. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 8, 81–86. Wedell, D. H., Hicklin, S. K., & Smarandescu, L. O. (2007). Contrasting models of assimilation and contrast. In D. A. Stapel & J. Suls (Eds.), Assimilation and contrast in social psychology (pp. 45–74). New York, NY: Psychological Press. Zellner, D. A. (2007). Contextual influences on liking and preference. Appetite, 49, 679–682. Zellner, D. A., Allen, D., Henley, M., & Parker, S. (2006). Hedonic contrast and condensation: Good stimuli make mediocre stimuli less good and less different. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 235– 239. doi:10.3758/BF03193836 Zellner, D. A., Jones, K., Morino, J., Cogan, E. S., Jennings, E. M., & Parker, S. (2010). Increased hedonic difference despite increases in hedonic range. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 72, 1261– 1265. doi:10.3758/APP.72.5.1261 Zellner, D. A., Mattingly, M. C., & Parker, S. (2009). Categorization reduces the effect of context on hedonic preference. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 71, 1228–1232. doi:10.3758/APP. 71.6.1228 Zellner, D. A., Rohm, E. A., Bassetti, T. L., & Parker, S. (2003). Compared to what? Effects of categorization on hedonic contrast. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10, 468–473.
Labels affect both liking and preference: the better the stimuli, the bigger the preference Debra A. Zellner & Kaila Hoer & Juliann Feldman
Published online: 20 September 2014 # The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2014
Abstract When hedonic contrast causes stimuli to become less good, it also reduces subjects’ preferences between them (hedonic condensation). Here we investigated whether the reduction in preference is a by-product of hedonic contrast or can occur as a result of other manipulations that increase the negativity of the stimuli. Subjects smelled and rated their degrees of preference for each of two sets of paired cheese samples (some subjects were told that they were smelling cheeses, and the others, body odor samples). They then smelled each of the four samples, labeled as before, one at a time, and rated their intensity and liking for each sample. We found no effect of label on the intensity ratings, but subjects who were told that the samples were body odor liked them less and showed less of a preference between paired samples. Thus, increasing the negativity of pairs of stimuli reduces subjects’ preference between them, even in the absence of hedonic contrast. More-negative stimuli might be attended to less than more-positive stimuli, resulting in less hedonic discrimination of hedonically negative than of positive stimuli. Keywords Attention . Olfaction . Smell . Hedonic contrast . Preference Hedonic context effects have been found with many different kinds of stimuli, including photos of buildings (Tousignant & Bodner, 2014), paintings (Dolese, Zellner, Vasserman, & Parker, 2005), female faces (Cogan, Parker, & Zellner, 2013), birds (Zellner, Rohm, Bassetti, & Parker, 2003), beverages (Zellner et al., 2003), and music (Parker, Bascom, Rabinovitz, & Zellner, 2008). Both positive and negative hedonic contrast have been shown. Positive hedonic contrast D. A. Zellner (*) : K. Hoer : J. Feldman Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA e-mail: [email protected]
occurs when hedonically negative stimuli precede more hedonically neutral test stimuli, resulting in the neutral test stimuli being rated as more hedonically positive (e.g., Dolese et al., 2005). Negative hedonic contrast occurs when hedonically positive stimuli precede more hedonically neutral test stimuli, resulting in the neutral stimuli being rated as more hedonically negative (e.g., Zellner et al., 2003). These changes in hedonic ratings have been found to be accompanied by changes in the size of preference ratings between stimuli presented as pairs (Zellner, 2007; Zellner, Allen, Henley, & Parker, 2006; Zellner et al., 2010). When hedonically negative stimuli precede more hedonically neutral stimuli, not only do they make those more neutral stimuli more hedonically positive (positive hedonic contrast), but they also increase the size of the preference between them (hedonic expansion; Zellner et al., 2010). On the other hand, when hedonically positive stimuli precede more hedonically neutral stimuli, not only do they make those more neutral stimuli less hedonically positive (negative hedonic contrast), but they also reduce the size of the preference between them (hedonic condensation). So, if things become more hedonically positive, people also report greater preferences between them, and as they become more hedonically negative, people report smaller preferences between them. Zellner et al. (2006) demonstrated the condensation effect by having subjects rate their degrees of preference between paired mediocre test juices, either when those juices were preceded by pairs of hedonically positive juices or when they were presented alone. Subjects who first tasted the hedonically positive juices not only reported liking the mediocre juices less than did those subjects who tasted only the mediocre juices (negative hedonic contrast), but they also reported smaller preferences between the paired mediocre test juices. Similar results were found with subjects evaluating the attractivenesses of pictures of birds (Zellner, Mattingly, & Parker, 2009).
