The Impact of Practice on Perception

Although there is emerging empirical evidence to support the central propositions of the human capital model (e.g., Johnson et al., 2003; Murray and H ubl, 2002), the research to date has not considered the impact of preference on consumers' perceptions of the product itself. Yet, it is natural to suspect that the increase in preference that corresponds with an increase in human capital also has an impact on the consumer's perceptions of the product, service or brand. In other words, it seems unlikely that the consumer acquires human capital that increases preference, but does not change the consumer's perceptions of the product.

For example, because skill acquisition generally increases product usability, to the extent that quality is correlated with usability the accumulation of human capital should affect perceptions of product quality. However, in addition to quality other important product perceptions may also be affected by experience with a product. These include perceptions of risk (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) and trustworthiness (Hoffman, Novak and Peralta, 1999). It is also possible that affective attachment to the product ranging from simple liking (Oliver, 1999) to an emotional attachment (Fournier, 1998) may develop as a result of repeated experience.