  We present a graph-theoretic model of consumer choice, where final decisions
are shown to be influenced by information and knowledge, in the form of
individual awareness, discriminating ability, and perception of market
structure. Building upon the distance-based Hotelling's differentiation idea,
we describe the behavioral experience of several prototypes of consumers, who
walk a hypothetical cognitive path in an attempt to maximize their
satisfaction. Our simulations show that even consumers endowed with a small
amount of information and knowledge may reach a very high level of utility. On
the other hand, complete ignorance negatively affects the whole consumption
process. In addition, rather unexpectedly, a random walk on the graph reveals
to be a winning strategy, below a minimal threshold of information and
knowledge.