2190
Here we investigated whether the reduction in preference (hedonic condensation) that accompanies negative hedonic contrast is uniquely the result of contrast—of comparing the judged stimuli to the preceding superior context stimuli. Can condensation also be induced by other manipulations that increase stimulus negativity? In order to address this question, we needed a way to reduce the hedonic value of a set of stimuli in some way other than by producing negative hedonic contrast. Previous research has shown that the hedonic values of odors can be reduced by labeling the odors with a label that subjects find unpleasant. For example, in a study by Herz and von Clef (2001) subjects rated a mixture of isovaleric and butyric acid as less pleasant when it was labeled as “vomit” than when it was labeled as “parmesan cheese.” A similar effect was found when a mixture of isovaleric acid and cheddar cheese smell was labeled as either “cheddar cheese” or “body odor” (de Araujo, Rolls, Velazco, Margot, & Cayeux, 2005). In the present study, this labeling technique (“cheese” vs. “body odor”) was used to reduce subjects’ hedonic evaluations of a single set of stimuli by means other than by producing negative hedonic contrast. Calling cheese samples “body odor samples” should cause a reduction in the hedonic value of the cheese odor relative to labeling the samples correctly, as cheese. Since the hedonic values of the stimuli would be shifted without the use of hedonically positive context stimuli (as would be the case in a hedonic contrast study), we would be able to determine whether the hedonic condensation that accompanies negative hedonic contrast is a result of the contrast procedure or whether negative shifts in hedonic value that occur for other reasons can also produce hedonic condensation.
Method Subjects A total of 20 undergraduate students from Montclair State University (four males and 16 females) served in the experiment. Their mean age was 20.4 years, and the subjects were tested individually. The study was approved by the Montclair State University Institutional Review Board.
Atten Percept Psychophys (2014) 76:2189–2192
Procedure The 20 subjects were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the cheese group or the body odor group. Subjects in the cheese group were told that they would be smelling and rating different cheese samples, whereas the subjects in the body odor group were told that they would be smelling and rating different samples of body odor. Preference judgments The subjects were first given pairs of the cheeses to rate (Provolone paired with Swiss, Muenster paired with Parmesan). They were handed two bottles at the same time and were told to smell them both. They were allowed to sniff the two bottles as much as they wanted to in order to make a judgment. They then indicated whether they liked one sample more than the other. If they did, they were then asked which one they preferred and how much more they liked it than the other. They indicated their degree of preference using a 10-point rating scale, on which 1 indicated liking the preferred sample slightly more, 4 indicated somewhat more, 7 indicated a lot more, and 10 indicated very much more than the other sample of the pair. If a subject had no preference between a pair of odors, the experimenter assigned a preference rating of 0 for that pair. Liking judgments Subjects were then given all four samples, one at a time in random order. They smelled an odor as much as they desired and rated how much they liked each odor using a 201-point bipolar hedonic scale. A rating of –100 indicated that the subject thought the cheese/body odor sample was the most unpleasant imaginable; 0 indicated that the subject found it neither pleasant nor unpleasant; and +100 meant that the subject found that sample the most pleasant imaginable. Intensity judgments Subjects were then given the four samples a third time, one at a time in random order. They smelled each odor as much as they desired and rated the intensity of each sample using a 0 (no odor) to 100 (most intense odor imaginable) scale.
