This article examines how elaborating on prior experiences influences
attribute importance. The first experiment shows that elaboration on u
sage experiences increases the importance of attributes related to pro
duct consumption, whereas elaboration on purchase experiences increase
s the importance of attributes related to the purchase transaction, su
ch as price and brand name. The second experiment examines whether ela
boration on prior experiences, through increased accessibility of purc
hase criteria in memory, reduces a common context effect, Results show
that subjects who elaborate on past experiences are less influenced b
y framing in the external context (i.e., listing some features and not
others in the brand descriptions), relative to subjects who do not el
aborate. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.