From Bottom-Up to Top-Down in the Store Environment: Multisensuality Using the Example of Background Music

Consumers react to external stimuli they encounter in store environments, especially if they are unexpected, novel, or salient. Often, however, consumers do not go shopping purely driven by stimuli, but rather driven by goals. In this case, they selectively pay attention to those stimuli that presumably bring them closer to their consumption goals. With the knowledge of the mechanisms of this goal-oriented top-down perception, retailers can design their assortment and the store environment in such a way that they become relevant for certain target groups. In the further course it will be shown, using the example of background music, that stimulus perception does not refer to individual characteristic expressions of environmental stimuli in isolation, but that multisensuality – entirely in the sense of Gestalt psychology – is an interaction of sensory perceptions. Finally, recommendations for musical design at the POS are derived from various studies on the effect of music.