Nature imagery in advertising

Environmental psychology postulates that interacting with nature has inherently positive emotional, cognitive and physiological effects. Based on Attention Restoration Theory and related research, this paper presents a theoretical framework hypothesising that nature imagery presented in an advertisement enhances cognitive advertising message elaboration and memory. Three experimental studies, including an eye-tracking experiment, which successively addressed emotional, information processing and memory effects of exposure to nature imagery in advertising, provided evidence supporting postulated effects. Findings confirmed the hypothesis that advertisements featuring visual representations of pleasant nature scenes can evoke very similar emotional responses to those experienced in pleasant natural environments, which constitutes a necessary condition for the suggested cognitive effects. As hypothesised, advertising messages of advertisements featuring pleasant nature imagery achieved higher memory scores in both unaided recall and recognition compared to identical advertisements displaying a variety of other attractive pictures.

Related papers:

title: Memory and perception of brand mentions and placement of brands in songs
abstract: Although brand placement in movies and TV series has attracted significant interest from researchers and practitioners, little is known about the financed insertion of brands in songs. However, evidence is growing that this kind of placement could be of interest for addressing certain types of target audience. This article sheds light on this new form of communication, and highlights its interest for advertisers. It also studies its effectiveness. Based on a web survey, the paper analyses recall and recognition of 17 brands placed in two songs (‘Tes Parents’ (Your parents), a French chanson-style song by Vincent Delerm, and ‘Wonderbra’, a rap song by MC Solaar), and attitude towards the use of brands in songs.

title: Conditions for a Picture-Superiority Effect on Consumer Memory
abstract: Based on three explanations of imagery effects on memory, hypotheses regarding the conditions under which pictorial ads are or are not remembered better than verbal-only ads are generated and tested. The memorability of brand names semantically related to product class was tested in pictorial versus verbal-only form under various conditions. The results indicate that picture superiority occurs in both immediate and delayed recall tasks when processing is directed at appearance features. Verbal-only stimuli are recalled as well as pictures in immediate recall but become inferior once again in delayed recall, when processing is directed at the semantic content of the ads.

title: DIMENSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS OF RECALL AND RECOGNITION MEASURES WITH SELECTED COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE ASPECTS OF PRINT ADS
abstract: This study builds on prior work in advertising by investigating issues associated with the dimensional representation of memory for print advertisements and the antecedent factors that relate to those dimensions. Of particular interest to this research are answers to questions associated with whether memory for print ads is unidimensional or multidimensional, as assessed by aided recall and recognition methods, with the nature of the antecedent factors of ad characteristics and subjective reactions, and with how the antecedents relate to memory. The study identified two dimensions of ad-based antecedents to memory, labeled cognitive and affective aspects, and two dimensions of memory, labeled recall and recognition. It was found that recall is influenced by cognitive, and to a lesser extent, by affective factors, whereas recognition is primarily influenced by affective factors. This research provides support for the potential use of stimulus-related factors in conjunction with, or as surrogates of, memory-based measures of effectiveness.

title: The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective
abstract: A study of the natural environment, people, and the relationship between them. The authors offer a research-based analysis of the vital psychological role that nature plays. They try to understand how people perceive nature and what kinds of natural environments they prefer.

title: The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework
abstract: Directed attention plays an important role in human information processing; its fatigue, in turn, has farreaching consequences. Attention Restoration Theory provides an analysis of the kinds of experiences that lead to recovery from such fatigue. Natural environments turn out to be particularly rich in the characteristics necessary for restorative experiences. An integrative framework is proposed that places both directed attention and stress in the larger context of human-environment relationships.

title: Aesthetic and Affective Response to Natural Environment
abstract: Affect is central to conscious experience and behavior in any environment, whether natural or built, crowded or unpopulated. Because virtually no meaningful thoughts, actions, or environmental encounters occur without affect (Ittelson, 1973, p. 16; Izard, 1977; Zajonc, 1980), an affective state is an important indicator of the nature and significance of a person’s ongoing interaction with an environment (Lazarus, Kanner, & Folkman, 1980, p. 190). Research concerning affective and aesthetic response, therefore, may have a central role in advancing our understanding of human interactions with the natural environment and could prove pivotal in the development of comprehensive theories. Further, this area of research relates to important questions in environmental planning and design, including, for instance, visual landscape assessment, the provision of vegetation and parks in cities, and issues of wilderness management and recreation. Concerning the latter, it appears that aesthetic and emotional experiences are the most important benefits realized by many recreationists in the natural environment (Rossman & Ulehla, 1977; Shafer & Mietz, 1969).

title: Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments
abstract: Different conceptual perspectives converge to predict that if individuals are stressed, an encounter with most unthreatening natural environments will have a stress reducing or restorative influence, whereas many urban environments will hamper recuperation. Hypotheses regarding emotional, attentional and physiological aspects of stress reducing influences of nature are derived from a psycho-evolutionary theory. To investigate these hypotheses, 120 subjects first viewed a stressful movie, and then were exposed to color/sound videotapes of one of six different natural and urban settings. Data concerning stress recovery during the environmental presentations were obtained from self-ratings of affective states and a battery of physiological measures: heart period, muscle tension, skin conductance and pulse transit time, a non-invasive measure that correlates with systolic blood pressure. Findings from the physiological and verbal measures converged to indicate that recovery was faster and more complete when subjects were exposed to natural rather than urban environments. The pattern of physiological findings raised the possibility that responses to nature had a salient parasympathetic nervous system component; however, there was no evidence of pronounced parasympathetic involvement in responses to the urban settings. There were directional differences in cardiac responses to the natural vs urban settings, suggesting that attention/intake was higher during the natural exposures. However, both the stressor film and the nature settings elicited high levels of involuntary or automatic attention, which contradicts the notion that restorative influences of nature stem from involuntary attention or fascination. Findings were consistent with the predictions of the psycho-evolutionary theory that restorative influences of nature involve a shift towards a more positively-toned emotional state, positive changes in physiological activity levels, and that these changes are accompanied by sustained attention/intake. Content differences in terms of natural vs human-made properties appeared decisive in accounting for the differences in recuperation and perceptual intake.

title: View through a window may influence recovery from surgery.
abstract: Records on recovery after cholecystectomy of patients in a suburban Pennsylvania hospital between 1972 and 1981 were examined to determine whether assignment to a room with a window view of a natural setting might have restorative influences. Twenty-three surgical patients assigned to rooms with windows looking out on a natural scene had shorter postoperative hospital stays, received fewer negative evaluative comments in nurses' notes, and took fewer potent analgesics than 23 matched patients in similar rooms with windows facing a brick building wall.

title: Restorative Effects of Natural Environment Experiences
abstract: The utility of different theoretical models of restorative experience was explored in a quasi-experimental field study and a true experiment. The former included wilderness backpacking and nonwilderness vacation conditions, as well as a control condition in which participants continued with their daily routines. The latter had urban environment, natural environment, and passive relaxation conditions. Multimethod assessments of restoration consisted of self-reports of affective states, cognitive performance, and, in the latter study, physiological measures. Convergent self-report and performance results obtained in both studies offer evidence of greater restorative effects arising from experiences in nature. Implications for theory, methodology, and design are discussed.

title: Restorative Experience and Self-Regulation in Favorite Places
abstract: The authors report further evidence bearing on the relations among restorative experiences, self-regulation, and place attachment. University students (n = 101) described their favorite places and experiences in them, and 98 other students described unpleasant places. Natural settings were overrepresented among favorite places and underrepresented among the unpleasant places. In open-ended accounts, frequent mention of being relaxed, being away from everyday life, forgetting worries, and reflecting on personal matters indicated a link between favorite places and restorative experience. Restoration was particularly typical of natural favorite places. Structured evaluations of being away, fascination, coherence, and compatibility indicated they were experienced to a high degree in the favorite places, although fascination to a lesser degree than compatibility. The favorite and unpleasant places differed substantially in all four restorative qualities but especially in being away and compatibility. Self-referencing appears to be more characteristic of favorite place experiences than engaging or interesting environmental properties.