Results Stimuli Preference The four stimuli were 2-g samples of four cheeses. The cheeses were Muenster, Provolone, Swiss, and Parmesan purchased at a local grocery store deli counter. The cheeses were wrapped in a small piece of cheesecloth secured with a small piece of masking tape. The samples were put into small, 100ml clear glass bottles with screw caps and allowed to reach room temperature before testing began.
For each subject, the preference ratings given for the two pairs of odors were averaged to produce an average preference rating. Only the size of the preference judgment, not which odor was preferred, was noted. Subjects in the cheese group rated the preference for one odor over the other in the pair (M = 4.20, SD = 1.06) as being significantly larger than did the
Atten Percept Psychophys (2014) 76:2189–2192
body odor group (M = 3.05, SD = 1.09), t(18) = 2.39, p = .03, Cohen’s d = 1.13. Liking The average hedonic rating given to the four odors was calculated for each subject. The body odor subjects rated the odors (M = –30.75, SD = 28.22) as being significantly less pleasant than did the cheese subjects (M = –7.02, SD = 13.20), t(12.8) = 2.41, p = .03, Cohen’s d = 1.14. Intensity The average intensity rating given to the four odors was calculated for each subject. There was no significant difference in average intensity ratings for the odors between the body odor subjects (M = 51.05, SD = 20.12) and the cheese subjects (M = 48.38, SD = 8.21), t(11.9) = 0.39, p = .70, Cohen’s d = 0.18.
Discussion This is the first demonstration that odor labels can affect the size of preference judgments. The shift in the size of the preference judgments co-occurred with a shift in the hedonic ratings that was not a result of hedonic contrast. So, a reduction in hedonic rating, whether it is a result of negative hedonic contrast (Zellner et al., 2006; Zellner et al., 2009) or of labeling, affects preference judgments in the same way— reducing them. Condensation does not just accompany negative hedonic contrast, it seems to occur whenever there is a reduction in hedonic value, whatever the cause. When stimuli are less liked, they are also judged as being less hedonically different. Although both the hedonic ratings and the preference ratings of the cheese odors were reduced when the cheese odors were labeled as body odor, the intensity judgments were not affected. This suggests that the affective evaluation of the stimulus is the only thing that changes. This finding is consistent with the findings of de Araujo et al. (2005), for whom labeling an isovaleric acid/cheddar cheese flavor odor as “body odor” resulted in a lower hedonic rating than when the same odor was labeled as “cheddar cheese” but had no effect on intensity ratings. In addition, that study, using an event-related fMRI design, showed that the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was significantly more activated when the subjects thought they were rating “cheddar cheese” than when they thought they were rating “body odor.” The degree of activation of these areas was correlated with the hedonic ratings. These areas are different from the
2191
areas of the brain that appear to be correlated with differences in perceived intensity (i.e., piriform cortex; Rolls, Kringelbach, & de Araujo, 2003). This study suggests that the hedonic condensation effect is not the result of the same mechanism that produces hedonic contrast. One mechanism that has been posited as producing both hedonic contrast and hedonic condensation is the increase in the size of the hedonic range (Parducci, 1995). The introduction of the hedonically positive context stimuli preceding the more hedonically neutral target stimuli that occurs in studies of negative hedonic contrast increases the range of stimuli that the subject experiences. It has been suggested that that increase in range might produce both negative hedonic contrast and hedonic condensation (Zellner et al., 2009). In the present study, the sets of stimuli experienced by the subjects in the two groups (cheese and body odor) were the same. Therefore, some other mechanism must explain hedonic condensation (see also Zellner et al., 2010). One possibility is that the effects on the size of preference have something to do with the structure of the hedonic scale (Parker & Zellner, 1988). When hedonically good stimuli precede mediocre stimuli, the hedonic ratings of those mediocre stimuli are often pushed from slightly above to slightly below hedonic neutrality (e.g., Zellner et al., 2003). In this study, the mediocre test stimuli were moved from slightly below (cheese = –7.02) to moderately below (body odor = – 30.75) hedonic neutrality. It could be that people just do not put a lot of effort into discriminating between two stimuli that are hedonically negative. If the stimuli are clearly not good, people might not care which of the two is slightly better. People also might not have a preference between two stimuli that they find fairly unpleasant. The more pleasant they become, the more valuable it might be to discriminate between them and choose the best one of the pair. This possibility is roughly consistent with Wedell, Hicklin, and Smarandescu’s (2007) view that attentional mechanisms govern discrimination (see also Forsythe, Zellner, Cogan, & Parker, 2014). It requires the additional assumption that for hedonic judgments, attention is not spread evenly over the stimulus range, nor is it governed by stimulus density, but rather that particular regions of the hedonic scale are more attention-grabbing than others. This explanation also suggests that contrast-induced shifts in hedonic evaluations of stimuli are not due simply to changes in the use of the rating scale. Instead, hedonic contrast must cause an actual shift in the perceived hedonic value of the target stimuli that results in hedonic condensation.
