关键词: SNARC效应, 听觉（言语）表征, 价格感知, 多通道刺激

Abstract: Consumers cannot make rational purchase decisions based on their own needs, prices and characteristics of the products. They can only rely on their own subjective perception of the product to make judgments. Therefore, the subjective perception of prices by consumers plays an important role in the purchase decision (Han, 2005). Previous studies confirmed that the spatial position of product can affect individual's numerical estimate (Cai, Shen, & Hui, 2012), and the syllabic length of the price will influence he consumers’ perceptions of its numerical magnitude (Coulter, Choi, & Monroe, 2012). Above all, the present study is to test whether the location of product and the syllabic length of price can influence consumers’ price magnitude perceptions. The present study included three experiments. In Experiment 1a, participants were first presented with visual (the location of product; right/left) single-channel stimulus; In Experiment 1b, participants were presented with auditory (the syllabic length of price; 12 syllables/5 syllables) stimulus; In experiment 2, participants were presented with the above stimuli simultaneously. Then they evaluated the product’s price on 10-point semantic differential scales anchored by “small” (0) and “large” (9) after stimulus or stimuli exposure immediately. There were 43 undergraduates in Experiment 1a, 34 undergraduates in Experiment 1b and 63 undergraduates in Experiment 3. All stimulations were presented by E-prime 2.0. Results showed that: (1) Experiment 1confirmed the spatial position and syllabic length of price can affect customers’ judgement of the price, when the product was presented on the right side or its verbal price contained 12 syllables, customers’ perceptive price was higher than that when the product was presented on the left side or 5 syllables’ price. (2) In Experiment 2, when visual and auditory stimuli were presented at the same time, there were significant interactions between the two. Specifically, when the 5 syllables’ price was played, the price perceived by the subject of the product presented on the right side was significantly higher than that on the left side. As for reaction time, when the 5 syllables’ price was played, the subjects’ response time to the product presented on the right side was significantly longer than that when product was presented on the left side, but the situation was opposite under 12 syllables’ condition. Moreover, we associated the results of Experiment 1with Experiment 2 for further analysis, the results revealed that the reaction time under inconsistent audio-visual information condition were slower than consistent condition and audio/visual condition, in addition, the reaction time under audio/visual condition were slower than consistent audio-visual information condition. These findings confirmed and extended previous results suggesting that both the location of product and the syllabic length of price can affect individual’s price perception. And number-location associations may be restricted by auditory stimulation. Furthermore, when the two stimuli have the same contents, they can emerge redundant signal effect. On contrary, if the two stimuli’ contents are inconsistent, individual’s response will be hindered.

Key words: SNARC effect, auditory(verbal) representation, price perception, multi-channel stimulus