Shopping

San Antonio -- A U.S. study determined product names with vowel sounds that convey positive attributes about the product are deemed more favorable by consumers.

Researchers Tina Lowrey and L.J. Shrum of the University of Texas-San Antonio created fictitious brand names that varied only by one vowel sound -- for example, nillen and nallen. They then varied product categories between small, fast, sharp objects -- such as knives or convertibles -- and products that are large, slow, and dull -- such as hammers and SUVs.

Study participants were asked to choose which word they thought was a better brand name. The researchers found participants overwhelmingly preferred words with front vowel sounds (nillen) when the product category was a convertible or a knife but preferred words with back vowel sounds (nallen) when the product category was an SUV or hammer.

London -- A U.S. study purports women are better grocery shoppers than men because evolution has honed their ability to find nourishing food.

The report by researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and Yale University, published in Britain's Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, said women call on their navigational skills when there is food to be found -- a skill probably honed on the African savanna, The Telegraph reported Wednesday.

Experiments conducted at a large farmers' market suggest the more nutritious the food, the more accurately it is remembered.

Researchers said memory for high-calorie foods such as honey and avocados was as much as four times as accurate as memory for low-calorie foods such as cucumber and lettuce, the British newspaper reported.