In addition, the penalties seem to be getting more punitive. The general assumption is that when a person fails to understand an advertisement correctly or accurately it is because advertisers intend to mislead them. Another point of view is that advertisements are not necessarily misleading and false but are misunderstood, or, miscomprehended.
Comprehension is critical because it is assumed to influence retention and behavior change.
The assumption by consumer advocates is that advertisers could eliminate miscomprehension if they wanted to do so. These issues could be answered if it were determined that advertising were more often, equally often, or less often miscomprehended than other forms of communication. The research is justified because its results could either indict advertising as a method of intentional miscommunication or suggest that advertising is either equally comprehendible or more comprehendible than other forms of communication and serve to clear advertising as a field of thecharge of intentional wrongdoing. In this article, the researchers narrowed their study to four issues. The percent of the subdivision of communications approximated actual percentages broadcast.