title: Tracking restoration in natural and urban field settings.
abstract: We compared psychophysiological stress recovery and directed attention restoration in natural and urban field settings using repeated measures of ambulatory blood pressure, emotion, and attention collected from 112 randomly assigned young adults. To vary restoration needs, we had half of the subjects begin the environmental treatment directly after driving to the field site. The other half completed attentionally demanding tasks just before the treatment. After the drive or the tasks, sitting in a room with tree views promoted more rapid decline in diastolic blood pressure than sitting in a viewless room. Subsequently walking in a nature reserve initially fostered blood pressure change that indicated greater stress reduction than afforded by walking in the urban surroundings. Performance on an attentional test improved slightly from the pretest to the midpoint of the walk in the nature reserve, while it declined in the urban setting. This opened a performance gap that persisted after the walk. Positive affect increased and anger decreased in the nature reserve by the end of the walk; the opposite pattern emerged in the urban environment. The task manipulation affected emotional self-reports. We discuss implications of the results for theories about restorative environments and environmental health promotion measures.

title: Healthy nature healthy people: 'contact with nature' as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations.
abstract: Whilst urban-dwelling individuals who seek out parks and gardens appear to intuitively understand the personal health and well-being benefits arising from 'contact with nature', public health strategies are yet to maximize the untapped resource nature provides, including the benefits of nature contact as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations. This paper presents a summary of empirical, theoretical and anecdotal evidence drawn from a literature review of the human health benefits of contact with nature. Initial findings indicate that nature plays a vital role in human health and well-being, and that parks and nature reserves play a significant role by providing access to nature for individuals. Implications suggest contact with nature may provide an effective population-wide strategy in prevention of mental ill health, with potential application for sub-populations, communities and individuals at higher risk of ill health. Recommendations include further investigation of 'contact with nature' in population health, and examination of the benefits of nature-based interventions. To maximize use of 'contact with nature' in the health promotion of populations, collaborative strategies between researchers and primary health, social services, urban planning and environmental management sectors are required. This approach offers not only an augmentation of existing health promotion and prevention activities, but provides the basis for a socio-ecological approach to public health that incorporates environmental sustainability.

title: Influence of Limitedly Visible Leafy Indoor Plants on the Psychology, Behavior, and Health of Students at a Junior High School in Taiwan
abstract: There is growing evidence to support the notion that contact with nature is helpful for emotional states, attention, mental fatigue, behavior, and personal health. This study adopts a quasi-experimental approach to investigate the effects of limitedly visible indoor plants on students' psychology, physiology, and behavior and uses a control-series design covering one semester. Two classes of sophomores at a Taiwanese junior high school (eighth grade, N = 76), of which one served as the experimental group and the other as control, were surveyed once every 2 weeks. After six plants were placed at the back of the classroom, the experimental group had immediately and significantly stronger feelings of preference, comfort, and friendliness as compared to the control group. Also, the experimental group had significantly fewer hours of sick leave and punishment records due to misbehavior than the control group. In addition to the visual and psychological mechanisms that contributed to restoration, there may have been other factors at work.

title: The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting With Nature
abstract: We compare the restorative effects on cognitive functioning of interactions with natural versus urban environments. Attention restoration theory (ART) provides an analysis of the kinds of environments that lead to improvements in directed-attention abilities. Nature, which is filled with intriguing stimuli, modestly grabs attention in a bottom-up fashion, allowing top-down directed-attention abilities a chance to replenish. Unlike natural environments, urban environments are filled with stimulation that captures attention dramatically and additionally requires directed attention (e.g., to avoid being hit by a car), making them less restorative. We present two experiments that show that walking in nature or viewing pictures of nature can improve directed-attention abilities as measured with a backwards digit-span task and the Attention Network Task, thus validating attention restoration theory.

title: Attentional fatigue following breast cancer surgery.
abstract: Attentional fatigue usually follows intense use of mental effort and is manifested as a decreased capacity to concentrate, that is, to direct attention. The purpose of this study was to examine the capacity to direct attention in persons with cancer during the initial phase of illness. The sample consisted of 32 women without cognitive or affective disorders who underwent surgery for localized (Stage I or II) breast cancer. Subjects manifested attentional deficits of varying intensity on a battery of tests of directed attention on the day before discharge from the hospital, which was a mean of 3 days following mastectomy or breast conservation surgery. Unexpectedly, the two surgical groups did not differ significantly in attentional capacity and functioning. Attentional test scores were not significantly correlated with narcotic pain medication interval, mood state, or self-ratings of attentional functioning. However, as number of days postsurgery increased, attentional performance decreased. The theoretical basis for further examination of attentional fatigue in people with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses is discussed.

title: Development of an intervention to restore attention in cancer patients
abstract: Developing interventions to maintain or restore attentional capacity during demanding phases of illness will help promote effective functioning in people with cancer. This study tested the effects of an experimental intervention aimed at maintaining or restoring attentional capacity in 32 women during the 3 months after surgery for localized (Stage I or II) breast cancer. The intervention was designed to minimize or prevent attentional fatigue through regular participation in activities that engage fascination and have other restorative properties. Attentional capacity was assessed using objective and subjective measures at four time points, ∼3, 18, 60, and 90 days after breast cancer surgery. After the first observation, subjects were randomly assigned to receive the intervention (n = 16) or not to receive intervention (n = 16). Repeated measures ANOVA showed a significant interaction of experimental intervention and time on attentional capacity. Specifically, subjects in the intervention group showed significant improvement in attentional capacity over the four time points, while the nonintervention group showed a pattern of inconsistent performance over time. Findings suggest that nurses can intervene to maintain or restore attentional capacity in women after surgery for localized breast cancer. The theoretical basis for further development of attention-restoring interventions in patients with cancer is discussed.

title: Views to nature: Effects on attention
abstract: This study is based on a theoretical view which suggests that under increased demands for attention, individuals' capacity to direct attention may become fatigued. Once fatigued, attentional restoration must occur in order to return to an effectively functioning state. An attention-restoring experience can be as simple as looking at nature. The purpose of this study was to explore whether university dormitory residents with more natural views from their windows would score better than those with less natural views on tests of directed attention. Views from dormitory windows of 72 undergraduate students were categorized into four groups ranging from all natural to all built. The capacity to direct attention was measured using a battery of objective and subjective measures. Natural views were associated with better performance on attentional measures, providing support for the proposed theoretical view.

title: VIEWS OF NATURE AND SELF-DISCIPLINE: EVIDENCE FROM INNER CITY CHILDREN
abstract: Children growing up in the inner city are at risk of academic underachievement, juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy, and other important negative outcomes. Avoiding these outcomes requires self-discipline. Self-discipline, in turn, may draw on directed attention, a limited resource that can be renewed through contact with nature. This study examined the relationship between near-home nature and three forms of self-discipline in 169 inner city girls and boys randomly assigned to 12 architecturally identical high-rise buildings with varying levels of nearby nature. Parent ratings of the naturalness of the view from home were used to predict children’s performance on tests of concentration, impulse inhibition, and delay of grati¢cation. Regressions indicated that, on average, the more natural a girl’s view from home, the better her performance at each of these forms of self-discipline. For girls, view accounted for 20% of the variance in scores on the combined selfdiscipline index. For boys, who typically spend less time playing in and around their homes, view from home showed no relationship to performance on any measure. These ¢ndings suggest that, for girls, green space immediately outside the home can help them lead more eiective, self-disciplined lives. For boys, perhaps more distant green spaces are equally important.

