Gestalt characteristics of experiences: the defining features of summarized events
✍ Scribed by Dan Ariely; Ziv Carmon
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 136 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0894-3257
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In this paper we take stock of recent research on how people summarize and evaluate extended experiences. Summary assessments do not simply integrate all the components of the evaluated events, but tend to focus on only a few features (gestalt characteristics). Examples of these de®ning features include the rate at which the transient state components of the experience become more or less pleasant over its duration, and the intensity of the state at key instances, in particular the most intense ( peak) and the ®nal (end ) moments. It is not yet suciently clear which speci®c gestalt characteristics dominate summary assessments of experiences, nor how this diers across types of experiences or measurement approaches. To address some of these issues, we describe new research in this area, discuss potential methodological diculties, and suggest directions for future research.