Consumers everywhere are faced with the same dilemma: given limited resources, what sorts of purchases are most likely to produce lasting happiness and satisfaction? Recent research has confirmed that experiential purchases tend to produce greater hedonic   gains than material purchases. The reason why experiences improve with time may be because it is possible to think about experiences in a more abstract manner than possessions. For example, if you think back to a fantastic summer from your youth, you might easily remember an abstract sense of warm sunshine and youthful exuberant  , but you're less likely to remember exactly what you did day-by-day. Material possessions are harder to think about in an abstract sense. The car you bought is still a car, that great new jacket you picked up cheap is still just a jacket. It's more likely the experience of that summer has taken on a symbolic meaning that can live longer in your memory than a possession. Purchasing may have a negative impact on happiness because consumers often buy "joyless" material possessions, resulting in comfort but not pleasure. In general, people adapt to experiences more slowly than to material purchase. This can be seen in both negative and positive purchases: hedonic adaptation would result in a positive experience causing more happiness but a negative experience causing less happiness than the comparable material purchase with the same initial happiness level. Experience, however, seems to be more resistant to these sorts of unfavourable comparisons. It is because of the unique nature of experience. It's more difficult to make an unfavourable comparison when there is nothing directly comparable. After all, each of our youthful summers is different. It's well established that social comparisons can have a huge effect on how we view what might seem like positive events. One striking example is the finding that people prefer to earn $50,000 a year while everyone else earns $25,000, instead of earning $100,000 themselves and having other people earn $200,000. A similar effect is seen for possessions. When there are so many flat-screen HD TVs to choose from, it's easy to make unfavourable comparisons between our choice and the others available. An abstract sense in the passage refers to awareness of something   _  .
you cannot think about you can't remember well you cannot understand you cannot see or touch