title: An Environmental Intervention to Restore Attention in Women With Newly Diagnosed Breast Cancer
abstract: Earlier research indicated that attentional fatigue with reduced capacity to direct attention in women treated for breast cancer may be ameliorated by a theoretically based intervention involving regular exposure to the natural environment. This study tested the efficacy of a natural environment intervention aimed at restoring attention in 157 women with newly diagnosed breast cancer. Capacity to direct attention was assessed with a brief battery of objective measures at two time points: approximately 17 days before surgery (time 1) and 19 days after surgery (time 2). A randomly assigned intervention protocol was initiated after the first assessment and before any treatment. The intervention comprised a home-based program involving 120 minutes of exposure to the natural environment per week. The intervention group (n = 83) showed greater recovery of capacity to direct attention from the pretreatment (time 1) to the preadjuvant therapy period (time 2), as compared with the nonintervention group (n = 74). A significant effect of the natural environment intervention was observed even after control was used for the effects of age, education, attention scores at time 1, other health problems, symptom distress, and extent of surgery. The findings suggest therapeutic benefits for capacity to direct attention from early intervention aimed at restoring attention in women with newly diagnosed breast cancer.

title: Exposure to restorative environments helps restore attentional capacity
abstract: Three experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that exposure to restorative environments facilitates recovery from mental fatigue. To this end, participants were first mentally fatigued by performing a sustained attention test; then they viewed photographs of restorative environments, nonrestorative environments or geometrical patterns; and finally they performed the sustained attention test again. Only participants exposed to the restorative environments improved their performance on the final attention test, and this improvement occurred whether they viewed the scenes in the standardized time condition or in the self-paced time condition. Results are in agreement with Kaplan's [(1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169-182] attention restoration theory, and support the idea that restorative environments help maintain and restore the capacity to direct attention.

title: Restoration and stress relief through physical activities in forests and parks
abstract: A field survey assessed the restorative effects of visiting an urban forest and a city park in Zurich, Switzerland. Respondents rated their headaches, level of stress, and how balanced they felt both prior to visiting the outdoor location and at the time of being interviewed. Suffering from headaches and stress decreased significantly, and feeling well-balanced increased significantly. The recovery ratio for stress was 87%, and the reduction in headaches was 52%, in terms of the possible improvements on five-point rating scales. With respect to feeling well-balanced, the observed changes amounted to 40% of the possible enhancement. Positive effects increased with length of visit, and individuals practising sports (e.g., jogging, biking, playing ball) showed significantly higher improvements than those engaged in less strenuous activities (e.g., taking a walk or relaxing). These findings support previous research on how exercise in green spaces promotes well-being and recovery from stress.

title: Human responses to vegetation and landscapes
abstract: The rapidly expanding research record concerning aesthetic, emotional and physiological response to visual landscapes is summarized, with emphasis on aesthetic preferences for views containing trees and other vegetation. The survey is set within a conceptual perspective suggesting that affective responses such as aesthetic preference are central to a landscape observer's thoughts, conscious experience and behavior. Substantial progress has been made in developing models that relate aesthetic responses to specific visual properties of environments. When aesthetic preferences are compared for urban and unspectacular natural views, American and European adult groups evidence a strong tendency to prefer nature. However, liking for urban scenes usually increases when trees and other vegetation are present. Views of nature, compared to most urban scenes lacking natural elements such as trees, appear to have more positive influences on emotional and physiological states. The benefits of visual encounters with vegetation may be greatest for individuals experiencing stress or anxiety. Recent research demonstrates that responses to trees and other vegetation can be linked directly to health, and in turn related to economic benefits of visual quality.

title: THE VIEW FROM THE ROAD: IMPLICATIONS FOR STRESS RECOVERY AND IMMUNIZATION
abstract: A considerable body of folklore and scientific research alludes to the efficacy of the vernacular environment to influence both aesthetic experience and general well-being. To examine explicitly whether stress recovery and/or immunization varies as a function of the roadside environment, 160 college-age participants, both male and female, viewed one of four different video-taped simulated drives through outdoor environments immediately following and preceding mildly stressful events. Overall, it was anticipated that participants who viewed artifact-dominated drives, relative to participants who viewed nature-dominated drives, would show greater autonomic activity indicative of stress (e.g. elevated blood pressure and electrodermal activity), as well as show altered somatic activity indicative of greater negative affect (e.g. elevated electromyographic (EMG) activity over the brow region and decreased activity over the cheek region). In addition, it was expected that participants who viewed nature-dominated drives would experience quicker recovery from stress and greater immunization to subsequent stress than participants who viewed artifact-dominated drives. The overall pattern of results is consistent with both hypotheses and the findings are interpreted to support postulating a sympathetic-specific mechanism that underlies the effect of nature on stress recovery and immunization.

title: Beyond toxicity: human health and the natural environment.
abstract: Research and teaching in environmental health have centered on the hazardous effects of various environmental exposures, such as toxic chemicals, radiation, and biological and physical agents. However, some kinds of environmental exposures may have positive health effects. According to E.O. Wilson's "biophilia" hypothesis, humans are innately attracted to other living organisms. Later authors have expanded this concept to suggest that humans have an innate bond with nature more generally. This implies that certain kinds of contact with the natural world may benefit health. Evidence supporting this hypothesis is presented from four aspects of the natural world: animals, plants, landscapes, and wilderness. Finally, the implications of this hypothesis for a broader agenda for environmental health, encompassing not only toxic outcomes but also salutary ones, are discussed. This agenda implies research on a range of potentially healthful environmental exposures, collaboration among professionals in a range of disciplines from public health to landscape architecture to city planning, and interventions based on research outcomes.

title: Natural Environments—Healthy Environments? An Exploratory Analysis of the Relationship between Greenspace and Health
abstract: Are people living in greener areas healthier than people living in less green areas? This hypothesis was empirically tested by combining Dutch data on the self-reported health of over 10 000 people with land-use data on the amount of greenspace in their living environment. In the multilevel analysis we controlled for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, as well as urbanity. Living in a green environment was positively related to all three available health indicators, even stronger than urbanity at the municipal level. Analyses on subgroups showed that the relationship between greenspace and one of the health indicators was somewhat stronger for housewives and the elderly, two groups that are assumed to be more dependent on, and therefore exposed to, the local environment. Furthermore, for all three health indicators the relationship with greenspace was somewhat stronger for lower educated people. Implications for policymaking and spatial planning are discussed briefly.

title: The importance of environmental exposures to physical, mental and social well-being.
abstract: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" states the WHO. However, the current focus in this important area seems to be on reducing diseases, while less attention is paid on aspects how to increase the well-being of populations. This paper reviews three examples where well-being has drawn attention of the public and policy makers, and compares the policies of two wealthy countries. The first example is noise. Noise can reduce sleep quality and cause physiological, mental, and social effects. In Switzerland, noise receives a lot of attention by the public. Swiss laws are extensive, e.g., they prohibit trucks and planes from traveling at night. In the USA, there is little public attention and no national strategy against environmental noise. The second example is aesthetics and recreation. Many humans seek contact with the beauty of nature. The USA and Switzerland have similar strategies for achieving clear waters, while the protection of scenic views is approached very differently. Lifestyle is the last example. In the USA, the desire for individual freedom is a leading cause for suburban sprawl, a car-dependent sedentary lifestyle resulting in obesity, asthma and loss of community spirit. In Switzerland, a strict land use planning seeks to balance individual and public interests and stresses public transportation, which seems to be a more promising approach. Paying attention to aspects of well-being while developing political strategies might be a promising model to tackle environmental problems. Successful strategies employed so far seem to include the public, local authorities, politicians and scientists in this process, which might have been a key for their success.

title: Psychological effects of forest environments on healthy adults: Shinrin-yoku (forest-air bathing, walking) as a possible method of stress reduction.
abstract: Shinrin-yoku (walking and/or staying in forests in order to promote health) is a major form of relaxation in Japan; however, its effects have yet to be completely clarified. The aims of this study were: (1) to evaluate the psychological effects of shinrin-yoku in a large number of participants; and (2) to identify the factors related to these effects.



Four hundred and ninety-eight healthy volunteers took part in the study. Surveys were conducted twice in a forest on the same day (forest day) and twice on a control day. Outcome measures were evaluated using the Multiple Mood Scale-Short Form (hostility, depression, boredom, friendliness, wellbeing and liveliness) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory A-State Scale. Statistical analyses were conducted using analysis of variance and multiple regression analyses.



