NEW YORK – According to Bloomberg Businessweek, retailers should be particularly excited for this week’s debut of Apple Pay, the new mobile payment service that will let iPhone users buy things by simply pulling out their device.

It’s no secret that shoppers spend more the further they get from handling actual currency, and tend to better remember cash transactions. These tendencies help explain why credit card balances tend to bloat and why casinos use chips in place of money. It’s also why companies such as Starbucks encourage customers to load money onto apps or prepaid cards.

According to Businessweek, behavioral economists have a term for this dynamic: decoupling. The card or app mentally separates the consumer from his bank account and the payment is both delayed and bundled with other charges so it doesn’t seem so painful. Citibank tested the research in 2009 and found a mobile “tap to pay” pilot program significantly boosted both the number and size of consumer transactions.

According to Businessweek, the question with Apple’s new payment service is whether it’s an additional degree of distance from credit cards or merely taking the well-established place of plastic in the psychology of shopping. Apple Pay doesn’t require any swiping or tapping, which seems to suggest a new level of abstraction. With a fingerprint on the iPhone button and a little wave at the cash register, the deal is done.

Some 220,000 stores are already set up to accept the payments, including Bloomingdale’s, Foot Locker, Macy’s, McDonald’s, PetSmart and Radio Shack.