跨通道预期影响消费体验与消费者选择偏好：结合感官营销与消费者神经科学的研究

Sensory marketing aims to influence consumers’ perception, preference, and consumption by engaging our visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile perception; whereas consumer neuroscience combines psychology, marketing, and neuroscience to study consumer behavior. Here we propose to investigate the influence of crossmodal expectation (generated based on color-flavor associations) on the consumption experience of, and consumers’ selection perference on, food and drinks. In a total of four studies, we plan to conduct a series of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), voxel-based morphometry (VBM), event-related potentials (ERPs), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), eye-tracking, and behaviorial experiments. In Study 1, we plan to investigate the neural basis underlying crossmodal expectation, and to explore the moderation effect of personal traits. In Study 2, we plan to examine the influence of crossmodal expectation on the consumption experience of, and consumers’ preference on, products and brands. We also plan to compare the effects of crossmodal expectation to those of the marketing-based expectation. In Study 3, we plan to examine how consumers adaptively establish new and/or flexible expectation after the original one has been repeatedly violated. In Study 4, we plan to investigate the relationship between crossmodal expectation and satiation, and to explore how these findings can be applied in marketing management and health management. It is our hope that our findings might provide converging evidence regarding the underlying mechanisms regarding how consumers integrate information to build up expectation, and these findings have direct implications to sensory marketing.

感官营销关注视觉、听觉、味觉、嗅觉、触觉这些五官感受对消费者的影响，而消费者神经科学则结合心理学、营销学、神经科学的优势研究消费者行为。本项目采用功能性磁共振成像、基于体素的脑形态学、脑电、经颅磁刺激、眼动、行为实验等方法，研究基于饮食产品的颜色与风味之间的跨通道联结产生的跨通道预期如何影响消费体验与消费者选择偏好。项目主要包括四个部分。子项目一研究跨通道预期的神经基础，并探索个人特质在其中发挥的调节作用。子项目二探究跨通道预期对消费体验与选择偏好的影响，并将跨通道预期与基于营销的预期进行对比。子项目三研究个体在跨通道预期被反复打破时如何建立起新的、更灵活的预期。子项目四探究跨通道预期与厌腻之间的关系，并探讨跨通道预期在营销管理与健康管理中的应用。项目研究成果有助于理解消费者如何整合信息形成预期，为感官营销实践提供理论基础。

本项目结合采用多模态神经成像、脑电、眼动、虚拟现实等实验技术，探究基于颜色与风味之间的跨通道联结产生的跨通道预期如何影响消费者对于产品的知觉、评价、选择、偏好。首先，项目组探究了基于包装色味联结产生的颜色预期如何引导消费者对具有特定风味标签的饮食产品进行搜索，并采用多模态脑成像和虚拟现实技术探究了预期违背的神经基础。第二，项目组通过行为实验和脑电实验探究了基于真实风味信息产生的颜色预期如何影响消费者偏好，并通过自我优势效应的实验范式探究了跨通道影响的不对称性。第三，项目组通过一系列行为、眼动、脑电实验探究了真实风味如何引发个体对关联颜色的注意偏向，揭示了跨通道影响可能的发生机制。第四，项目组通过脑电和虚拟现实实验，探究了多感官意象对于消费者饮食行为的影响，并探讨跨通道预期在新产品推介和多感官助推中的应用。本项目的研究成果有助于理解跨通道预期影响消费行为的行为机制和神经基础，推动营销科学与认知心理学、认知神经科学的交叉融合与共同创新，为感官营销和神经营销实践提供理论基础。