Caroline Cuny

Peripheral responses to attended and unattended angry prosody: A dichotic listening paradigm

We investigated the effects of angry prosody, varying focus of attention, and laterality of presentation of angry prosody on peripheral nervous system activity. Participants paid attention to either their left or their right ear while performing a sex discrimination task on dichotically presented pseudo-words. These pseudo-words were characterized by either angry or neutral prosody and presented stereophonically (anger/neutral, neutral/anger, or neutral/neutral, for the left/right ear, respectively). Reaction times and physiological responses (heart period, skin conductance, finger and forehead temperature) in this study were differentially sensitive to the effects of anger versus neutral prosody, varying focus of attention, and laterality of presentation of angry prosody.

Can music improve e-behavioral intentions by enhancing consumers' immersion and experience?

Abstract Websites must involve visitors in enjoyable and memorable experiences to entice people to revisit and recommend them. This article investigates the impact of music and seeks to explain e-behavioral intentions through two underlying processes: immersion and experience. A total of 250 persons were surveyed for their intentions to re-visit and recommend a virtual art gallery. The results reveal that music fosters e-behavioral intentions. They also emphasize that immersion and aesthetic experience (emotions and contemplation) mediate this effect. The findings, confirming the impact of music on immersion, could thus help managers design more effective Websites.

Surprise! We changed the logo

– This paper aims to investigate the impact of brand attachment and familiarity on perceived congruence between the logo and the brand. It explores the role of an under-researched factor, surprise, on perceived congruence in the case of a radical logo change. Design/methodology/approach – A study was conducted with 220 students following a university logo change. Perceived congruence between the logos (old and new) and the school brand values was measured for two kinds of students, current and future (i.e. applicants). Findings – Results show the importance of surprise in the acceptance of a logo change. Brand familiarity and brand attachment affect surprise in opposite ways, such that higher familiarity increases negative surprise, whereas higher attachment enhances positive surprise. Research limitations/implications – This research used a school logo. Because schools represent a particular type of company, brand attachment to another type of brand could be different. The current model needs to be tested in different contexts. Practical implications – Companies must pay special attention when communicating with their most attached consumers. In particular, companies that aim to change their logos must prepare for the change by relying on communications that can lead to positive surprise. Originality/value – This study was conducted in a real context of logo change. It is the first study to focus on the link among familiarity, attachment and surprise when a radical logo change takes place within a company.

Perceptual processing affects the reactivation of a sensory dimension during a categorization task.

According to grounded theories of cognition, knowledge is grounded in its sensory-motor features. Therefore, perceptual and conceptual processing should be based on the same distributed system so that conceptual and perceptual processes should interact. The present study assesses whether gustatory stimulation (participants tasted a sweet or a nonsweet yoghurt) could influence performance on a categorization task that involves the reactivation of the same sensory dimension. The results indicate that participants were slower (Experiment 1) or faster (Experiment 2), respectively, at categorizing pictures as representing edible sweet stimuli when they either simultaneously or had previously tasted a sweet yoghurt as compared to a nonsweet yoghurt. These results confirm the significant overlap between perceptual and memory mechanisms and suggest the functional equivalence between perceptually present and perceptually absent (memory reactivated) dimensions.

Are 2 Years Enough for a Successful Radical Logo Change? An Abstract

The purpose of the present study was twofold: (1) to investigate the evolution of perceived congruence between a brand and its new logo in a real context of a logo change and during 2 years following the change and (2) to compare this evolution between current customers (high brand familiarity and attachment) and prospects (low brand familiarity and attachment). The study was longitudinal and made up by three data collections over a period of 2 years following the logo change. 776 students (current, high brand attachment and familiarity; applicants, low attachment and familiarity) participated in the three data collections with a 1-year interval, with 220 in 2014, 284 in 2015, and 272 in 2016. For each data collection, the procedure was similar: each participant had to (1) choose a reward as a polo shirt among the two displaying either the new or the old school logo and (2) answer a questionnaire after having been exposed randomly either to the new or the old logo, including measures of brand attachment and familiarity and perceived congruence of the logo (old or new) with the brand.

Reducing Current Limitations in Order to Enhance the Quality of Subjective Well-Being Research: The Example of Mindfulness

Biases are numerous in the literature on subjective well-being. This is true for measures of life satisfaction as well as for measures related to it, for instance mindfulness . Reviewing the literature on mindfulness measures, we identified eleven self-report questionnaires measuring trait mindfulness and three measuring state mindfulness . However, several limitations of these measures have been recently highlighted. First of all, these scales aim at capturing different constructs although they use the same name (mindfulness). Second, among the scales that aim at measuring the same construct (following the same definition of mindfulness), most of them measure a selection of dimensions of mindfulness, thereby limiting the relevance of comparisons between studies. Third, there are concerns about the vocabulary used. Because they were initially conceived to measure effects of mindfulness practices on state or trait mindfulness, these tools are composed of items which participants may find strange or hard to understand before knowing what mindfulness is (i.e., during preprogram measures). While the CHIME was designed to help reduce these vocabulary problems, it does not address a third major limitation of all these measures, namely the difference in insight between participants who have never undertaken any form of mindfulness practice, compared to those who already have some experience. When participants complete questionnaires before taking part in a mindfulness-based intervention, they may have a biased (over-optimistic) vision of their attentional competences and their automatic behaviors, precisely because these are mainly unconscious in nature. This chapter presents current mindfulness measurement tools and further research perspectives in this field.

Does a Spoonful of Sugar-Free Make Food Look Healthier? Healthy Implicit Associations for Sugar-Free and Alternative Products: A Structured Abstract

Consumers’ interest in healthy eating is increasing for a variety of reasons. As a result, several sugar-free and alternative products that use substitute ingredients for sugar are becoming pervasive in supermarket shelves. We investigate consumers’ implicit associations between these products and healthiness perception. Drawing on regulatory focus theory, we demonstrate that unhealthy products (e.g., chocolate bar) are associated with healthiness when they rely on labels that highlight the absence (vs. the presence) of a particular ingredient, like sugar-free (vs. milk chocolate). In contrast, healthy products (i.e., orange juice) are associated with healthiness when their labels emphasize the presence (vs. the absence) of a particular ingredient, which is the case of a product with natural juice (vs. sugar-free). We suggest that prevention and promotion focus can explain these effects.