Lecture 3 Flashcards
attention
the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought
selective attention
what we focus on
why do we have attention?
- navigate complex environments
- limited cognitive resources (brain signaling, limited actions)
- focus on important information
- supress distracting information
selective attention: top-down vs bottom-up attention
- voluntary vs involuntary
- goal directed vs salience
- endogenous vs exogenous
- controlled vs automatic
- directed vs captured
impacts on bottom-up attention
- color/contrast
- movement
- size/position
- visual clutter
- complexity
- threat
- emotional valence
impacts on top-down attention
- strength of goal/motivation
- incentives/task instructions
- stakes
- risks
- predictability/familiarity of environment
- mood
cocktail party effect
- selectively focus on one conversation
- still processing surrounding voices, gender of voices
- not processing content/language
- may hear name even if not attending
early vs late selection and memory
attention economy
- attention is a scarce resource (bounded rationality)
- many agents compete for attention
- breaking through clutter becomes more difficult
- attention is monetized, as capturing attention offers opportunity for persuasion
- you pay for ‘free’ products with attention
individual and societal consequences of attention economy
- more tailored media options, more ways to connect, more free services, better attentional capture
- social media and potentially reduced well-being, political polarization, spread of misinformation
- how well does attention (clicks, likes) align with preferences, long-term goals, and interests?
stages of acquiring and processing information
- pre-attentive scanning: scanning environment, awareness
- focal attention: focus on some information; filter out others
- evaluation: understanding and interpreting information, linking attention and memory
pre-attentive scanning
- general, non-goal-directed surveillance of the environment, at the fringe of consciousness
- perceptual features (colors, lines)
- semantic features (concepts, meaning)
emotions - hedonic fluency
hedonic fluency
easier processing/understanding/responding is pleasant -> higher evaluations and better attitudes towards things
- misattribute pleasantness of processing ease to stimulus itself
- amplification of existing tendencies
- perceptual (e.g. easy to read font, closer) and conceptual (meaning, associations)
familiarity leads to easier processing (mere exposure, repetition)
- more repetitive songs more likley to reach top 100 charts
goal fluency
sequences activating similar goals
- asking about intentions before behavior increases likelihood of behavior “question-behavior effect” in health behaviors
focal attention
focus on certain information in short-term (working) memory, top-down, and bottom-up influences
- features that attract attention:
- salience/novelty: contrast to environment, surprise
- vividness: attention grabbing properties (e.g. emotionally interesting, concrete)
focal attention in packaging
- health and sustainability labels are less central, smaller, and less salient than brand, picture, and logo
- bottom-up features predict fixation patterns during choice
vividness
- emotional (e.g. fear)
- concrete, image-provoking
- temporally or spatially proximate
- features x individual differences (product type, format of delivery, goals of consumer)
Fennis, Das, and Fransen (2012)
tested vividness, product type, and individual differences in imagery on brand ratings
- for the frying pan (functional), only individuals high in imagery respond more to vividness
- for the champagne (experiential), all respond more to vividness
salience/novelty
- contrast with environment
- cut through ‘advertising clutter’
- stronger for lower processing motivation/involvement
- may protect from reduction in attention to familiar items
familiarity/repetition
- famailiarity can increase processing fluency, leading to increased brand attitudes
- too much repetition can lead to annoyance, reducing brand attitudes
- longer-term, annoyance fades but repetition leads to increased brand memory
strategies to attract attention to advertising
humor and sex
- can attract attention
- can distract from the part of the ad that is unrelated to the humor/sex (e.g. brand)
- humor is pleasant, which becomes associated with the brand
- congrunce between sex appeal and ad may matter
- sex and violence do not sell
is it only humor and sex?
- salience, vividness, novelty
- involvement
- room for discovery
evaluation
categorization and understanding claims
- illusory truth effect
- connecting information presented to existing memories, knowledge, self-schema, etc.
categorization
- enables inferences
- classify product based on: products attributes, brand, product usage
- brand extensions: new product within product line
- congruence or “fit” with parent brand, associations with brand, prior knowledge, involvement
typicality and the pioneering advantage
- prototypical products are more liked, but less salient, reducing attention
- pioneering advantage: first product in a category has novelty, leading to deeper processing and more extreme evaluations
- new product becomes ‘prototypical’ to which others are compared, focus on attributes brand does best
assimilation and contrast
- assimilation: overestimate similarity within category
- contrast: overestimate differences between categories
- parent category associations impact product and vice versa product reflects on parent brand
- balance between novelty and clear link (moderate dissimilarity)
illusory truth effect
repetition of an ambiguous message increases acceptance, belief over time, sharing intentions
- trivia, misinformation, political speech, health information, contradictory information (after delay)
- NOT opinions
Bless & Wänke (2000)
saw a list of 10 TV shoes and had to pick 2 from the graph
- then rate overall quality of shows in list on 1-9 scale
- ‘typical’ shows -> assimilation
- ‘atypical’ shows -> contrast
Skurnik et al. (2025)
participants see health claims, whether they are true or false, 1x or 3x
- after 30 mins or 3 days, participants see new and old statements and categorize as true, false, or new
results show:
- delay reduces accuracy generally
- misremember false as true more than reverse (true is ‘default’)
older adults more likely to misremember for repetition and delay
Henkel & Mattson (2011)
statements repeated 3x as truer than statements seen once
- familiarity -> illusion of truth
- source reliability doesn’t matter
- 1/3 remember source reliability after delay
misleading claims
- rely on inferences beyond literal statements
- literally true, but imply something different
- omit information
- juxtaposition
- reverse cause and effect
self-schema
traits, values, and beliefs about self, how you think of yourself
- guides attention, information processing
- higher motivation to process information congruent with self-schema (amplifying effect)
meta-cognition: thinking about thinking
thinking about other’s motives, credibility (skepticism, resistance)
- thinking about our own inner states or thoughts
- self-validation, confidence amplifies persuasion
- ease of retrieval, hedonic fluency
Wänke et al. (1996)
- write or read 3 or 7 arguments pro/con public transport
- reading: 7 arguments leads to stronger attitudes +/- than 4 arguments (more -> stronger)
- writing: 7 arguments leads to weaker attitudes (difficult -> lower confidence -> weaker)
balance of attention and persuasion
- supply of advertising rising faster than attention (limit of population)
- ability to block advertising limits its reach (switch channel, leave room, look at phone during commercials, use ad blockers)
- context of exposure influences balance between attention and persuasion (higher attention: persuasion is possible, lower attention: need to first attract attention)
costs of ‘annoying’ advertising
- increased competition for attention -> more bottom-up attention grabbing, can be annoying or aversive
- economic cost to publisher (more expensive)
- cognitive cost to readers (slower performance/worse memory recall)
visual ecology
the study of how different species perceive their visual surroundings
changes in visual ecology
relatively small changes in the visual ecology of product packaging can lead to much higher levels of consumer attention
