We study the economic impact of perceptual limitations using experimental goods for which the difficulty of perceiving the difference between them can be manipulated by altering the similarity of their visual representation. In our first experiment, we found that subjects’ willingness-to-pay for goods became more similar when it was harder to discriminate between them. Building on this result, we ran a second experiment where the same experimental goods were traded in a market with heterogeneous buyer preferences and seller market power. Buyers were less likely to choose the option which maximises consumer surplus when discriminating between products was harder, and buyer payoffs were lower. We find indications that buyers used a different method of constructing their valuations in the market than in individual choice, and there was weak evidence that using different methods were beneficial for buyers. Seller prices and profits were not dependent on how easy it was for buyers to discriminate between goods.

我们使用实验商品研究感知限制的经济影响，通过改变它们的视觉表现的相似性，可以操纵感知它们之间差异的难度。在我们的第一个实验中，我们发现当更难区分时，受试者对商品的支付意愿变得更加相似。在此结果的基础上，我们进行了第二个实验，其中相同的实验商品在具有异质买方偏好和卖方市场力量的市场中进行交易。当区分产品更难时，购买者不太可能选择最大化消费者剩余的选项，并且购买者的回报更低。我们发现有迹象表明，与个人选择相比，买家在市场上使用了不同的方法来构建他们的估值，并且有微弱的证据表明使用不同的方法对买家有利。卖家的价格和利润并不取决于买家区分商品的难易程度。