Scientific Question: Value-based decision-making is a central function of human cognition, yet consumer judgments are rarely formed on the basis of a single information source. In real marketplace settings, evaluations of products and brands usually emerge from the joint influence of long-term brand-related knowledge and immediate design-based cues. Previous studies have separately examined the effects of brand familiarity, product aesthetics, and neural valuation systems, but a unified account of how these heterogeneous inputs are combined into a coherent value judgment is still lacking. To address this gap, the present review asks how brand value decision-making can be understood as an inferential process in which prior brand knowledge and current design evidence are integrated.

Method: This study adopts a theoretical review design. Specifically, it employs Bayesian inference as a normative analytical framework to reorganize and synthesize previous findings from consumer neuroscience, value-based decision-making research, aesthetic cognition, and neurocomputational studies. Through an integrative analysis of these strands of literature, the article examines how brand-related knowledge and design-related cues may be incorporated into a unified account of value judgment. The review focuses on clarifying the computational logic underlying information integration and on identifying a plausible correspondence between theoretical constructs and existing neuroscientific evidence. By combining conceptual analysis with interdisciplinary literature synthesis, this study aims to provide a structured explanatory basis for understanding brand value decision-making from both computational and neural perspectives.

Results: This review yields three main findings. First, brand value judgment can be conceptualized as a Bayesian integration process in which long-term brand-related knowledge functions as prior information, current design cues serve as incoming evidence, and final value evaluation reflects a posterior estimate formed through uncertainty-weighted integration. Second, the review identifies a three-part framework of brand priors, design evidence, and value integration, which provides a coherent account of how heterogeneous information sources jointly shape consumer judgments. Third, the synthesized neuroscience literature suggests a plausible functional correspondence between these computational components and a distributed neural system. Brand priors are mainly associated with the medial prefrontal cortex and related reward pathways, design evidence processing involves the orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, occipito-parietal regions, and posterior middle temporal gyrus, whereas value integration is most closely linked to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex contributing to top-down weight regulation under conditions of conflict or goal-directed control.

Conclusion: Overall, this review suggests that Bayesian inference provides a coherent theoretical framework for understanding how brand-related knowledge and design-related cues are integrated in value judgment. Rather than treating brand experience and product design as separate influences, the proposed account emphasizes that consumer value evaluation emerges from the structured interaction between prior beliefs and incoming evidence. This perspective not only helps clarify the computational logic underlying brand value decision-making, but also offers a unified way to connect behavioral findings with their possible neural substrates. Although the current framework remains primarily conceptual and awaits further quantitative and causal validation, it provides a useful foundation for future research on the cognitive and neural mechanisms of consumer judgment.

Practical Implications: This framework provides practical implications for brand management, product design, and marketing communication. It indicates that consumer value judgment depends on the joint influence of accumulated brand knowledge and current design-related information. Accordingly, firms should not focus exclusively on either long-term brand equity or short-term design appeal, but should instead coordinate both sources of value in a systematic way. The framework also implies that the effectiveness of design strategies may differ across consumer groups and brand contexts, depending on the strength and certainty of prior brand beliefs. In this sense, the proposed account may contribute to more refined approaches to product positioning, consumer segmentation, and brand communication, while also offering a theoretical basis for applying consumer neuroscience to practical decision-making problems.