You see an advertisement for the "Fit-Gadget," an expensive new activity tracker that promises to help you "effortlessly remake
your life." The ad quotes one user who says that "Fit-Gadget has helped me lose twenty pounds" and another who says "Thank you, Fit-Gadget! I just won my first 10k!" What can you safely conclude about the effectiveness of this new activity tracker?
Nothing. Advertisements are not a valid source of scientific evidence since they are testimonials.
Explanation:
Testimonials are an important toll in marketing industry and are often used to show the efficacy of a product such as this "Fit-Gadget". It is not unusual to for people to base their decision on this testimonials even though they are not grounded in science. This factor, of not being based in scientific evidence discards them as a source of reliable evidence.
The explanation for the change is context-dependent learning.
Context-dependent learning refers to our tendency to remember information better when the context in which we learned it matches the context in which we recall it.
