Rachel L. Bailey

How Avatar Customizability Affects Children's Arousal and Subjective Presence During Junk Food–Sponsored Online Video Games

The purpose of this study was to determine how children cognitively and emotionally process interactive marketing of snack food products in advergames. Children (N = 30) aged 10 to 12 were asked to play advergames with (a) avatars that were assigned to them, (b) avatars chosen from a pool, and (c) self-designed avatars. The childrens skin conductance levels were collected during play. After gameplay, at each customization level, self-reported presence was collected. The results of this study indicate that customization of game avatars can affect both subjective feelings of presence and psychophysiological indicators of emotion during gameplay, which may make the gameplay experience more enjoyable. This may have implications for game sponsors and producers. Self-reported presence had no effect on psychophysiological indicators of emotion during gameplay. Implications of this finding and limitations of this study are discussed.

Effects of Emotional Tone and Visual Complexity on Processing Health Information in Prescription Drug Advertising

This experiment explored how the emotional tone and visual complexity of direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertisements affect the encoding and storage of specific risk and benefit statements about each of the drugs in question. Results are interpreted under the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing framework. Findings suggest that DTC drug ads should be pleasantly toned and high in visual complexity in order to maximize encoding and storage of risk and benefit information.

Conceptualizing Audio Message Complexity as Available Processing Resources

This article describes and validates a human-centric measure of audio message complexity. Messages are coded in terms of the level of cognitive resources that would be automatically elicited and required to process the message. Indicators of automatic resources elicited come from counting the orienting eliciting audio content changes in radio messages (Acc). The indicator of resources required comes from counting the dimensions of audio information introduced (Aii) by these content changes. The combination produces an indicator of available resources that serves as the complexity variable. Messages high in available resources are low in complexity; messages low in available resources are high in complexity. Two experiments are presented exploring the empirical validity of the measures as both local (moment to moment) and global (message level) operationalizations of complexity. Results suggest the measures have high construct validity.

Processing Food Advertisements: Initial Biological Responses Matter

Food is a primary biological motivator and elicits automatic approach and consumption responses. How directly food is portrayed may alter these responses and, as a result, influence how food ads, brands and products are evaluated. This paper presents two experiments that examine how the portrayal of food in food advertisements can alter its motivational appeal, and as such, alter dynamic appetitive responses and later evaluations. The ads in this study differed in how they were produced. Some ads initially portrayed food as very appetizing and ready-to-eat while others initially portrayed foods in their packaging and not ready-to-eat. In general, results support that unpackaged food is more directly appetitive, showing better physiological appetitive responses and better attitudinal evaluations overall.

The Influence of Message and Audience Characteristics on TV News Grazing Behavior

This study examined television news channel changing (AKA grazing, zapping) behavior by focusing on the viewing duration and attention paid to stories that varied in sensational content and packaging. These two message-related factors had independent and interactive effects on how long grazers stayed tuned to a channel. Moreover, high sensation seekers, who were more avid news consumers in everyday life, exhibited different viewing and attentional patterns compared to low sensation seekers. While arousing television news was the most watched by all, high sensation seekers unexpectedly showed less preference for sensational tabloid packaging of arousing content than low sensation seekers.

Clash of the Primary Motivations: Motivated Processing of Emotionally Experienced Content in Fear Appeals About Obesity Prevention

ABSTRACT This study examined individuals’ physiological and cognitive responses to different types of emotionally experienced content located in obesity prevention fear appeals. Results suggested that experienced valence impacted individuals’ attention and memory as a function of experienced arousal level. Local content that created coactive highly arousing experiences received the most attention, though visual recognition suggested these messages were more difficult to encode. Local content that created negative moderately arousing experiences was best encoded. Global message evaluation data suggest that moderately arousing messages with a change in experienced valence may prove to be most effective, as they ensure attention and good memory while keeping high self-reported interest, and a high level of perceived severity of obesity. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Influencing Eating Choices: Biological Food Cues in Advertising and Packaging Alter Trajectories of Decision Making and Behavior

ABSTRACT From an ecological perception perspective (Gibson, 1977), the availability of perceptual information alters what behaviors are more and less likely at different times. This study examines how perceptual information delivered in food advertisements and packaging alters the time course of information processing and decision making. Participants categorized images of food that varied in information delivered in terms of color, glossiness, and texture (e.g., food cues) before and after being exposed to a set of advertisements that also varied in this way. In general, items with more direct cues enhanced appetitive motivational processes, especially if they were also advertised with direct food cues. Individuals also chose to eat products that were packaged with more available direct food cues compared to opaque packaging.

A Comparative Analysis of Dynamic and Static Indicators of Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Nervous System Activation During TV Viewing

The goal of this paper is to examine the relative validity of a set of psychophysiological measures as psychological correlates of attention and arousal when watching moving audio/visual messages. To do this, participants watched film clips selected to vary on three media variables known to influence both attention and arousal: structural pacing (slow or fast), valence of emotion (pleasant, unpleasant), and level of arousing content (calm, arousing). Heart rate and skin conductance were measured time-locked to the presentation of each film clip. A variety of analysis techniques for each of these measures, some dynamic and some static, were compared with one another on their ability to perform in a manner suggested by general theoretical predictions. Strengths and weaknesses of each measure are identified based on these comparisons and recommendations about best practices are made.

Modulating executive functioning: Trait motivational reactivity and resting HRV

This study assessed relationships among individual differences in trait motivational reactivity, executive functioning, and neurovisceral regulation of emotion and attention indexed via resting heart rate variability (rHRV). We derived predictions regarding these relationships according to neurovisceral neural network theory. Because lower rHRV has been suggested as an endophenotype of less adaptive behaviour, low rHRV individuals were predicted to have high aversive and low appetitive trait motivational reactivity, while high rHRV individuals were predicted to have high reactivity in both appetitive and aversive motivational systems. These predictions were supported. Motivational reactivity also was related to executive functioning deficits, although the pattern of results was not in the predicted direction. Results suggest that trait motivational reactivity scores are related to visceral responses proposed in the neurovisceral integration circuit as well as in the modulation of these responses by higher-order cognitive control systems related to executive function.

Effects of Substance Cues in Negative Public Service Announcements on Cognitive Processing

ABSTRACT This study examined how the presence of substance cues interacted with arousing content level in public service announcements (PSAs) to affect human motivational activation, and as a result, affect cognitive information processing. A 2 (arousing content level: high vs. low arousing content fear appeal PSAs) × 2 (substance cue: absence vs. presence) × 4 (repetition) within-subject factorial design experiment was conducted. Overall, the results indicated that the presence of substance cues in high arousing content fear appeal messages elicited defensive processing, yielding poor audio recognition memory sensitivity and a more conservative criterion bias. However, the addition of substance cues to low arousing content fear appeal messages increased audio recognition sensitivity. The presence of substance cues decreased visual recognition regardless of the arousing content level. Implications and future research are discussed.