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Despite the growing importance of visual information, user-generated photos in product reviews have received relatively little attention. We investigate whether the contextual background of a product image can influence consumers' perceptions of review helpfulness and product evaluation.

Online experiments were conducted using a scenario technique. A single factor (contextual background: low vs. high) between-subjects design was conducted in Study 1. A 2 (contextual background: low vs. high) × 2 (mental simulation: outcome vs. process) between-subjects design was conducted in Study 2.

A photo with a high (vs. low) contextual background enhances mental imagery, increasing perceived helpfulness and product evaluation. Furthermore, mental simulation plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between contextual background and mental imagery.

Based on cue utilization theory, this study identifies how the contextual background of product images affects consumers' perception and product evaluation by uncovering the underlying mechanism of mental imagery. Furthermore, the research examines the moderating effect of mental simulation while reviewing user-generated photos.

The objective of this study was to examine the effects of human model backgrounds (concrete backgrounds vs. solid backgrounds) on consumer responses (attention and attitude) and to determine the mechanism and boundary conditions behind such effects.

The research consisted of one eye-tracking experiment and two experimental studies.

The results showed that consumers notice faster and pay more attention to the central figure against solid backgrounds. However, concrete backgrounds elicit more favorable attitudes toward products, and mental imagery mediates the effects of image backgrounds on consumers' attitudes. The authors also found that the situation moderates the relationship between image background and attitude.

The study also supplements the literature on the effects of image backgrounds on consumer responses and the literature on online presentation using human models. Last, the study combines questionnaires with an eye-tracking experiment to obtain a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of the results.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of web-surfers’ conative reactions to websites’ dominant hue by taking into account mental imagery’s role.

A conceptual model considering mental imagery as a mediator of web-surfers conative reactions to websites’ dominant hue was tested. It also supposes that mental imagery promoted by websites’ dominant hue is moderated by web-surfers’ involvement towards the product sold. To validate this model, an online experiment was conducted with a sample of 400 web-surfers.

Results reflect the importance of “vividness/clarity” and “valence” dimensions of mental imagery. In fact, hues congruent with the website’s content seem to be more able to generate vivid and positive mental images which affect positively web-surfers’ conative reactions. However, this relationship is reversed when web-surfers are strongly involved with the product sold.

Although this study focused on a particular product category, the obtained results can help the research community to understand better conative reactions of web-surfers to websites’ dominant hue through the consideration of mental imagery’s role.

Findings can help managers to better the performance of their commercial websites through the choice of the adequate background hue.

This study highlights the importance of mental imagery prompted by dominant website’s hue taking into account its congruence degree with the website’s content. It provides empirical evidence about its mediating role.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of visual and verbal information presentations on mental imagery, perceived informativeness and purchase intention. The study assesses two types of product-related information: (1) visual information: static product images and augmented reality (AR) and (2) verbal information: abstract and concrete product reviews.

A total of 320 mobile consumers participated in the experiment. To increase external validity, this study was conducted in an existing digital shopping environment.

The results suggest that AR has a greater effect on consumers' shopping outcomes than static images. The findings further reveal that concrete product reviews are important in increasing mental imagery, perceived informativeness and purchase intention when visual information does not provide an AR function.

This study contributes to the current literature by providing empirical support for AR effects and concrete reviews on consumer responses. The results further provide an important perspective for retailers seeking ways to develop effective information presentations in digital retailing.

This paper aims to interpret the workers’ perception of combined cycle power plants through visual qualities.

In this qualitative research landscape image, the sketching technique is applied as a data collection method to extract participants’ mental images by asking them to draw sketches. The resulted sketches besides obtained verbal and written data were analyzed and coded in three stages to explain the workers’ perception. Visual qualities were studied as a mean which made it possible to interpret the workers’ perception of their workplace.

Careful analysis of the gathered data and the emerged concepts via open coding identify four axial categories of the concepts forming the workers’ perception of the power plants: “inconsistency with nature,” “emphasis on function and product,” “health and environmental threats” and “interpretation of the built form as a mass instead of space.” These four categories support the core category of the proposed theory which is “perceiving building as the machine.” This phrase explains how workers perceive power plants as machines, not as supportive and lively environments. This is followed by consequences, “precedence of building over human” is prominent among them.

In the relevant body of literature, visual impact and visual perception of conventional thermal power plants are largely missed, as well as visual relation to environment focusing on a single building or groups of adjacent buildings. This paper covers both areas via asking for sketches as a data collection method, in addition, to interview the participants to clarify their mental image of the work environment.

The symbolic presentation of products through images in online environments allows consumers to use or experience products only through imagination. Existing literature has demonstrated that providing sensory cues is an effective way to promote imaginative use or experience. However, such an approach seems to have been proposed for product that requires the use of body-related information (e.g. sensory information) for evaluation (high body-involving product). There is less literature on how to facilitate consumers’ imaginative use of product that requires relatively less bodily information (low body-involving product). Considering this, this research proposes a factor that influences the imaginative use of both high and low body-involving products, the character cues in the product image.

