Framework for Reaction to Place

Galoni, Carpenter, and Rao investigated the sorts of choices people make when they are concerned about potentially catching a contagious disease.  They determined  “that contagious disease cues [such as hearing someone cough] can also elicit fear. Across four experiments and two large empirical data analyses of the presence of contagious disease on actual consumption behavior, we find that cues of contagious disease increase both fear and disgust, and these emotions together form a unique behavioral tendency with respect to consumer behavior.

Xu and teammates conducted a multisensory analysis of how context influences impressions of chocolate ice cream eaten.  They determined that “When ice cream was consumed in the café, it was associated with . . . a sweet taste/flavour. When consumed in the university study area, it was correlated with . . . cocoa and milky flavours. Consumption at the city bus stop was correlated with . . . roasted and bitter tastes/flavours. The laboratory environment was only correlated with the attributes . . . creamy flavour.

Perlin and Li confirm that awe is linked to prosocial behavior.  As they report “Awe is an emotional response to stimuli. . . . Curiously, awe has prosocial effects [encourages us to act in ways that benefit other people] despite often being elicited by nonsocial stimuli.”  Awe can be inspired by phenomena that are large/vast, as well as by those that utilize rare materials or exhibit exquisite workmanship, for example.  

Guo, Courtney, and Fischer collected information that confirms how interrelated our sensory experiences are.  The team found that “physical properties are not always readily observable, and we often must rely on our knowledge of attributes such as weight, hardness, and slipperiness to guide our actions on familiar objects. . . . In a series of four visual search experiments, participants viewed arrays of everyday objects and were tasked with locating a specified object.