Hostility (P<0.001) and depression (P<0.001) scores decreased significantly, and liveliness (P=0.001) scores increased significantly on the forest day compared with the control day. The main effect of environment was also observed with all outcomes except for hostility, and the forest environment was advantageous. Stress levels were shown to be related to the magnitude of the shinrin-yoku effect; the higher the stress level, the greater the effect.



This study revealed that forest environments are advantageous with respect to acute emotions, especially among those experiencing chronic stress. Accordingly, shinrin-yoku may be employed as a stress reduction method, and forest environments can be viewed as therapeutic landscapes. Therefore, customary shinrin-yoku may help to decrease the risk of psychosocial stress-related diseases, and evaluation of the long-term effects of shinrin-yoku is warranted.

title: Stress- and treatment-induced elevations of cortisol levels associated with impaired declarative memory in healthy adults.
abstract: Two studies investigated the association between cortisol levels and memory performance in healthy adults. In a first study, 13 subjects were exposed to a brief psychosocial laboratory stress ("Trier Social Stress Test") with a subsequent test of declarative memory performance. Results indicated a significant negative relationship between stress-induced cortisol levels and performance in the memory task, i.e. subjects with high cortisol response to the stressor showed poorer memory performance. In a second experiment it was investigated if cortisol, alone, i.e. independent of psychological stress, would also impair memory function. In this study, 40 healthy subjects received either 10 mg cortisol or placebo orally. One hour later they were tested for procedural and declarative memory and spatial thinking. Subjects who received cortisol showed impaired performance in the declarative memory and spatial thinking tasks but not in the procedural memory task. From these results we conclude that in healthy adults elevated free cortisol levels are associated with impaired memory function.

title: Cortisol levels during human aging predict hippocampal atrophy and memory deficits
abstract: Elevated glucocorticoid levels produce hippocampal dysfunction and correlate with individual deficits in spatial learning in aged rats. Previously we related persistent cortisol increases to memory impairments in elderly humans studied over five years. Here we demonstrate that aged humans with significant prolonged cortisol elevations showed reduced hippocampal volume and deficits in hippocampus-dependent memory tasks compared to normal-cortisol controls. Moreover, the degree of hippocampal atrophy correlated strongly with both the degree of cortisol elevation over time and current basal cortisol levels. Therefore, basal cortisol elevation may cause hippocampal damage and impair hippocampus-dependent learning and memory in humans.

title: Working memory is more sensitive than declarative memory to the acute effects of corticosteroids: a dose-response study in humans.
abstract: The effects of various doses (40 microg/kg/hr, 300 microg/kg/hr, 600 microg/kg/hr or placebo) of hydrocortisone on tasks assessing working and declarative memory function were measured in 4 groups of 10 young men. During the infusion, participants were given an item-recognition working memory task, a paired-associate declarative memory task, and a continuous performance task used to control possible concomitant effects of corticosteroids on vigilance. The results revealed significant acute effects of the highest dose of hydrocortisone on working memory function, without any significant effect on declarative memory function or arousal-vigilance performance. These results suggest that working memory is more sensitive than declarative memory to the acute elevations of corticosteroids, which could explain the detrimental effects of corticosteroids on acquisition and consolidation of information, as reported in the literature.

title: Decreased memory performance in healthy humans induced by stress-level cortisol treatment.
abstract: Glucocorticoids (GCs) can regulate hippocampal metabolism, physiologic functions, and memory. Despite evidence of memory decreases during pharmacological GC treatment, and correlations between memory and cortisol levels in certain disease conditions, it remains unclear whether exposure to the endogenous GC cortisol at levels seen during physical and psychological stress in humans can inhibit memory performance in otherwise healthy individuals.



Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled comparison of 2 fixed oral doses of cortisol (40 mg/d and 160 mg/d using split doses to approximate circadian rhythm) given for 4 days to matched groups of healthy subjects (n = 51). Lower-dose treatment approximated cortisol exposure during mild stress, whereas the higher dose approximated cortisol exposure during major stress. Cognitive testing and plasma sampling were done at baseline, after 1 and 4 days of treatment, and after a 6-day washout period, hypothesizing dose-dependent decreases in verbal declarative memory.



Cortisol treatment at the higher dose produced reversible decreases in verbal declarative memory without effects on nonverbal memory, sustained or selective attention, or executive function. A significant interaction between time and treatment condition for paragraph recall was explained by treatment-induced differences in performance after 4 treatment days, with lower immediate and delayed recall performance during higher-dose cortisol treatment compared with lower-dose treatment and placebo.



Several days of exposure to cortisol at doses and plasma concentrations associated with physical and psychological stress in humans can-similar to pharmacological GC treatment-reversibly decrease specific elements of memory performance in otherwise healthy individuals.

title: Acute stress, memory, attention and cortisol
abstract: An investigation was conducted to explore the relationship between acute changes in cortisol and memory and attention in the context of an acute naturalistic stressor, namely, examination stress. Sixty students (36 male, 24 female) participated in an assessment of self-reported levels of stress, salivary cortisol, short term memory, selective and divided attention and auditory verbal working memory. Assessments were conducted during a non-exam and exam period. The results revealed that the exam period was associated with an increase in perceived levels of stress, but also a significant reduction in levels of salivary cortisol, compared with the non-exam period. This reduction in cortisol was associated with enhanced short-term memory (as measured by the total number of words recalled in a free recall task), impaired attention and an impairment in the primacy effect (a hippocampal-specific index of short term memory), but no significant effects on auditory verbal working memory. It was concluded that the results support the view that cortisol can modulate cognitive processes and that the effects of corticosteroids on cognitive function are selective.

title: The relationship between stress induced cortisol levels and memory differs between men and women
abstract: Epidemiological as well as experimental studies in elderly subjects have suggested that postmenopausal women are more susceptible to the memory impairing effects of elevated cortisol levels than elderly men. Little is known however about gender differences in the susceptibility to acute stress in young subjects. In the present study a total of 58 healthy young subjects learned a word list, with recall being tested after a brief distraction task. Twenty-two subjects had to learn the list after exposure to a psychosocial stressor (Trier Social Stress Test: TSST), while the remaining subjects served as controls. Free cortisol was determined via saliva samples taken before and 10 minutes after stress. Subjects exposed to the stressor, did not show impaired memory performance per se when compared to the control group. However the cortisol increase in response to the stressor was negatively correlated (r=-0.43, P<0.05) with the memory performance within the stressed group (i.e., subjects showing a larger cortisol response recalling less words than subjects showing only a small cortisol increase). Additional analysis revealed, that this correlation was solely caused by the strong association observed in men (r=-0.82, P<0.05), while no association was observed in women (r=-0.05, P=ns). Our data suggests, that gender modulates the association between cortisol and memory after stress. Whether these differences reflect activational effects of sex steroids or developmentally-programmed sex differences awaits to be determined.

title: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects of High Stress on Eyewitness Memory
abstract: In the past 30 years researchers have examined the impact of heightened stress on the fidelity of eyewitness memory. Meta-analyses were conducted on 27 independent tests of the effects of heightened stress on eyewitness identification of the perpetrator or target person and separately on 36 tests of eyewitness recall of details associated with the crime. There was considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impact both types of eyewitness memory. Meta-analytic Z-scores, whether unweighted or weighted by sample size, ranged from −5.40 to −6.44 (high stress condition–low stress condition). The overall effect sizes were −.31 for both proportion of correct identifications and accuracy of eyewitness recall. Effect sizes were notably larger for target-present than for target-absent lineups, for eyewitness identification studies than for face recognition studies and for eyewitness studies employing a staged crime than for eyewitness studies employing other means to induce stress.

title: Affective Responses Mediating Acceptance of Advertising
abstract: This article argues that affective responses (ARs) should supplement the cognitive responses more often studied in communication research. ARs are not evaluative responses to an advertisement, but represent the moods and feelings evoked by the ad. The literature on ARs is reviewed, and a typology for such responses is presented. Three ARs are studied empirically; they appear to be antecedents of the attitude towards the ad ( A ad ) and to have a weak but significant impact on brand attitudes.

