With increasing familiarity, we mak

With increasing familiarity, we make associations between the identity of a particular object and other conceptual associations held in the mind. For example we may think that chocolate is ‘com- forting’, ‘fattening’, ‘will help me to relax’, ‘is a treat’ and so forth. Some of these conceptual associations are learned from external sources (including marketing, advertising and hearsay) and some are based on internal experiences. The notion of being comforting, fattening, relaxing, a treat are all conceptualisations; i.e. construc- tions created in the mind that allow us to interpret, understand and otherwise assign meaning to what we experience.
Inevitably, the identity of the object (‘it’s chocolate’) and the associated conceptualisations (‘it’s comforting’, ‘it’s fattening’, ‘it’s relaxing’, ‘it’s a treat’) coalesce and become as-one in the mind of the individual. This means that when we experience a product, we don’t just react to the product itself but also to the associated