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Bias from reading reviews?

post #1 of 11
12/6/11 at 12:07am
Thread Starter 

I don't know if such a topic exists or has already been debated. Please delete if so. 

 

What do you think?

 

Say a well-regarded reviewer gives an average-measuring headphone glowing reviews, will reading it introduce a bias so heavy (?) that it affects your own judgement of how good or bad the headphone sounds? We have all heard or read about how expectation bias plays a part in influencing your reviews of amplifiers, cables, but what about headphones? 

 

 

 

 

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post #2 of 11
12/6/11 at 2:44am

A five star award from What Hifi will boost sales. Then you get flavour of the month products such as Silver High Breed cables and ATM-50 headphones on forums which must also boost sales.

 

I am sure there are studies into such effects, time for some research......bigsmile_face.gif

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post #3 of 11
12/6/11 at 2:50am

Here is a start and it is not what I was expecting

 

http://blog.mikezhang.com/files/gamereviews.pdf

 

"Our research provides a potential positive reconciliation of the mixed results from previous
studies. For instance, Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006) examine book sales at Amazon.com and
find that online reviews influence book sales, while Chen et al. (2004), using a similar data set
from Amazon.com, find the opposite. Similarly, in the context of the movie industry, Zhang
and Dellarocas (2006) find that online reviews influence box-office sales but Duan et al. (2008)
find the opposite. Researchers have not been able to reconcile the stark differences in results
and have instead attributed them to methodological shortcomings. For example, Duan et al.
(2008) point out that the mixed finding could result from the fact that researchers conduct
their analyses in a cross-sectional context and do not control for unobserved differences in
product quality. Our study suggests that data sets with a different mix of product types,
even for the same product category, could lead to different conclusions."

 

So a good review from a respected source is no gurantee of success. There are other factors including, importantly the quality of the actual product. So a good review of a medium product will not necessarily guarantee better sales.

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post #4 of 11
12/6/11 at 3:09am
Thread Starter 

Nah, I'm not talking better sales. 

 

I'm talking about the actual quality of the product itself.

 

If someone well-respected posted a very good review of an average product, will the expectation bias affect how you evaluate the product or is it negligible? Say, the Vmoda M-80. I just read a short one-liner from a fellow Head-Fier about how good the M80s were. According to him, Jude also gave positive remarks.

 

So how much of this is actually his hearing, and how much of it is bias? If the reviewer said that they sounded a lot like Beats (which are very much hated around here), would that fellow head-fier heard differently? Or would it not affect the results at all? In hindsight, maybe I should've posted this in a psychology board, rather than Head-Fi's Sound Science section. 

 

 


Edited by Blue Boat - 12/6/11 at 3:11am
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post #5 of 11
12/6/11 at 3:30am

Well the quality of the product is a constant and there is a lot of evidence to show how a product's reviews affects people's perception of it.

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post #6 of 11
12/10/11 at 1:49pm

[edited for brevity]


Edited by AiDee - 12/12/11 at 12:11am
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post #7 of 11
12/11/11 at 11:20am

Just my 2 cents. Whenever I review anything, I never set any expectations. I listen to what I a hearing and then review it.

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post #8 of 11
12/11/11 at 11:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Austin Morrow View Post

Just my 2 cents. Whenever I review anything, I never set any expectations. I listen to what I a hearing and then review it.


You don't think you're setting expectations, anyway. The danger of this sort of thing is it works subconsciously.

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post #9 of 11
12/11/11 at 11:31am


 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Head Injury View Post


You don't think you're setting expectations, anyway. The danger of this sort of thing is it works subconsciously.



Alright, I'll agree with you there. But I surely don't do this. "Hey, that Apex Peak looks might fine, it must be awesome".

 

It does work subconsciously, and while I have had a few "bummers", it doesn't take away from the fact that you always have to be honest. If something sucks, even if it's expensive, super high end, and I get it as a free sample, then I will say it absolutely sucks.

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post #10 of 11
12/11/11 at 11:50am

Of course there's a bias, and no, it's not going to be the dominating effect when there's very strong evidence to the contrary.

 

The question being asked was about the severity of the effect.

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post #11 of 11
12/11/11 at 12:19pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeaj View Post

Of course there's a bias, and no, it's not going to be the dominating effect when there's very strong evidence to the contrary.

 

The question being asked was about the severity of the effect.


Like graphs/charts?

 

What if the measurements have not been published yet? 

 

Would the bias from reading a glowing review have much effect on your own perception of the audio gear in question? 

 

(Like in FOTM threads)

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