Liisa Uusitalo

The Impact of Salient Advertisements on Reading and Attention on Web Pages

Human vision is sensitive to salient features such as motion. Therefore, animation and onset of advertisements on Websites may attract visual attention and disrupt reading. We conducted three eye tracking experiments with authentic Web pages to assess whether (a) ads are efficiently ignored, (b) ads attract overt visual attention and disrupt reading, or (c) ads are covertly attended with distraction showing up indirectly in the reading performance. The Web pages contained an ad above a central text and another ad to the right of the text. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3A the task was to read for comprehension. Experiment 1 examined whether the degree of animation affects attention toward the ads. The results showed that ads were overtly attended during reading and that the dwell times on ads were the longest when the ad above was static and the other ad was animated. In Experiments 2 and 3, the ads appeared abruptly after a random time interval. The results showed that attention (i.e., the time when the eyes first entered an ad) was related to the ad onset time. This happened especially for the ad to the right, indicating that ads appearing close to the text region capture overt attention. In Experiment 3B the participants browsed the Web pages according to their own interest. The study demonstrated that salient ads attract overt visual attention and disrupt reading, but during free browsing, ads were viewed more frequently and for longer time than during reading.

Explaining attitudes towards the euro: Design of a cross-national study

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to provide essential background material relating to the accom-panying papers in this special issue. It presents a brief description of the ‘Psychology of theEuropean Monetary Union’ project. This involved a questionnaire study of attitudes towardsthe euro, which was fielded in each of the 15 member states of the European Union in thesummer of 1997. We describe the development of the common survey instrument, and outlinethe rationale and methods pursued in sampling particular conceptual domains. The paper alsodetails the sampling procedures used in each country, together with the response rates andsample sizes attained. Finally, it o•ers a brief cross-national comparison of overall attitudes tothe euro. O 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.PsycINFO classification: 2229; 3920JEL classification: D63; D84; E52; F33Keywords: Control; Currency; Euro; Expectations; Equity; European union; Economic andmonetary union; Money; National identity; Satisfaction; Values

Economic Man or Social Man — Exploring Free Riding in the Production of Collective Goods

The paper takes up the conflict between expressed preferences for collective goods, such as environmental quality, and actual behaviour in society. In discussing possible reasons for this attitude-behaviour inconsistency found in empirical studies, a distinction is made between preferences and choices.

Environmental Impact of Changes in Consumption Styles

This article examines the environmental impacts of modernizing consumption styles in six European nations, the USA and aggregates for all European community countries. Modernizing consumption decreases home production of consumable goods and services while increasing market efficiency through purchase and home storage of time-labor saving products. However modernizing consumption also results in raising environmental impacts as measured by the amount and composition of post-consumption waste, the amount and composition of energy use, and pollution and resource depletion. Qualitative changes in consumption styles resulting from enrichment as well as modernization argue for recycling, demanufacturing, demarketing, and reorientation of marketing goals to mitigate the negative environment impacts of modernized consumption measured in this article.

Determinants of gasoline consumption

Abstract The article presents a model and empirical results concerning the effects that different factors have on gasoline consumption. Car ownership and driving intensity are considered as intervening life style factors in a recursive model explaining total gasoline consumption. The estimates are based on a logarithmic model. The data consist of time series from the years 1970–1979 of several European countries and the United States. Income elasticities were estimated for car stock and total gasoline consumption and price elasticities for driving intensity and total gasoline consumption. A dynamic specified model was used for exploring the effects of different pricing policies by simulation. Long-term forecasts were made under alternative assumptions about the income growth [1]. The results show that only regular cumulative increases in real gasoline prices are effective in reducing the driving intensity. However, the effect of price on total gasoline consumption still remains limited, because even at very moderate income growth rates the growth of the car stock exceeds the impact of the price. In an energy saving policy, then, also different policies affecting the car stock variable should be given more attention.

European Integration: A Consumer Perspective

This paper deals with those effects of European integration that are reflected in the lives of European consumers. The aim is to categorize these effects and to see how they affect consumer welfare in a typical European country. The data base is formed by a qualitative analysis of personal expert interviews and literature. It was found that the economic effects of integration have been greatly overestimated and simplified in consumer studies of integration in the past. Moreover, from a consumer’s point of view, European integration is increasingly a question of consumer policy and welfare, including environmental and cultural issues, rather than a question of competition and prices only.