Piper consumes Ragu spaghetti sauce exclusively. She claims that there is a clear taste difference and that competing brands of spaghetti sauce leave an unsavory taste in her mouth. However, in a blind taste test, Piper is found to prefer generic store-brand spaghetti sauce to Ragu spaghetti sauce eight out of ten times. The results of Piper's taste test would reinforce claims by critics of brand

names that
a. consumers are always willing to pay more for brand names.
b. brand names cause consumers to perceive differences that do not really exist.
c. brand names are always preferred to generics.
d. consumers are only willing to buy generics if they are less expensive.

b