Product Familiarity and Learning New Information

Does product familiarity improve shoppers' ability to learn new product information? We examine an earlier study which indicated that greater familiarity increased learning during a new purchase decision. Our reanalysis confirms that the effect depends strongly upon decision strategy. Familiarity facilitates learning when consumers rate each alternative, but when consumers are instructed to choose one alternative, an "inverted u" relationship between familiarity and learning results. Our new analyses also show that consumers familiar with the product category demonstrate stronger brand organization for the new information.