title: The Power of Feelings in Understanding Advertising Effects
abstract: This research investigates the role of feelings in understanding advertising effects. We conducted two studies to examine (1) whether feelings occur as a result of viewing television commercials, (2) the relative importance of feelings and judgments of the ad's characteristics on several advertising outcomes, and (3) the variation in the importance of feelings given different ad characteristics. We found that (1) negative and positive feelings co-occur; (2) both are important predictors of the ad's effectiveness; (3) feelings contribute uniquely to attitude toward the ad, beliefs about the brand's attributes, and attitude toward the brand; and (4) the relative importance of feelings and judgments of the ad's characteristics varies based on the extent to which the ad is transformational and informational.

title: Virtual Nature Experiences as Emotional Benefits in Green Product Consumption
abstract: This article suggests that consumer exposure to nature's media representation in green product advertising may lead to emotional experiences during product consumption that are analogue to those experienced in “real” nature. These “virtual nature experiences” may constitute emotional consumption benefits in consumer's perception. Two further kinds of emotional consumption experiences related to environmental products are identified: the feeling of well-being from acting in an altruistic way (“warm glow”), and self-expressive benefits. The influences of the proposed consumption experiences on the consumer's attitude toward the product are analyzed in the scope of a survey of consumer perceptions of three competing energy brands, one of them positioned as a green energy brand. Results reveal mostly positive influences on product attitude, with the particular pattern of effects being significantly moderated by the environmental attitudes of the respondents. Virtual nature experiences turn out to wield the most significant influences, regardless of the consumer's degree of environmental attitudes.

title: A photo validity test
abstract: According to recent research findings photographs can be considered valid substitutes for real landscapes in studies on the correlation between observer reactions to a scene and photographs of that scene. These findings are partially supported in the present study. It was found that for some scenes and for some characteristics photographs can form a good substitute for reality: for instance, rather small-scale landscapes can be judged accurately on the characteristics ‘intensity of human use’ and ‘historical character’. For other scenes, such as large-scale landscapes with micro-relief, however, photographs formed a bad substitute.

title: Perceptual Landscape Simulations: History and Prospect
abstract: A brief review of the historical development is presented, followed by a review and critique of recent and current simulation media. The primary evaluative criteria are validity and reality of simulations. The media are categorized as static and dynamic and include photography, drawings, composite techniques, models, video, movie film, and computer generated graphics. An assessment of the current state-of-the-art is presented and key research issues are identified and include: the level of detail required for valid and realistic three-dimensional models; the validity and perceived reality of various styles and levels of detail in rendered plans and perspective sketches; the development in design students of the ability to conceptualize three dimensional environments from two dimensional simulations; the effectiveness of multi-modal simulations in enhancing similitude in perceptually more complex landscapes; and the importance of simulating landscape experiences as well as perceptions of landscapes.

title: Validity of photo-based scenic beauty judgments
abstract: This study examines whether scenic beauty judgments based upon photographs of landscapes are similar to scenic beauty judgments based upon on-site experiences of landscapes. Two concerns are emphasized: (1) a concern about the threat to the ecological validity of photo-based assessments caused by differences between on-site and photo-based contexts and (2) a concern that the individual rater, rather than the group average, is the more appropriate unit of analysis for tests of validity of photo-based assessments. On-site scenic beauty assessments were collected from day hikers. These data were compared to photo-based scenic beauty assessments collected from the same persons three months and nine months after their on-site experience. Approximately 38% of participants had insignificant correlations between their on-site and photo-based scenic beauty ratings. These and other results suggest that the validity of photo-based scenic beauty assessments is in doubt, at least for the situation studied here. Moreover, the results suggest that the difference between persons' on-site and photo-based ratings can be explained, in part, by contextual factors such as the mood, meaning, and novelty that differentiate photo-based from on-site landscape experiences. Group averaged on-site and photo-based assessments, however, were very similar, suggesting caution may be in order for studies interpreting summary measures.

title: Recognition memory for words, sentences, and pictures
abstract: The S s looked through a series of about 600 stimuli selected at random from an initially larger population. They were then tested for their ability to recognize these “old” stimuli in pairs in which the alternative was always a “new” stimulus selected at random from the stimuli remaining in the original population. Depending upon whether this original population consisted solely of words, sentences, or pictures, median Ss were able correctly to recognize the “old” stimulus in 90, 88, or 98% of the test pairs, respectively. Estimated lower bounds on the informational capacity of human memory considerably exceed previously published estimates.

title: Mental imagery in associative learning and memory
abstract: items. Paivio and Yuille (1967) compared the two mediation set conditions with a control condition in which 5s were instructed to use rote repetition and found that the imaginal and verbal sets produced much better learning than did the repetition set, but the predicted interaction with concreteness did not occur. That is, the imagery set was no less effective than the verbal even with abstract pairs. Yuille and Paivio (1968) attempted to induce stronger mediation sets by having 5s first practice associating pairs of nouns using images or verbal links, after which they learned another PA list using the technique they had practiced. Both imaginal and verbal sets again facilitated learning relative to a repetition control condition (more so when at least one member of the pair was concrete), but the differential effects predicted for imaginal and verbal sets again failed to appear. Moreover, the effects of the set variable had disappeared by Trial 3 whereas the effects of noun concreteness persisted throughout learning. A possible explanation suggested by mediation report data (Paivio & Yuille, 1967) was that associative strategies are only partly controlled by the experimental sets and that, over trials, 5s increasingly revert to associative habits aroused by the semantic characteristics of the to-be-learned items. They may abandon the use of rote repetition generally, resorting to imagery in the case of concrete pairs and verbal mediators in the case of abstract pairs, and so on. Paivio and Yuille (1969) tested the hypothesis using a trial-by-trial probe of associative strategies as a function of instructional set and noun concreteness. Different groups were given one of four instructional sets (Imagery, Verbal, Repetition, and No Set) and subgroups within each were questioned after 1, 2, or 3 trials concerning the type of strategy they had used to learn each pair. The results confirmed and extended the previous findings in that the verbal and imaginal mediation sets facilitated learning in comparison with the No Set as well as the Repetition condition, and the effects of set had essentially disappeared by Trial 3 whereas concreteness remained highly effective throughout. Some of the expected changes in the pattern of reported mediators over trials also occurred. The 5s given the imagery and verbal mediation sets most often reported having used the corresponding type of mediator to learn the pairs, and this was true for all trials. In the case of the RepetiIMAGERY IN LEARNING AND MEMORY 251 tion set, on the other hand, rote repetition was frequently reported after one learning trial and decreased thereafter despite the fact that the twoand three-trial groups had been reminded before each trial to use repetition. The pattern of reports suggested that verbal mediators to some extent replaced repetition on the second trial whereas imagery was clearly favored at Trial 3. The effects were also qualified by the item attribute. Repetition and verbal mediation reports were relatively little affected by concreteness, although verbal mediators tended to show a greater increase over trials for pairs in which both members are abstract than for other pair types. By contrast, imagery reports were strongly affected by concreteness in a manner closely resembling its effect on learning. The parallel effects on reported imagery and recall scores as a function of concreteness and trials are shown in Figure 3. In addition to the identical ranking of the four types of pairs on both response measures, it can be seen that concreteabstract pairs show the most striking inCease over trials on each dependent variable. The findings consistently point to imagery ,TM a preferred and an effective mediation j strategy in the case of pairs in which at least ;' the stimulus is concrete and high /, whereas [ verbal mediation is less affected by concrete\ ness. In these respects the data accord with the two-process theory of associative meaning and mediation, but the results provide only weak support for the suggestion that imagery set ,Ss resort to verbal mediators in the case of abstract pairs. Such changes could actually have occurred but were not detected by the mediation questionnaire. Alternatively, it may be that some 5"s can make effective use of imagery even in the case of abstract pairs. Support for such an interpretation was obtained by MacDonald (1967) in a study of the retention of imaginal and verbal mediators and recall of PAs. The 5s instructed to use images frequently reported the use of a concrete image to symbolize one or both members of abstract pairs (e.g., "boy scout" for the pair, chance-deed) and the mnemonic effectiveness of such mediators was evidenced by high recall of the pair only when the mediator was correctly recalled 003 ec i •5

title: Increasing Brand Name Recall in Print Advertising among Asian Consumers
abstract: The authors replicate and extend previous research on the effects of pictures, consumer information-processing level, ad meaning, and ad exposure on brand name recall by using consumers in a different culture. The findings indicate the robustness of the effects of those factors on recall. Specifically, better recall was obtained with ads containing pictures and words than with words-only ads, with ads processed semantically than with ads processed sensorially, with ads having high level of meaning, and with ads that were repeated. Use of a high-meaning picture-and-words ad that was processed semantically and repeated achieved an improvement of nearly 52% in brand name recall over use of a low-meaning words-only ad that was procssed sensorially and shown once to subjects. The most significant contributor to explaining brand recall variation is the level-of-meaning factor, followed by ad exposure, level of processing, and ad type. Several significant interactions among those factors also were obser...

