Exposure and Attention
MAR 3503
January 17, 2012
How do we take in information?
Exposure
External Stimuli
Sensory
Receptors
Perception
Sights
Eyes
Sounds
Ears
Smells
Nose
Tastes
Tongue
Touch/Movement
Heat, pressure, &
motor receptors
Attention
Comprehension
Behavior
Exposure
• “The process by which the consumer comes into
contact with the stimulus”
– “Contact” defined loosely
– “Stimulus” defined loosely
• Necessary!
• How would you get someone exposed to your
new brand…
– Of toothpaste?
– Of bake-at-home cinnamon rolls?
– Of car?
Exposure: What options are there?
• Obvious ads
– Can take many different forms
• Here, the intent to persuade, cajole, convert is
clear
• But, consumers may actively avoid obvious ads
– VCRs
– TiVo and other digital video recorders
Exposure to ads: A vicious cycle
• Advertisers then must try to catch consumers
with their guard down
– “Unique” ads
– Strange formats
• Advergaming
– Strange locations (and captive audiences)
Exposure to ads: A vicious cycle
• Disguised ads:
– As editorial content
• Advertorials, infomercials
– As something else
• But consumers learn to ignore these as well…
Exposure: What options are there?
• Product trial (this can take many forms)
– Free samples
– Test drives
– Other methods of giving people experience with
the product
• In-store (point of purchase) displays,
announcements, etc.
Exposure: What options are there?
• Product placement
– Movies
– TV shows
– Video games
– Music videos
Mere exposure
• NB: This is correlational
data
• To know whether liking
is caused by exposure,
frequency of exposure
must be manipulated
Mere exposure
• Average affective
connotation of
nonsense words and
Chinese ideographs as a
function of frequency of
exposure
• Manipulated frequency
leads to increased
liking!
Mere exposure
• Average attitude toward
photographs as a
function of frequency of
exposure
• Manipulated frequency
leads to liking!
Mere exposure
Moreland & Beach, 1992
Mere exposure
Subliminal prime
# of participants who agree with…
Mere exposure
• 28 participants shown 2
photos of themselves and
2 photos of their lover (1
true print and 1 mirror
image print each) and
asked which they prefer
Preference for self
• Mere Exposure
Hypothesis: Participants
will prefer true print of
lover, but mirror print of
self (because that’s what
they have been most
exposed to)
Preference for lover
Mere exposure
Music rats were raised on
What is attention?
• The processes by which we devote mental activity to a
stimulus
• Some characteristics of attention
– Can be voluntary or involuntary
– Can be divided (with varying degrees of success)
– Is limited, therefore must be selective
• We select one input and “tune out” the rest
• Some estimates say we see 700 commercials a week,
maybe even 300 per day—but only ~75 get noticed.
What gets through?
The selective nature of attention
• Shadow task
– Subject hears one message in their right ear
– Subject hears another message in their left ear, at the
same time
– Subject is forced to attend to one message by
“shadowing,” or repeating, the message from one ear
• We can then stop the sound and quiz the subject
about what they just heard on the unattended
channel to see what happens to unattended
information
Developed by Cherry, 1953
What gets through?
• Short answer: Not much!
– When the unattended channel switched from
coherent English to “gibberish”—only 4 of 30
people noticed
– If the unattended channel is just a 7-word list,
repeated 35 times, recognition of those words is
no better than chance in a later test
– When the unattended channel switched to
backwards speech, only a few could say that
something was strange about the message
What gets through?
• Longer answer: some specific things get through
– People aren’t deaf to the unattended channel. They
can report general properties (music, a tone, a man, a
woman, etc)
– If the unattended channel contains names, including
the participants’ names, about a third of people will
hear that their names were mentioned
• Same goes for words that are important to you
• Cocktail-party effect
– If a sentence starts in the attended ear, and then
finishes in the unattended ear, people may
inadvertently switch the ear that they’re shadowing
An informal model of selective attention
• People seemingly select (facilitate) one stimulus, and
tune out (inhibit) the others
• And yet, at some level, they must be monitoring the
unattended stimuli so that they know when to switch
focus
– Otherwise, relevant information couldn’t “break through”
• Both individual factors and source factors determine
what will “break through” and be selected for attention
Individual factors: Motivation
• Sometimes we control what we want to attend to
– Ex. “I want to look at car ads”
• Other times, our attention is involuntarily drawn by
things that are personally relevant
– Cocktail party effect (again)
– Perceptual vigilance
• We may also without awareness stay away from things
that are troubling
– Perceptual defense
Individual factors: Resources
• Arousal
– General degree of
alertness
– Affects how many
cognitive resources can
be devoted to stimulus
• (Affects ability to attend)
• Ex. Super Bowl ads
Source factors
• Novelty/Expectation violation
–
–
–
–
Unexpected ad or product format
Unexpected ad placement
Unexpected intrusion
“New” and novel prefixes (“e-” or “i-”)
• Position
– Ex. Placement in a magazine
• Back cover
• Near front, right of page
– Ex. Placement on store shelves
More source factors
• Vividness
–
–
–
–
Color
Music
Humor
Contrast
• Size
– Ex. Magazine ads
– Ex. Yellow pages
– Ex. Animal crackers
Adaptation
• A individual x source factor
• We adapt, or habituate, to stimuli
• What once was novel and attention-getting may
no longer be
• Adaptation leads to inattention
• Advertisers need to keep ad campaign current
and fresh (but still maintain consistent brand
image)
– Ex. Energizer bunny ads
Summary
• There are many ways consumers can be
exposed to products
• Increased exposure may lead to liking (the
“mere exposure” effect)
• But exposure does not guarantee attention
• Attention is selective
– Only a limited number of stimuli break through
• Certain characteristics will allow products to
break through
Next up…
• What happens once information gets in?
• How is it understood?