Cognitive Science Program

The limited capacity model of mediated message processing (2000)
Annie Lang
Journal of communication, 50 (1), 46-70

Abstract

This paper presents an information-processing model that is directly applicable to the investigation of how mediated messages are processed. It applies the model to the case of television viewing to demonstrate its applicability. It provides a measure for each part of the model. It presents evidence that supports the model in the television-viewing situation. Finally, it demonstrates how the model may be used to further research and understanding in well-known theoretical traditions. This model is not meant to stand in opposition to any of these theories but, rather, should work well with them by providing hypothesized mechanisms that may underlie well-known effects. This model should prove useful both to researchers and, eventually, to message producers. To the extent that we can better understand how the content and structure of messages interact with a viewer's information-processing system to determine …

Using the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing to design effective cancer communication messages (2006)
Annie Lang
Journal of communication, 56 S57-S80

Abstract

This paper applies the limited capacity model of motivated mediated messages (LC4MP) to the problem of creating effective messages about cancer. A general description of the model is presented and then applied specifically to the task of creating effective cancer communication messages by asking the following questions about cancer communication: (a) What is the goal of the message? (b) Who is in the target market? (c) What medium will carry the message? and (d) What is the motivational and personal relevance of the main information in the message for the majority of people in the target market? The paper concludes that cancer is a motivationally relevant topic that will elicit aversive activation. Target markets for various types of cancer‐related messages (e.g., smokers or people of a certain age) will process mediated messages in predictably different ways making certain design decisions better for …

Negative video as structure: Emotion, attention, capacity, and memory (1996)
Annie Lang, John Newhagen and Byron Reeves
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 40 (4), 460-477

Abstract

This paper uses a limited capacity information processing theory of television viewing to investigate the effects of graphic negative video at four levels of processing (attention, capacity, encoding, and retrieval) and on two dimensions of emotional experience (arousal and valence). Results indicate that the presence of negative video in news stories increases attention, increases the amount of capacity required to process the message, increases the ability to retrieve the story, facilitates recognition of information presented during the negative video and inhibits recognition for information presented before the negative video. Results also indicate that the introduction of negative video increases the self‐reported negative emotional impact of the story — making it more arousing and more negative.

The effects of production pacing and arousing content on the information processing of television messages (1999)
Annie Lang, Paul Bolls, Robert F Potter and Karlynn Kawahara
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 43 (4), 451-475

Abstract

The limited capacity model of television viewing is used to investigate the impact of arousing content and fast paced production of viewers’ information processing of TV messages. Results show that both fast pace and arousing content elicit self‐reported arousal, but they elicit different patterns of physiological arousal. Both fast pace and arousing content increase the allocation of processing resources to messages. The combination of fast pace and arousing content overloads the processing system resulting in less recognition and cued recall for the specific content of the message. Results generally support the limited capacity theory of television viewing.

The effects of message valence and listener arousal on attention, memory, and facial muscular responses to radio advertisements (2001)
Paul D Bolls, Annie Lang and Robert F Potter
Communication Research, 28 (5), 627-651

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 …

Death with a story: How story impacts emotional, motivational, and physiological responses to first-person shooter video games (2004)
Edward F Schneider, Annie Lang, Mija Shin and Samuel D Bradley
Human communication research, 30 (3), 361-375

Abstract

This study investigates how game playing experience changes when a story is added to a first-person shooter game. Dependent variables include identification, presence, emotional experiences and motivations. When story was present, game players felt greater identification, sense of presence, and physiological arousal. The presence of story did not affect self-reported arousal or dominance. This study clearly demonstrates that story is something that video game players enjoy; it helps involve them in the game play, makes them feel more immersed in the virtual environment, and keeps them aroused. The greater character identification may be especially worrisome, as past research has shown that justified media violence disinhibits actual aggression on the part of the audience.

The effects of emotional arousal and valence on television viewers’ cognitive capacity and memory (1995)
Annie Lang, Kulijinder Dhillon and Qingwen Dong
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 39 (3), 313-327

Abstract

This study examines the combined effects of arousal and valence on viewers’ capacity allocation to and memory for television messages. Results show that when valence (how positive or negative a message is) is controlled, arousing messages are remembered better than calm messages. When arousal is controlled, positive messages are remembered better than negative messages. Reaction time results suggest that capacity allocation is a function of both valence and arousal. Viewers allocate the most capacity to positive arousing messages and the least capacity to negative arousing messages. The calm messages (both positive and negative) fall between these two.

Involuntary attention and physiological arousal evoked by structural features and emotional content in TV commercials (1990)
Annie Lang
Communication Research, 17 (3), 275-299

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.