title: Remembering pictures: pleasure and arousal in memory.
abstract: Incidental memory performance for pictures that varied along the affective dimensions of pleasantness and arousal was assessed. For both an immediate and delayed (1 year later) free-recall task, only the arousal dimension had a stable effect on memory performance: Pictures rated as highly arousing were remembered better than low-arousal stimuli. This effect was corroborated in a speeded recognition test, in which high-arousal materials encoded earlier in the experiment produced faster reaction times than their low-arousal counterparts. Pleasantness affected reaction time decisions only for pictures not encoded earlier. These results suggest that whereas both the dimensions of pleasantness and arousal are processed at initial encoding, long-term memory performance is mainly affected by arousal.

title: Arousal-Mediated Memory Consolidation: Role of the Medial Temporal Lobe in Humans
abstract: Although the influence of emotional arousal on declarative memory has been documented behaviorally, the mechanisms underlying arousal-memory interactions and their representation in the human brain remain uncertain. One route through which arousal achieves its effects on memory performance is by regulating consolidation processes. Animal research has revealed that the amygdala strengthens hippocampal-dependent memory consolidation in a limited time window following participation in an arousing task. To examine whether this integrative function of amygdalo-hippocampal structures extends to the human brain, we tested unilateral-temporallobectomy patients on an adaptation of a classic paradigm in which levels of physiological arousal at encoding modulate retention over time. Subjects rated emotionally arousing (taboo) and neutral words on an arousal scale while their skin conductance responses (SCRs) were monitored. Recall for the words was assessed immediately and after a 1-hr delay. Both temporal-lobectomy patients and control subjects generated enhanced SCRs and arousal ratings for the arousing words at the time of encoding. However, only control subjects exhibited an increase in memory for the arousing words over time. This group difference in the effect of arousal on the rate of forgetting suggests that the role of medial temporal lobe structures in memory consolidation for arousing events is conserved across species.

title: Enhanced human memory consolidation with post-learning stress: interaction with the degree of arousal at encoding.
abstract: Abundant evidence indicates that endogenous stress hormones such as epinephrine and corticosterone modulate memory consolidation in animals. We recently provided the first demonstration that an endogenous stress hormone (epinephrine) can enhance human memory consolidation. However, these findings also suggested that post-learning stress hormone activation does not uniformly enhance memory for all recently acquired information; rather, that it interacts with the degree of arousal at initial encoding of material in modulating memory for the material. Here we tested this hypothesis by administering cold pressor stress (CPS) or a control procedure to subjects after they viewed slides of varying emotional content, and assessing memory for the slides 1 wk later. CPS, which significantly elevated salivary cortisol levels, enhanced memory for emotionally arousing slides compared with the controls, but did not affect memory for relatively neutral slides. These findings further support the view that post-learning stress hormone-related activity interacts with arousal at initial encoding to modulate memory consolidation.

title: How arousal modulates memory: Disentangling the effects of attention and retention
abstract: Emotion may influence memory both by altering attention and perception during encoding and by affecting memory retention. To date, studies have focused on the enhancement of memory consolidation by arousal. However, they have failed to rule out a role for attention. To specifically link memory enhancement of arousing material to modulation of memory retention, we examined recognition of neutral and arousing words at two time points and under conditions that manipulate attention during encoding. Participants were briefly presented with an arousing or neutral word at the periphery, while fixating on a central word. Recognition of peripheral words was assessed either immediately or after 24 h. Whereas recognition of neutral words became worse over time, recognition of arousing words remained the same and was better than neutral word recognition at delay. The results indicate that arousal supports slower forgetting even when the difference in attentional resources allocated to stimuli is minimized.

title: Activation Research: Psychobiological Approaches in Consumer Research
abstract: Activation is a psychobiological concept that plays an important role in explaining consumer behavior. Following an introduction to the theory and measurement of activation, results of experimental research in advertising effectiveness are presented. The stronger the activation elicited by a stimulus, the better was the level of cognitive performance—a relationship that poses new questions for consumer research.

title: Involuntary Attention and Physiological Arousal Evoked by Structural Features and Emotional Content in TV Commercials
abstract: Structural features of television elicit involuntary physiological attentional responses in viewers. Mild emotional content in televised messages intensifies these responses, possibly through mediation of emotion-elicited arousal, which was also demonstrated. Heart rate data were collected and analyzed using novel techniques to show both short-term attentional responses and longer term arousal in subjects viewing commercial messages.

title: The effects of divided attention on encoding and retrieval processes in human memory.
abstract: The authors examined the effects of divided attention (DA) at encoding and retrieval in free recall, cued recall, and recognition memory in 4 experiments. Lists of words or word pairs were presented auditorily and recalled orally; the secondary task was a visual continuous reaction-time (RT) task with manual responses. At encoding, DA was associated with large reductions in memory performance, but small increases in RT; trade-offs between memory and RT were under conscious control. In contrast, DA at retrieval resulted in small or no reductions in memory, but in comparatively larger increases in RT, especially in free recall. Memory performance was sensitive to changes in task emphasis at encoding but not at retrieval. The results are discussed in terms of controlled and automatic processes and speculatively linked to underlying neuropsychological mechanisms.

title: The effects of attention on perceptual implicit memory
abstract: Reports on the effects of dividing attention at study on subsequent perceptual priming suggest that perceptual priming is generally unaffected by attentional manipulations as long as word identity is processed. We tested this hypothesis in three experiments by using the implicit word fragment completion and word stem completion tasks. Division of attention was instantiated with the Stroop task in order to ensure the processing of word identity even when the participant’s attention was directed to a stimulus attribute other than the word itself. Under these conditions, we found that even though perceptual priming was significant, it was significantlyreduced in magnitude. A stem cued recall test in Experiment 2 confirmed a more deleterious effect of divided attention on explicit memory. Taken together, our findings delineate the relative contributions of perceptual analysis and attentional processes in mediating perceptual priming on two ubiquitously used tasks of word fragment completion and word stem completion.

title: Creating the Contrast: The Influence of Silence and Background Music on Recall and Attribute Importance
abstract: The author investigates the ways in which advertisers can use silence in radio commercials to increase attention to, and subsequent retention of, information in an advertisement. It is argued here that, when music is used in an advertisement, listener attention can be focused on specific pieces of information by cutting to silence just before presenting the crucial information and by continuing the underlying silence as the information is presented. An experiment is reported in which silence effectively increases the listener retention of ad information, in comparison with the use of either background music or background silence throughout. The effect was greatest when the highlighted information was the last item of a series. However, counter to expectations, advertisements with no background music whatsoever did not induce greater overall recall than ads with background music throughout.