In this paper, two studies are conducted to verify the matching effect about presence or absence of character cues with product type (high body-involving vs. low body-involving) in facilitating imaginative use and the downstream effect.

The experimental results indicate that high (low) body-involving product display images are suitable for present (absent) character cues, which can promote the mental imagery of use the product, increase perceived image attractiveness and ultimately increase purchase intentions. The research also verified the influence of distance between the product and the character cues on the above effects.

We expand on the importance of character cues in product display images in an e-commerce environment and enrich the research about imaginative use in online environment.

As innovations introduce novel benefits to customers, they would need to be positioned in a way that sets them apart in the market. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel approach for the positioning of innovations with the use of the customer imagination and, specifically, mental movies.

Using the schema approach as this study’s theoretical framework, the author proposes that innovations could be positioned using moving pictures (i.e. mental movies) instead of mental pictures (the approach traditionally taken).

A new conceptual framework for the positioning of innovations using mental movies is presented. In the framework, this study outlines how innovations can be positioned with the use of mental movies, and why such an approach would be beneficial. The framework outlines mixed reality, i.e. augmented reality, augmented virtuality and virtuality, as well as the metaverse and gaming as avenues for positioning innovations using mental movies. On the benefit side, the framework identifies successful market introductions, engagement and stickiness, memorability and positive emotions, uniqueness and differentiation and market share as the concrete benefits that can be achieved with this type of positioning.

The framework provides a novel approach for the positioning of innovations. It departs from existing literature by proposing that innovations can be positioned using mental movies. The framework also identifies why this approach would be beneficial for marketers and managers and provides concrete guidelines for how such a positioning can be achieved in the market.

This research analyzes how the dimensions of the customer experience derived from using a digital kiosk during the store visit influence shopping value, self-mental imagery and the behavioral intentions of buying and word of mouth. Mediation effects of utilitarian, hedonic and social shopping values are examined, as well as the mediating effect of self-mental imagery.

Two empirical studies were conducted to test the research hypotheses. A first analysis was carried out using a sample of 115 customers from several retail sectors. For the second study, 200 customers of one of the largest international sporting goods retailers were interviewed immediately after their store visit.

The results confirm significant influences of each dimension of the digital kiosk customer experience (sensorial, pragmatic, cognitive, social) on shopping value and self-mental imagery. They highlight strongest effects as well as the quasi-generalized mediating role of these values, and this self-mental imagery in the relations between the components of the experience and the behavioral intentions.

The studies were carried out in only one country (France). It would be also useful to consider variations in shopping motives and in involvement between retail sectors. Highlighted relationships should be deepened by experiments intended to identify the psychological mechanisms and emotions capable of mediating influences of customer experience on shopping value.

The results encourage both advice on the design of digital kiosks and the specifications of their content and several recommendations about the widespread introduction of kiosks or similar new technologies.

This research highlights influences of each of components of customer experience when using an interactive kiosk on shopping values and self-mental imagery, and central roles of these in understanding influences of the customer experience on behavioral responses.

Effective organisational learning is critical in today’s turbulent business conditions, and for this to occur, an organisation requires an effective means of storing and transferring knowledge and learning between individuals and the organisation as a whole. Reviews two large disparate streams of research, concerning the concepts of mental models and cognitive maps, each of which has been posited as a potential mechanism for the storage and transfer of knowledge within an organisation. Confusion exists between the application of the two terms in studies of organisation, and both concepts suffer from a lack of clarity in their definition. Identifies major similarities and differences, and potential synergies that exist between mental models and cognitive maps, outlines their heuristic value, and identifies how they can be used together to further our understanding of organisational learning.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of suicide-related mental imagery in suicidal behavior. It was hypothesized that greater frequency and vividness of suicide-related imagery would be associated with more suicidal behaviors, and acquired capability for suicide was expected to mediate this relationship. Hypotheses were tested by surveying 237 undergraduate students (59 percent female; mean age=20) who completed self-report measures that assessed suicidal cognitions, acquired capability for suicide, and history of self-harm behaviors.

Hypotheses were tested by surveying 237 undergraduate students (59 percent female; mean age=20) who completed self-report measures that assessed suicidal cognitions, acquired capability for suicide, and history of self-harm behaviors.

Results suggested that frequency and vividness of suicide-related imagery were positively correlated with suicidality. Acquired capability was not related to study variables; thus additional mediational analysis was unwarranted.

Few studies have examined suicidal imagery and how it relates to actual self-harm behavior. The current study provides an exploratory view of features of imagery related to suicidal thoughts; findings imply that understanding mental imagery may play an important role in clinical risk assessment and treatment for suicidality.