Rethinking theoretical approaches to stigma: A framework integrating normative influences on stigma (FINIS) (2008)
Bernice A Pescosolido, Jack K Martin, Annie Lang and Sigrun Olafsdottir
Social science & medicine, 67 (3), 431-440

Abstract

A resurgence of research and policy efforts on stigma both facilitates and forces a reconsideration of the levels and types of factors that shape reactions to persons with conditions that engender prejudice and discrimination. Focusing on the case of mental illness but drawing from theories and studies of stigma across the social sciences, we propose a framework that brings together theoretical insights from micro, meso and macro level research: Framework Integrating Normative Influences on Stigma (FINIS) starts with Goffman's notion that understanding stigma requires a language of social relationships, but acknowledges that individuals do not come to social interaction devoid of affect and motivation. Further, all social interactions take place in a context in which organizations, media and larger cultures structure normative expectations which create the possibility of marking “difference”. Labelling theory, social …

Defining audio/video redundancy from a limited-capacity information processing perspective (1995)
Annie Lang
Communication Research, 22 (1), 86-115

Abstract

This article applies a limited-capacity information processing approach to the question of whether audio / video redundancy improves memory for television messages. Audio / video redundancy is defined as a continuum. Four different types of stimuli frequently used to operationalize redundancy are considered in terms of: (a) how much capacity they require to be fully processed; (b) how complex they are; and, (c) how much audio and video information they contain. Predictions based on these considerations are made about relative memory for each type of stimulus at three levels of processing (encoding, storage, and retrieval). The three major memory measures are conceptualized as providing information about different aspects of the information processing of a message. Specifically, recognition measures index how much information was encoded, cued recall indexes how much information has been stored …

The effects of screen size and message content on attention and arousal (1999)
Byron Reeves, Annie Lang, Eun Young Kim and Deborah Tatar
Media Psychology, 1 (1), 49-67

Abstract

The number of different screens that people confront is increasing. One potentially important difference in the psychological impact of screen displays is their size; new screens are both larger and smaller than older ones. A between-subjects experiment (n = 38) assessed viewer's attention and arousal in response to three different size screens (56-inch, 13-inch, and 2-inch picture heights). Viewers responded to video images from television and film that displayed different emotions (# video segments = 60). Attention was measured by heart rate deceleration in response to the onset of pictures, and arousal was measured by skin conductance aggregated during viewing. Results showed that the largest screen produced greater heart rate deceleration than the medium and small screens. The large screen also produced greater skin conductance than the medium and small screens. For skin conductance, screen size …

The effects of edits on arousal, attention, and memory for television messages: When an edit is an edit can an edit be too much? (2000)
Annie Lang, Shuhua Zhou, Nancy Schwartz, Paul D Bolls and Robert F Potter
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 44 (1), 94-109

Abstract

This study examines the effect of the rate of edits (camera changes in the same visual scene) on viewers' arousal and memory. The rate of edits varied from slow to very fast. Results show that as the rate of edits increases physiological arousal, self-reported arousal, and memory increase. It is suggested that edits can increase attention to and encoding of television message content without significantly increasing the cognitive load of the message.

Packaging television news: The effects of tabloid on information processing and evaluative responses (2000)
Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Shuhua Zhou, Annie Lang and Paul David Bolls
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 44 (4), 581-598

Abstract

This experiment assessed the impact of formal features associated with the packaging of tabloid and standard news on viewer arousal, attention, information recognition, memory, and evaluations of news. The flamboyant tabloid packaging style increased arousal and attention but did not have a significant impact on recognition memory or delayed free recall of information. Moreover, viewers found standard versions to be more believable and informative than the tabloid versions of news stories.

News content and form: Implications for memory and audience evaluations (2003)
Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Annie Lang and Xiaoquan Zhao
Communication Research, 30 (4), 387-413

Abstract

This experiment examines the effect of tabloid and standard packaging styles on calm and arousing news stories. The goal of this line of research is to investigate the combined influence of form and content on information processing and viewer evaluations of television news. Results indicate that the bells and whistles of tabloid production features enhance memory for calm news items but overburden the information processing system when applied to arousing news content. The evaluative measures produced data that show formal features have an influence on the meaning viewers derive from news content and that they rate news packaged in the tabloid format as less objective and believable than stories without these dramatic features.

Making television reality: Unconscious processes in the construction of social reality (1991)
Michael A Shapiro and Annie Lang
Communication research, 18 (5), 685-705

Abstract

One psychological mechanism that people may use to construct social reality is a reality-monitoring procedure with which they may relatively automatically and unconsciously select relevant event memories in constructing a picture of the world. Contextual information stored with the event memories is one element used to determine the relevance of a memory. Both preattentive psychophysiological responses and higher-order cognitive responses to the stream of television events are likely to be stored with television event memories. Both psychophysiological and cognitive processing of television events are examined to see what kinds of contextual information might be stored as a result of both real and fictional television events and mediated and unmediated television events. Then the decision processes that use this information are examined. It seems likely that television may result in contextual information that …