The way of viewing ecological validity and its potential effects on consumer judgment has direct methodological implications. In the field of sensory and consumer sciences, studies examining the validity of contextualized experiments fall into two categories: those that address the issue of ecological validity as a whole (the experimental context consists of a combination of the environment and the task performed, and , (attempts to keep most of them as close to natural as possible) and those that focus on specific factors that are believed to impact the measurements and try to make them more ecologically sound Say no to plagiarism tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned" Get an original essayStudies that follow a global approach compare scores on food tastes and choices in different natural environments (restaurants, canteens, prisons) with those obtained in the laboratory or central location settings that show differences on hedonic scores. Such differences are usually related to the degree of discrimination between products – consumers are more discriminating in natural environments than in laboratory environments – or to higher scores in natural environments compared to those. laboratory. On the other hand, studies focused on contextual variables compare how adding contextual variables in controlled experiments can influence food liking and choice. We can first of all note that different classifications of contextual variables have been proposed: Rozin and Tuorila (1993) divide contextual variables into product and non-product variables and subdivide them into simultaneous and temporal contextual factors; Meiselman (1996) proposes to distinguish three categories of variables (the situation, the individual and the product); while Stroebele and De Castro (2004), divide the contextual variables into variables of social context, physical environment, characteristics related to time and distraction and/or television viewing. From these studies it is difficult to completely distinguish the various factors and isolate a specific context effect. The relevance of such contextual variables therefore remains unclear. To date, the lack of knowledge of the combined effects of these contextual variables on consumer responses compromises the ability to identify causal relationships through experimental approaches. In practice, a consequence of this is that test participants may not perceive the study context the way the researcher assumes they would. This calls into question the ecological validity as defined by Brofenbrenner. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay The problem seen as a whole would naturally lead to global changes in the test design, while dividing the context into separate variables would bring targeted improvements of the experimental setup, while keeping the rest of the task and the environment potentially non-ecological.