title: Visual attention to advertising: A segment-level analysis
abstract: We propose a methodology to study the effects of physical ad properties on consumers' visual attention to advertising that accounts for heterogeneity in these effects across consumers. In an illustrative experiment, we monitor consumers' eye movements during naturalistic exposure to a consumer magazine, in which experimentally designed ads are inserted. A latent class regression model accounting for heterogeneity across consumers through unobserved segments is used to analyze the eye movement data in detail. Three consumer segments are identified that exhibit distinct patterns of visual attention as well as different profiles of product involvement, brand attitude, and advertising recall. Implications for visual attention theory and for advertising research are discussed.

title: RECALL AND PERSUASION: Does Creative Advertising Matter?
abstract: Creativity is an important component of advertising. This research examines the potential effectiveness of creative advertising in enhancing recall, brand attitude, and purchase intent. Our basic methodology compares a set of randomly selected award-winning commercials (Communication Arts) with a random sample of control commercials. The commercials were embedded in television programs and subjects for a naturalistic viewing experience. Studies 1 and 2 had aided and unaided brand and execution recall as dependent variables. For Study 3, brand attitude and purchase intent were the dependent variables of interest. Results indicated that creative commercials facilitate unaided recall, but that creativity did not enhance aided recall, purchase intent, or brand and advertisement attitude. The basic advantage of creative advertising in enhancing unaided recall was found to persist over a one-week delay.

title: Some facts about “weapon focus”
abstract: Abstract“Weapon focus” refers to the concentration of acrime witness's attention on a weapon, and the resultant reduction in ability to remember other details of the crime. We examined this phenomenon by presenting subject-witnesses with a series of slides depicting an event in a fast-food restaurant. Half of the subjects saw a customer point a gun at the cashier; the other half saw him hand the cashier a check. In Experiment 1, eye movements were recorded while subjects viewed the slides. Results showed that subjects made more eye fixations on the weapon than on the check, and fixations on the weapon were of a longer duration than fixations on the check. In Experiment 2, the memory of subjects in the weapon condition was poorer than the memory of subjects in the check condition: In Experiment 1 similar, though only marginally significant, performance effects were obtained. These results provide the first direct empirical support for weapon focus.

title: An approach to environmental psychology
abstract: Environmental psychology, though a fast-growing field, is one of the most difficult to fit into the confines of scientific inquiry. Measuring such subjective data as reactions to color, heat, light, and sound would seem to be an almost impossible task; indeed, until now there has been no theory around which the research in this field could be organized. This volume represents a preliminary effort to identify the relevant variables involved and fit them into a systematic framework. Furthermore, it presents extensive sets of measures for investigating the theory and implementing it in a variety of everyday environments.Basically, the framework outlined here proposes that environmental stimuli are linked to behavioral responses by the primary emotional responses of arousal, pleasure, and dominance. By considering the impact of the environment on these basic emotional responses, the effects of diverse stimulus components within or across sense modalities can be readily compared. An additional concept, information rate, is used to compare the effects of different environments, each with stimulation in many sense modalities. In the final chapters the authors present a series of hypotheses which relate the emotional response variables to a diversity of behaviors such as physical approach, performance, affiliation, and verbally or nonverbally expressed preference.

title: Recognition of Emotion
abstract: Publisher Summary Recognition of emotion may be intuitive and immediate; this does not preclude the intervention of much knowledge and experience. It may consist of phenomenally immediate integrations in simple or well-known situations. Recognition of emotion often consists of conscious hypotheses and self-corrections, and it often involves explicit inferential activities, utilizations of former experiences, and reasonings by analogy. Based largely upon immediate appreciation of the positional, relational meaning of expressive behavior, recognition of emotion is a complex process that may vary from the immediately evident to the fully conscious making of plausible guesses. This applies, in particular, when one understands, or tries to understand, other people's inner experiences. To explain this puzzling human possibility, the classical theories of reasoning by analogy or empathy have been developed. Critics of these theories have objected that in most instances, nothing of the sort seems to occur. They are right, because perceiving the positional aspects of behavior seen in a situation does not involve attribution of inner experience or the cognitive activities necessary for it. However, when a gap exists between behavior and the meaning of the environment, such attribution may occur.

title: A breadth-first survey of eye-tracking applications
abstract: Eye-tracking applications are surveyed in a breadth-first manner, reporting on work from the following domains: neuroscience, psychology, industrial engineering and human factors, marketing/advertising, and computer science. Following a review of traditionally diagnostic uses, emphasis is placed on interactive applications, differentiating between selective and gaze-contingent approaches.

title: Attention Capture and Transfer in Advertising: Brand, Pictorial, and Text-Size Effects
abstract: The three key ad elements (brand, pictorial, and text) each have unique superiority effects on attention to advertisements, which are on par with many commonly held ideas in marketing practice. This is the main conclusion of an analysis of 1363 print advertisements tested with infrared eye-tracking methodology on more than 3600 consumers. The pictorial is superior in capturing attention, independent of its size. The text element best captures attention in direct proportion to its surface size. The brand element most effectively transfers attention to the other elements. Only increments in the text element's surface size produce a net gain in attention to the advertisement as a whole. The authors discuss how their findings can be used to render more effective decisions in advertising.

title: Recall, Recognition, and the Measurement of Memory for Print Advertisements
abstract: The recall and recognition of people for 95 print ads were examined with an aim toward investigating memory structure and decay processes. It was found that recall and recognition do not, by themselves, measure a single underlying memory state. Rather, memory is multidimensional, and recall and recognition capture only a portion of memory, while at the same time reflecting other mental states. When interest in the ads was held constant, however, recall and recognition did measure memory as a unidimensional construct. Further, an examination of memory over three points in time showed considerable stability. The findings are interpreted from the perspective of recent research in cognitive psychology as well as current thinking in consumer behavior and advertising research. Managerial implications are considered as well.

title: Recognition as a Measure of Learning from Television Commercials
abstract: Recognition has not received extensive acceptance by practitioners as a response variable for learning of television commercials. The authors review some of the distinctions between recall and recognition, and some of the problems associated with each. In a laboratory experiment they developed and tested a measure of recognition useful for low involvement situations in which a recall level of learning may not be necessary. Data and implications about the usefulness and limitations of the measure are presented.

title: Recognition, Recall, and Rating Scales
abstract: This paper is one of 18 selected by the Editorial Review Board of The Journal of Advertising Research to be a ‘classic’ - an article that has withstood the test of time. First published in 1964, Wells shows that, in evaluating advertising, the recognition method (Starch) does not really measure recognition, and recall measures do not measure memorability. He concludes that recognition methods gauge the interest in an advertisement; recall methods, the meaningfulness of the message and brand name registration; but to predict subsequent sales, just ask people to rate the ad. And if all else is equal run the ad that consumers like least.

title: Dimensional Relationships of Aided Recall and Recognition
abstract: The advertising literature contains some evidence that memory measures, such as aided recall and recognition, are multidimensional in nature, but little is known about the character of the separate dimensions. This issue is investigated in the present study by including correlates of aided recall and recognition. The results of an ESSCA analysis indicate that there are at least two independent dimensions of memory for advertisements. The first dimension is related to positive affective reactions to the ad, brand and product category, and the second is related to knowledge or ability differences between individuals.

title: Recognition versus Recall as Measures of Television Commercial Forgetting
abstract: The authors report the second in a series of experiments on recognition as a dependent variable in the study of learning and forgetting of television commercials. They investigate the impact of time since exposure, commercial length, and commercial repetition on recognition and unaided recall scores. The results indicate that recognition scores are not indiscriminately high, as commonly is argued, and that they do decline with time, contrary to what often is assumed. The data, in fact, show that recognition scores are more sensitive and more discriminating than, and covary with, unaided recall scores. The evidence indicates they warrant more consideration by advertisers.

title: Finding Choice Alternatives in Memory: Probability Models of Brand Name Recall
abstract: Recalling brand names is an important aspect of consumer choice in many situations. The authors develop a general Markov model that relates probabilistic aspects of recall to consumer and marketing mix variables. Then they illustrate how parameters can be estimated from recall data for three special cases of the model: The first is a “baseline” version of the model that can be used to assess the extent to which categories of brands can be automatically included in or excluded from memory search; the second is a zero-order model that can be used to estimate the effects of brand variables and individual usage rates on recall latency; and the third is a first-order model that uses aggregate recall data to assess market structure. Finally, the authors demonstrate how the model can be used in numerical analyses to evaluate awareness-building strategies.