Author note The authors thank Scott Parker for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. We also thank Åke Hellström, Linda Bartoshuk, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments. Results from this study were presented at the meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics, Ottawa, Canada, 2012.
2192
References Cogan, E., Parker, S., & Zellner, D. A. (2013). Beauty beyond compare: Effect of context extremity and categorization on hedonic contrast. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 39, 16–22. de Araujo, I. E., Rolls, E. T., Velazco, M. I., Margot, C., & Cayeux, I. (2005). Cognitive modulation of olfactory processing. Neuron, 46, 671–679. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2005.04.021 Dolese, M. J., Zellner, D. A., Vasserman, M., & Parker, S. (2005). Categorization affects hedonic contrast in the visual arts. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, 5, 21–25. Forsythe, M., Zellner, D., Cogan, E., & Parker, S. (2014). Attractiveness difference magnitude affected by context, range, and categorization. Perception, 43, 59–69. Herz, R. S., & von Clef, J. (2001). The influence of verbal labeling on the perception of odors: Evidence for olfactory illusions? Perception, 30, 381–391. Parducci, A. (1995). Happiness, pleasure, and judgment. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Parker, S., Bascom, J., Rabinovitz, B., & Zellner, D. (2008). Positive and negative hedonic contrast with musical stimuli. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2, 171–174. Parker, S., & Zellner, D. A. (1988). The difference between goodness and badness. In H. Ross (Ed.), Fechner Day 88: Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics (pp. 107–108). Stirling, Scotland: Department of Psychology, University of Stirling.
Atten Percept Psychophys (2014) 76:2189–2192 Rolls, E. T., Kringelbach, M. L., & de Araujo, I. E. T. (2003). Different representations of pleasant and unpleasant odors in the human brain. European Journal of Neuroscience, 18, 695–703. Tousignant, C., & Bodner, G. E. (2014). Context effects on beauty ratings of photos: Building contrast effects that erode but cannot be knocked down. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 8, 81–86. Wedell, D. H., Hicklin, S. K., & Smarandescu, L. O. (2007). Contrasting models of assimilation and contrast. In D. A. Stapel & J. Suls (Eds.), Assimilation and contrast in social psychology (pp. 45–74). New York, NY: Psychological Press. Zellner, D. A. (2007). Contextual influences on liking and preference. Appetite, 49, 679–682. Zellner, D. A., Allen, D., Henley, M., & Parker, S. (2006). Hedonic contrast and condensation: Good stimuli make mediocre stimuli less good and less different. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 235– 239. doi:10.3758/BF03193836 Zellner, D. A., Jones, K., Morino, J., Cogan, E. S., Jennings, E. M., & Parker, S. (2010). Increased hedonic difference despite increases in hedonic range. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 72, 1261– 1265. doi:10.3758/APP.72.5.1261 Zellner, D. A., Mattingly, M. C., & Parker, S. (2009). Categorization reduces the effect of context on hedonic preference. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 71, 1228–1232. doi:10.3758/APP. 71.6.1228 Zellner, D. A., Rohm, E. A., Bassetti, T. L., & Parker, S. (2003). Compared to what? Effects of categorization on hedonic contrast. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10, 468–473.
