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Brand extension, as a marketing strategy, is frequently utilized by enterprises to produce new products. There exist several critical factors determining its success, such as brand reputation and perceived fit. The present study adopts the event-related potentials (ERPs) method to explore the underlying neural mechanism of the joint influence of the two factors on consumers’ evaluation of brand extension. Specifically, consumers were presented with a brand with corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate ability (CA) reputation, following attached to an extension product (high fit vs. low fit). And then, they were given a 5-point scale to report their acceptance intention (AI) toward the brand extension. Behavioral data showed a higher AI and a shorter reaction time for high fit in contrast to low fit conditions. For low fit conditions, consumers were more inclined to accept the extension product with a brand with CSR than CA reputation. Neurophysiologically, CSR reputation evoked a larger P2 amplitude and LPP amplitude than CA reputation. Moreover, the low fit conditions elicited a more positive LPP amplitude than the high fit conditions in the context of a brand with a CSR reputation. Yet, for a brand with a CA reputation, the effect of perceived fit was not found. These results may reflect early attention resources engagement and altruistic motivation at the late stage during brand extension evaluation. The findings provided neurological evidence for which of the two types of brand reputation (CSR vs. CA) have a more positive effect on brand extension.

There is a connection between the frontal negative slow wave (FNSW) and the arousal inhibition in the hedonic purchase context. To calculate the FNSW (400–800 ms), event-related potentials (ERPs) method was applied to depict the neural substrates on prudent and impulsive consumers’ behaviors within various states of promotion. Promotion types include the pure price promotion and the mixed promotion (a mixture of a charitable donation and a discount). Behaviorally, consumers response more quickly in the pure price promotion condition and they express a preference for the mixed promotion. More importantly, a larger FNSW emerged in the impulsive consumers than the prudent, suggesting that the former might tend to control their eagerness to consume hedonic items. Compared with the price promotion as the worse option, the mixed promotion as the better option caused more perceptual conflict, leading to an increase in N2 amplitude. It suggests that consumers incline to reject the worse offers. These results also reveal that people primarily have to search negative promotion information by their insight and subsequently impulsive consumers inhibit the responses to the promotion information. The method of ERPs and FNSW should be helpful for marketing researchers and professionals on hedonic consumption and sales promotion.

Due to consuming hedonic products unnecessary to basic well-being, consumers need justifications for pleasure. However, different justifications have differential influences in promoting hedonic purchases, such as price and quantity promotions (PP and QP), the difference being that the latter requires purchasing additional units to get the same discount as the former. In the present study, even-related potentials (ERPs) was applied to reveal the timing of brain activities to further understand how promotion information consisting of promotion type (PP and QP) and discount depth, deep and shallow discounts (DD and SD) on hedonic products was processed. Behaviorally, consumers were more willing to purchase items in PP and DD conditions than QP and SD conditions, respectively, and spent more time making final purchase decisions in QP and DD condition or PP and SD condition compared to PP and DD condition. Neurophysiologically, DD automatically recruited more attentional resources than SD and led to a higher P2 amplitude. QP and DD condition or PP and SD condition evoked a larger N2 amplitude and enhanced perceptual conflict compared to PP and DD condition. During late stage, PP and DD elicited a more positive LPP amplitude in contrast to QP and SD, respectively, indicating that people have stronger purchase intention and positive affect in PP and DD contexts. These findings provided evidence for the differential influences between PP and QP and what ultimately made consumers buy hedonic products or not.

Sentiment contagion is similar to an infectious disease that spreads in a crowd. In this study, we extend the proposed SOSa-SPSa model (susceptible-optimistic-susceptible and susceptible-pessimistic-susceptible) by considering the interaction between optimists and pessimists. Simulation results show that our model is reasonable and can better explain the entire contagion process by considering three groups of people. The recovery speed of pessimists has an obvious regulative effect on the number of pessimists and the possibility of optimists coming in contact with pessimists to be infected as pessimism plays a greater role than that of reverting to susceptibility. The number of pessimists is positively related to the possibility that optimists come in contact with pessimists to become pessimistic but is negatively related to the possibility of the other way around. When the speed of spontaneous generation is slow, the number of pessimists sharply increases. However, the increase is not so apparent when the speed of spontaneous generation reaches a certain number.

