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In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence

When people in laboratory studies sample products in a sequence, they tend to prefer options presented first and last. To what extent do these primacy and recency effects carry over to real-world settings where numerous sources of information determine preferences? To investigate this question, we c...

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Autores principales: Quigley-McBride, Adele, Franco, Gregory, McLaren, Daniel Bruce, Mantonakis, Antonia, Garry, Maryanne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6101411/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30125313
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202732
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author Quigley-McBride, Adele
Franco, Gregory
McLaren, Daniel Bruce
Mantonakis, Antonia
Garry, Maryanne
author_facet Quigley-McBride, Adele
Franco, Gregory
McLaren, Daniel Bruce
Mantonakis, Antonia
Garry, Maryanne
author_sort Quigley-McBride, Adele
collection PubMed
description When people in laboratory studies sample products in a sequence, they tend to prefer options presented first and last. To what extent do these primacy and recency effects carry over to real-world settings where numerous sources of information determine preferences? To investigate this question, we coded archival data from 136 actual whisky tastings each featuring seven whiskies. We analyzed people’s ratings of whiskies featured at different serial positions in the tastings. We found a recency effect: people gave their highest rating to whiskies in the last position, and voted the last whisky as their favorite more frequently. This recency effect persisted when we controlled for the counter explanation that whiskies with higher alcohol content tended to occupy later serial positions. The recency effect also persisted when we controlled for the age of the whiskies. Taken together, our findings suggest that the order of presentation matters in real-world settings, closely resembling what happens in laboratory settings with longer sequences of options.
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spelling pubmed-61014112018-08-30 In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence Quigley-McBride, Adele Franco, Gregory McLaren, Daniel Bruce Mantonakis, Antonia Garry, Maryanne PLoS One Research Article When people in laboratory studies sample products in a sequence, they tend to prefer options presented first and last. To what extent do these primacy and recency effects carry over to real-world settings where numerous sources of information determine preferences? To investigate this question, we coded archival data from 136 actual whisky tastings each featuring seven whiskies. We analyzed people’s ratings of whiskies featured at different serial positions in the tastings. We found a recency effect: people gave their highest rating to whiskies in the last position, and voted the last whisky as their favorite more frequently. This recency effect persisted when we controlled for the counter explanation that whiskies with higher alcohol content tended to occupy later serial positions. The recency effect also persisted when we controlled for the age of the whiskies. Taken together, our findings suggest that the order of presentation matters in real-world settings, closely resembling what happens in laboratory settings with longer sequences of options. Public Library of Science 2018-08-20 /pmc/articles/PMC6101411/ /pubmed/30125313 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202732 Text en © 2018 Quigley-McBride et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Quigley-McBride, Adele
Franco, Gregory
McLaren, Daniel Bruce
Mantonakis, Antonia
Garry, Maryanne
In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence
title In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence
title_full In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence
title_fullStr In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence
title_full_unstemmed In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence
title_short In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence
title_sort in the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6101411/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30125313
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202732
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