Lecture 2
Lecture 2.1 Attention
Attention is:
- Limited: People cannot experience all events and information that’s available at a certain point
of time.
- Selective: People selectively attend attention to the most important/salient information.
- Voluntary or involuntary: Voluntary; Information that is important to you. Involuntary;
Information that surprisingly come up to you.
- More attention more cognitive capacity more comprehension more elaboration.
- Attention is the first and necessary step for any communication.
Any communication method needs attention before consumers can further process it and make
decisions and judgements about it.
Levels of processing and involvement:
- Pre-attention: Requires no or little capacity, it’s automatic and unconscious processing.
Sensory stimuli of seeing and hearing something.
- Focal attention (leads to perceptual knowledge Apple+Fruit): People pay focal attention and
little capacity is required to process.
Zoom in on information and make sense of what we see/hear.
- Comprehension (leads to syntactic knowledge; Apple+Steve Jobs): People allocate more
cognitive resources and more processing resources to comprehend the message. It requires a
modest level of capacity to process.
- Elaboration (lead to propositional knowledge; Apple+Iphone,Ipad,Amac): People allocate more
cognitive/processing information to elaborate the message. It requires a substantial level of
capacity to process.
2.2 Increasing (in)voluntary attention
Increasing involuntary attention = bottom-up process:
Involuntary attention: Unconscious process that causes an automatic orienting response.
- Saliency: Novel, new, unexpected, original stimuli or stimuli related to life and death. It’s hard
to ignore, you pay focal attention to the source of stimulation.
o Yerkes-Dodson Law: Relationship between cognitive capacity and arousal. You receive the
highest cognitive capacity with a moderate level of arousal.
- Horizontal centrality: Stimuli in the center receive more attention and are likely to be chosen.
O O O
O O O
O O O
- Primacy: Consumers are more attentive to items that are presented first in a list. Also because
most of the time the most important things are listed first.
- Picture superiority: Pictures receives more attention than text.
o Pictures: Attracts a lot of attention, regardless of size.
o Text: The bigger the text, the more attention.
o Brand/logo: The bigger the brand name/logo, the more attention.
, Increasing voluntary attention = top-down process:
Voluntary attention: Conscious and intended process and allocate more resources to the
information.
- Personal interest & inattentional blindness: Consumers allocate more attention to information
that is consistent with their goals. Other information that is not relevant with their goals are
often ignored.
Google: Sponsored results are inattentional blindness, because they are not immediately
relevant.
- Self-referencing: Attention increase when personalized information is used.
Personalized email: Dear Sterre, …
Using second person ‘you’ instead of third person ‘it’
- Proximity & EWOM: The more proximate, the more relevant, the more attention.
o Sensory proximity: Closeness in experience. Relations, family, friends, et cetera
o Spatial proximity: Closeness in physical space. Your own town, neighbours, et cetera
o Temporal proximity: Closeness in time. In the close future, tomorrow, et cetera
EWOM: Electronic word of mouth, we receive it from people close to us (sensory/spatial
proximity).
Billboards: Prominent and often close in space (spatial proximity).
2.3 Increasing Processing Fluency
Easier process means less resources are needed for comprehension and elaboration. It’s more likely
that information is stored and retrieved.
- Existing knowledge structure: Linking information to what we already know.
Concrete information is easier to link (visual iso verbal; concrete words iso abstract words;
narrative story telling iso statistics).
- Dual coding theory: Visual and verbal modalities lead to different encoding strategies, which
results in more and distinct memory traces.
Words Verbal codes + Images (story imagination) visual codes = memory traces.
- Encoding variability: The more memory traces available, the easier to encode, comprehend
and retrieve. Novel information receives an extra memory trace. Duracell Bunny
Burnkant & Unnava:
Design 2x2: Level of imagery (high/low) x Picture (present/absent)
Recall:
Imagery HIGH HIGH LOW LOW
Picture ABSENT PRESENT ABSENT PRESENT
Recall 4.5 out of 5 3.5 out of 5 3 out of 5 4.8 out of five
Lecture 2.1 Attention
Attention is:
- Limited: People cannot experience all events and information that’s available at a certain point
of time.
