An examination of five leading advertising journals over seventeen years revealed that the number of graduate student "authors" increased over time. However, there was no increase in the total number of "articles" with graduate student authors. More than 70 percent of graduate students who authored or co-authored the published…

In an examination of the way people store and retrieve information from advertising, this paper draws a distinction between "semantic" memory, which stores general knowledge about the world, and "episodic" memory, which stores information about specific events. It then argues that episodic memory plays a more significant role…

The faculty of Denison University have been making heuristic use of gaming and simulation for several years. In the fall of 1974, the college was awarded nearly $300,000 from the Lilly Endowment to continue and expand that heuristic use. Three years later, forms of simulation are being used by fifty per cent of the Denison faculty, and the college…

Several approaches to problem solving are reviewed, followed by a brief overview of simulation, including its definition and some of the strong and weak points of the literature. It is argued that simulation is itself a problem-solving endeavor and that justifying the heuristic use of simulation requires evidence that it fosters general…

Six separate experiments were undertaken to test the hypothesis that poor readers in first, second, and third grade would have more difficulty with simple perceptual discriminations than would good readers in the same grades. Various tasks were used in the experiments, including discrimination of line orientations, checking letters in three-letter…

A study tested an information processing model that incorporates the concepts of episodic and semantic memory. The model was designed to provide for the concurrent study of three advertising and communication variables: product involvement, message appeal, and distraction in viewing conditions. Among the five hypotheses being tested were that…

A study applied an associative coding model to discern how emotions experienced during television commercials affect the strength and content of viewer memory for the commercials. Subjects, 25 males and 49 females enrolled at a large midwestern university, tested the model. Emotion was indexed by having viewers continuously turn a dial as they…

Based on the associational nature of memory, the distinction between episodic and semantic memory, and the notion of memory strength, a model was developed of the role of emotion in the memory of television commercials. The model generated the following hypotheses: (1) emotional commercials will more likely be recalled than nonemotional…

A study investigated the effects of local (momentary) and global (whole program) involvement in program context and the effects of message complexity on the retention of television commercials. Sixteen commercials, categorized as simple video/simple audio through complex video/complex audio were edited into two globally high- and two globally…

A study used 18 television commericals, selected as representative of a variety of executional styles and products, and generated scores for each of them on 18 dimensions of structural variation. In addition, a multivariate analysis was used to examine the relations both among the dimensions and between these dimensions and some common measures of…

Summarizes results from a series of psychological experiments about how people process information from television and discusses the results in relation to six issues, including size of stimulus units and complexity of television stimuli. (DF)

Viewing television requires mental effort. Among the findings in this study, results indicated that more mental effort was required to process simple video and auditory information than complex information because the cognitive system is activated to a higher degree by complex messages and thus processes information more efficiently. (PD)

This study analyzed four characteristics of political commercials to determine their impact on television viewers' reactions: (1) issue versus image strategies; (2) attack versus support appeals; (3) presence and absence of music; and (4) visual content, either with families or in professional campaign settings. Memory measures and attitudes are…

Outlines a psychophysiological (involuntary responses to novel environmental stimuli) model of the role of orienting responses (ORs) in learning from televised lectures. Demonstrates that insertion of videographics in talking-head lectures produces ORs in television viewers. Finds that ORs enhance learning of familiar material but interfere with…

This study relied on telephone survey interviews of adults in two U.S. metropolitan areas to examine whether the relationship between mass media use and social capital varies according to ethnicity. A multigroup approach taken with structural equation modeling validates a four-factor model of social capital for Blacks and Whites and then, with the…