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Since the 18 April 2004, food products in the European Union that contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients must be labelled as such. Advocates claim that labelling will ensure that consumers have more complete information, enabling them to make more informed choices ([1] Conko, 2003). An important question is whether providing information about a certain product characteristic (e.g. labelling that the product is GM) affects people's perception of the food products. And if labelling does have an effect, does it lead to more reasoned choices? Our perception of the world around us depends on the interpretative concepts that we use in perceiving. [9] Kunda (1999, p. 17) uses the terms schema, concept and mental representation interchangeably. We will use the term "concept". When we encounter people, behaviours or objects, we classify them as instances of certain categories. For example, we do not see a round red object with a stalk, but we see an apple. Likewise, we do not see a man with a stethoscope, we see a doctor. Classification enables us to use our knowledge about categories and to make sense of individual members of the categories. For example, with the help of our knowledge about the concept "doctor" we can better understand the behaviour of the man with the stethoscope ([9] Kunda, 1999). This identification of an object belonging to a certain category leads to a process of inference; we know more about the object than we actually see.
Network
To understand how perception works, it is important to understand the way cognitive concepts are applied to stimuli and on what basis stimuli are distinguished (i.e. are categorized). Concepts are connected to each other in a network. According to modern cognitive theory ([14] Sternberg, 1996), innumerable concepts are interconnected to each other (e.g. the concept "fruit" is connected to "apple"). Connections between concepts differ in strength (e.g. the concept "fruit" has a stronger connection to "apple" than to "avocado"). Concepts become activated by being confronted with them or by actively thinking about them. Depending on the strength of different connections, activation of one concept will spread to other concepts. This is called the process of "spreading activation". A stronger connection facilitates information processing (e.g. that an apple is a kind of fruit). Because of...