- Selective: People selectively attend attention to the most important/salient information.
- Voluntary or involuntary: Voluntary; Information that is important to you. Involuntary;
Information that surprisingly come up to you.
- More attention more cognitive capacity more comprehension more elaboration.
- Attention is the first and necessary step for any communication.
Any communication method needs attention before consumers can further process it and make
decisions and judgements about it.
Levels of processing and involvement:
- Pre-attention: Requires no or little capacity, it’s automatic and unconscious processing.
Sensory stimuli of seeing and hearing something.
- Focal attention (leads to perceptual knowledge Apple+Fruit): People pay focal attention and
little capacity is required to process.
Zoom in on information and make sense of what we see/hear.
- Comprehension (leads to syntactic knowledge; Apple+Steve Jobs): People allocate more
cognitive resources and more processing resources to comprehend the message. It requires a
modest level of capacity to process.
- Elaboration (lead to propositional knowledge; Apple+Iphone,Ipad,Amac): People allocate more
cognitive/processing information to elaborate the message. It requires a substantial level of
capacity to process.
2.2 Increasing (in)voluntary attention
Increasing involuntary attention = bottom-up process:
Involuntary attention: Unconscious process that causes an automatic orienting response.
- Saliency: Novel, new, unexpected, original stimuli or stimuli related to life and death. It’s hard
to ignore, you pay focal attention to the source of stimulation.
o Yerkes-Dodson Law: Relationship between cognitive capacity and arousal. You receive the
highest cognitive capacity with a moderate level of arousal.
- Horizontal centrality: Stimuli in the center receive more attention and are likely to be chosen.
O O O
O O O
O O O
- Primacy: Consumers are more attentive to items that are presented first in a list. Also because
most of the time the most important things are listed first.
- Picture superiority: Pictures receives more attention than text.
o Pictures: Attracts a lot of attention, regardless of size.
o Text: The bigger the text, the more attention.
o Brand/logo: The bigger the brand name/logo, the more attention.
, Increasing voluntary attention = top-down process:
Voluntary attention: Conscious and intended process and allocate more resources to the
information.
- Personal interest & inattentional blindness: Consumers allocate more attention to information
that is consistent with their goals. Other information that is not relevant with their goals are
often ignored.
Google: Sponsored results are inattentional blindness, because they are not immediately
relevant.
- Self-referencing: Attention increase when personalized information is used.
Personalized email: Dear Sterre, …
Using second person ‘you’ instead of third person ‘it’
- Proximity & EWOM: The more proximate, the more relevant, the more attention.
o Sensory proximity: Closeness in experience. Relations, family, friends, et cetera
o Spatial proximity: Closeness in physical space. Your own town, neighbours, et cetera
o Temporal proximity: Closeness in time. In the close future, tomorrow, et cetera
EWOM: Electronic word of mouth, we receive it from people close to us (sensory/spatial
proximity).
Billboards: Prominent and often close in space (spatial proximity).
2.3 Increasing Processing Fluency
Easier process means less resources are needed for comprehension and elaboration. It’s more likely
that information is stored and retrieved.
- Existing knowledge structure: Linking information to what we already know.
Concrete information is easier to link (visual iso verbal; concrete words iso abstract words;
narrative story telling iso statistics).
- Dual coding theory: Visual and verbal modalities lead to different encoding strategies, which
results in more and distinct memory traces.
Words Verbal codes + Images (story imagination) visual codes = memory traces.
- Encoding variability: The more memory traces available, the easier to encode, comprehend
and retrieve. Novel information receives an extra memory trace. Duracell Bunny
Burnkant & Unnava:
Design 2x2: Level of imagery (high/low) x Picture (present/absent)
Recall:
Imagery HIGH HIGH LOW LOW
Picture ABSENT PRESENT ABSENT PRESENT
Recall 4.5 out of 5 3.5 out of 5 3 out of 5 4.8 out of five
