I found another interesting scientific article which goes into more detail:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070912130815.ht...

It suggests that the same effect can also be used with great success in brand names, not just prices.

This would be a much stronger finding if they had found any correlation between vowel sounds and the success/failure of actual brands, not just the perceived appeal of fantasy brand names. Does the fate of a brand really depend on what people think in the first five seconds after they hear the name without context? This is the same kind of thinking that makes Microsoft spend millions on compelling one-word domain names like Live or Bing, which haven't been hugely successful. In my opinion, brands are built through trust and reputation, and in comparison to that, any effect of vowel sounds is a rounding error.

You are probably right. There don't seem to be too many studies on this, and I totally agree that I would like to see a study based on real brand names. I just linked to the one study that I could find.

I think I am missing something here. People are told the initial price and a few minutes later the sale price and are asked to _estimate_ the savings as a percentage of the original? Are we this horribly bad at basic fourth grade math?

How would you do this correctly without a calculator?

You basically need to do a calculation like this in your head:

100*(3 - 2.33)/3 ≈ 22.33%

Gee, you're really realistic.

When I went out to dinner with my parents, none of the ten people over age 30 could calculate a 20% tip - much less the other way around.

Most people just do not do math outside the presence of a calculator, so those skills fade.

Yes, and that is an example of what I find to be sad. Also, I did try to emphasize "_should be_" in my comment. It is not realistic, it is what I personally consider to be "better" (basic math skills over reliance on a calculator).

Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself but it seems like a slippery slope to rely on a calculator for (subjectively) simple calculations. It leads to a "oh, someone else will figure this out for me" mentality.

A quick tip on how to calculate tips:

Finding 10% of an amount is easy. All you have to do is move the decimal point over one position to the left. For example if you had an $80 dinner, then 10% of that is $8. Just double that amount to find the 20% tip, in this case $16.

I think that with a little thought most people should be able to figure out these tricks, but you are right, most people don't bother and their skills fade.

In many experiments like this, people are asked to give an estimate immediately and without mentally calculating.

The researchers suggest "88" sounds "larger" in english. However, Wal-Mart often prefers prices ending in ".88" as a contrast to ".99" pricing, and an image of "low prices" is crucial to them. If this effect was exploitable, I'd expect Wal-Mart would be using it.

I wonder if verbalizing the number makes a difference - the article mentioned that they asked the test subjects to "repeat the sale price to themselves" instead of just looking at the price. (Even if they repeated it to themselves without saying the numbers out loud, it uses the same part of the brain.)