Collaborative CAD systems enabling collaboration in computer-aided design processes among distributed designers are gaining more and more attention. Yet, such systems, especially in support of collaborative assembly modeling, are hardly achievable. In an effort to bridge this gap, we are dedicated to developing a collaborative CAD system with aim at 3D assembly modeling. As part of this effort, this paper addresses one function module of the system, a Web-based Product Structure Manager, which enables the Collaborative Product Structure Management (CPSM) in collaborative assembly modeling. In particular, CPSM facilitates product data sharing among distributed designers and supports collaboration in product structure creation and modification. A bench clamp assembly is used as an example to illustrate the Product Structure Manager for supporting collaborative assembly modeling.

This study recruited 148 lung cancer patients and 157 healthy Chinese individuals to evaluate the personality traits of Chinese lung cancer patients using the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire and to investigate the associations between these traits and the rs6090453C/G and rs6011914C/G polymorphisms of the neurotensin receptor 1 gene. The results demonstrated significant differences in the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire total and subscale scores between the 2 groups. Significant differences were found in the reward dependence 2 (RD2) score between the rs6090453C/G genotypes and in the total harm avoidance (HA), HA1, HA2, HA4, and RD2 scores between the rs6011914C/G genotypes. Thus, patients with lung cancer have specific personality traits, and variations in the neurotensin receptor 1 gene may be involved in the biological mechanisms of the HA and RD personality traits.

To investigate the grey correlation between psychological factors (personality, coping style and perceived social support) and adult posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and analyze the impact of various factors on the PTSD, we selected 120 outpatients of traffic accident from three-level of first-class hospitals in Shenyang, Liaoning province. All the patients were surveyed 90 days after the accidents for several questionnaires, including the PTSD checklist-civilian version (PCL-C), Eysenck personality questionnaire (EPQ) for adult, coping style questionnaire and perceived social support scale (PSSS). Our study reveals that Personality, coping style and social support all have significant impact on PTSD, and that in these important factors, all dimensions' grey correlation with PTSD are ordered as immaturity, neuroticism, psychoticism, mixed type, friend support, extroversion, other supports, family support, lie and maturity from high to low.

Collaborative CAD systems enabling collaboration in CAD among distributed designers are gaining more and more attention. Yet, such systems, especially in support of collaborative assembly modeling, are hardly achievable. In an effort to bridge this gap, we are dedicated to developing a collaborative CAD system with aim at 3D assembly modeling. As part of this effort, this paper addresses one function module of the system, a Web-based Product Structure Manager, that enables Collaborative Product Structure Management (CPSM) in collaborative assembly modeling. In particular, CPSM facilitates product data sharing among distributed designers and supports collaboration in product structure creation and modification. A bench clamp assembly is used as an example for the illustration of the Product Structure Manager in support of collaborative assembly modeling.Copyright © 2003 by ASME

A collaborative 3D viewer is the recent technology that allows geographically distributed designers to view and markup the same CAD model without the need of a specific CAD system. However, most of the currently available collaborative 3D viewers only enable asynchronous collaboration among distributed designers. This paper targets the development of a Web-based real-time collaborative 3D viewer, named GlobalView, which is designed to support synchronous collaboration. In particular, the 3-tier client-server system architecture of GlobalView is illustrated and the implementation details are described according to its two main units: GlobalView Server and GlobalView Client. Finally, an application scenario of the usage of GlobalView is also illustrated. This 3D viewer will serve as one function module in our collaborative CAD system dedicated to collaborative assembly modeling.Copyright © 2003 by ASME