title: Forced-choice tests of recognition memory under steady-state conditions
abstract: On each trial of a continuing sequence, subjects were presented with a pair of threedigit numbers—one of which had already been presented on some earlier trial. The instructions were to indicate which number in each pair was the “old” one. The probability of correct choice was found: ( a ) to decrease markedly with delay since the earlier presentation of the old number; ( b ) to increase slightly with the dissimilarity between the two numbers in the pair (particularly at intermediate delays); and ( c ) to exhibit little of the decline over trials that might be expected to result from the interference of preceding numbers.

title: Enhancing Recall and Recognition for Brand Names and Body Copy: A Mixed-Language Approach
abstract: As the inclusion of foreign languages in advertisements is a growing global trend, this research examines how language choice may influence important advertising outcome measures within a South Korean advertising context. Specifically, the study aims to explore how foreign and local languages influence recall and recognition for brand name and body copy messages. The interaction of using two languages in an advertisement, to convey different elements of the ad may secure varied levels of attention and comprehension. The findings suggest that recall and recognition are significantly affected by the language presented. An ad presenting a brand name in the foreign language (English Roman alphabet) with the body copy message in the local language (Hangul) is an effective strategy to enhance recall and recognition of the brand name and the ad message within the Korean youth market. The results of this study expand linguistic theory within an advertising context while also providing international advertisers with useful tips when operating in a multinational marketplace. Future research avenues are discussed.

title: Forced-Choice Recognition Tests: A Critical Review
abstract: Recognition measures are commonly used to test the memory effects of advertisements. Unfortunately, there is a significant amount of response bias (particularly false claiming) involved with the simple “yes”/“no” type recognition tests currently being used by the advertising researchers. Recently a different procedure, called forced-choice recognition test, has been suggested as a means of removing the response bias. The present paper briefly reviews the past attempts made by the advertising researchers to secure a valid measure of recognition memory and then evaluates the efficacy of forced-choice recognition tests as a means of eliminating response bias in an advertising context.

title: Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales.
abstract: In recent studies of the structure of affect, positive and negative affect have consistently emerged as two dominant and relatively independent dimensions. A number of mood scales have been created to measure these factors; however, many existing measures are inadequate, showing low reliability or poor convergent or discriminant validity. To fill the need for reliable and valid Positive Affect and Negative Affect scales that are also brief and easy to administer, we developed two 10-item mood scales that comprise the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The scales are shown to be highly internally consistent, largely uncorrelated, and stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period. Normative data and factorial and external evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the scales are also presented.

title: Measuring Emotions in the Consumption Experience
abstract: Although consumption-related emotions have been studied with increasing frequency in consumer behavior, issues concerning the appropriate way to measure these emotions remain unresolved This article reviews the emotion measures currently used in consumer research and the theories on which they are based; it concludes that the existing measures are unsuited for the purpose of measuring consumption-related emotions. The article describes six empirical studies that assess the domain of consumption-related emotions, that identify an appropriate set of consumption emotion descriptors (the CES), and that compare the usefulness of this descriptor set with the usefulness of other measures in assessing consumption-related emotions.

title: Vivid memories of emotional events: The accuracy of remembered minutiae
abstract: It has been claimed that emotional arousal causes a narrowing of attention, and, therefore, impoverished memory encoding. On this view, if details of an emotional event are reported subsequently, these details must be after-the-fact reconstructions that are open to error. Our study challenges these claims. Using a long-term (2-week), incidental learning procedure, wefound that emotion promotes memory both for information central to an event and for peripheral detail. This contrasts with the results of explicit instructions to remember or to attend closely to the event, both of which seem to promote memory for the event’s gist at the expense of detail. The likely mechanisms underlying these effects are discussed.

title: Remembering ads: The effects of encoding strategies, retrieval cues, and emotional response
abstract: This study uses the encoding specificity principle ( Tulving & Thomson, 1973 ) and the distinction between episodic and semantic knowledge to test predictions about the effects of processing goals and retrieval cues on memory for emotional and neutral TV commercials. Subjects viewed five emotional and five neutral ads embedded in programming. Encoding instructions asked subjects to either (a) evaluate each product or (b) “just watch” as they viewed the ads. Retrieval cues were either the opening scene of each ad (executional cue) or the product category (categorical cue). Both recall and response-time measures were used to index ad memory-trace accessibility. The results showed that when encoding and retrieval conditions were compatible (evaluation instructions with categorical cue, and just-watch instructions with executional cue) ad memory traces were retrieved more rapidly than when encoding and retrieval conditions were incompatible. In addition, subjects who “just watched” emotional ads were able to retrieve those ad memory traces more rapidly when given an executional cue compared to a categorical cue, whereas subjects who evaluated neutral ads at encoding recalled more ads, and retrieved them more rapidly, when given a categorical cue compared to an executional cue. Finally, we show that searching memory first with an executional cue and then with a product-category cue leads to an increase in ad recall for both emotional and neutral ads, whereas searching first with a categorical cue and then with an executional cue leads to a decrease in ad recall for neutral ads.

title: Emotion, Hemispheric Specialization, and Visual and Verbal Memory for Television Messages
abstract: This article investigates variations in visual and verbal memory for television messages as a function of the emotional valence of the message. It is theorized that emotional processing is lateralized, with positive emotions receiving greater left-brain processing and negative emotions greater right-brain processing. Because the left brain is the primary locus for verbal information processing and the right brain is the primary locus for visual-spatial processing, it is hypothesized that memory for negative emotional messages will be more visual than verbal, whereas memory for positive emotional messages will be more verbal than visual. This hypothesis is tested at the encoding and recall stages of processing by measuring subjects' recall and recognition for messages that vary in emotional valence. Results suggest that message valence may be related to the amount of visual or verbal information encoded. However, the effect is less evident at the retrieval stage.

title: The Effects of Message Valence and Listener Arousal on Attention, Memory, and Facial Muscular Responses to Radio Advertisements
abstract: This study tested the validity of using facial electromyography (EMG) as a physiological measure of the valence of radio listeners' emotional responses to advertisements and explored the effects of message valence and listener arousal on attention and memory. A within-subjects experiment was conducted in which participants listened to ten 60-second radio advertisements that had been coded in a pretest as having either a positive or negative emotional tone. Facial EMG, heart rate, and skin conductance data were collected during exposure to the advertisements. Following exposure, participants completed free recall and recogniton memory tests. Results demonstrated the validity of using facial EMG to assess the valence of emotional response to media messages. Heart rate data suggest that negative messages receive more attention than positive ones. Furthermore, how arousing a message is appears to be a better predictor of memory than message valence.

title: Beyond savanna: An evolutionary and environmental psychology approach to behavioral effects of nature scenery in green advertising
abstract: Evolutionary psychology has been proposed as an analytic framework for the behavioral effects of landscapes displayed in advertising. In this study, an evolutionary and environmental psychology approach is used to analyze affective reactions to advertising depicting specific natural environments or urban scenes, both prominent ingredients of contemporary advertising imagery. The experimental field study exposed 750 participants at random to one advert of a set of 13 experimental green energy advertisements, each displaying a different biome. Six basic emotional responses (pleasure, arousal, happiness, freedom, safety, and interest) as well as attitude toward the ad and brand attitude were assessed subsequently. Anova and structural equation analysis were used for data analysis. Results of the study confirm the leading opinion on generalized more positive behavioral effects toward visual stimuli representing nature scenes with biospheric contents as opposed to pictures of urban environments or desert settings. In line with earlier empirical research, further findings do not support the hypothesis on an innate preference for savanna landscapes in adults but confirm preferences for images of lush green landscapes with water and familiar biomes. Overall results give significant support to the application of environmental and evolutionary psychology to advertising.