The Impact of Distraction on the Processing of Category-Based and Attribute-Based Evaluations

Abstract

The vulnerability of product evaluations to influence from unattended distraction material was used as an indicator of processing differences between category-based and attribute-based evaluation. Subjects listened to descriptions of products having attributes that were either high or low prototypically to the product category. Evaluatively consistent or inconsistent material was added to both the high prototypically and the low-prototypically descriptions. Subjects instructed to evaluate the products attended to these descriptions on one channel of a set of stereo headphones, while they were simultaneously exposed to either positively or negatively toned material on the unattended channel. Subjects' evaluations of products high in prototypically were not influenced by the affective quality of the unattended material, whereas evaluations of the products low in prototypically were influenced. Subjects' evaluations suggested that both category-based and attribute-based processing occurred, but to different categories in instances that were either high or low in prototypically for the product class.