Department of Advertising

Knowledge and Memory

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

As this web site develops, in the space below we will provide a bibliography of articles and books relevant to this topic. To the extent practical, bibliographic references will be annotated.

Anyone interested in submitting additional bibliographic material for this reference page, or for any of the others at this site, is welcome to send such material via e-mail to jef@mail.utexas.edu. Please type the references in the same format as is used here, and keep the annotations to a few sentences.

  1. Greg J. Lessne and Nicholas M. Didow, Jr. (1987). Inoculation Theory and Resistance to Persuasion in Marketing. Psychology and Marketing, 4 (2): 157- 65.

    This paper reviews and assess McGuire's inoculation theory and the relevant psychology and marketing literature pertaining to resistance to persuasion. Directions for future inoculation research are presented.

  2. Murphy A. Sewall and Dan Sarel (1986). Characteristics of Radio Commercials and Their Recall Effectiveness. Journal of Marketing, 50 (Spring): 52-60.

    This paper describes an approach to examining cummulative data to identify various advertising elements of radio commercials that affect the commercial's recall performance. An illustrative application of the method is presented involving a content analysis of 832 radio commercials covering 31 product categories and the recall data for each commercial obtained via interviews with approximately 200 consumers selected via mall intercepts. Results of the study are discussed in terms of their practical implications.

  3. David W. Stewart (1986). The Moderating Role of Recall, Comprehension, and Brand Differentiation on the Persuasiveness of Television Advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 26 (April/May): 43-46.

    This study analyzes data concerning 1059 commercials tested by Research Systems Corporation in a laboratory setting within the context of television programming and other noncompetitive commercials. A tree structure is used to explore the relationships between recall, comprehension, brand differentiation, and persuasion. Results indicate the existence of a complex, interactive relationship among these factors. Recall and comprehension are found to be important influences on persuasion, although correlations between measures are modest. The use of a brand-differentiating message is also found to provide a higher probability of changing brand choice.

  4. John L. Swasy and Arno J. Rethans (1986). Knowledge Effects on Curiosity and New Product Advertising. Journal of Advertising, 15 (4): 28-34.

    Empirically examined is the authors' proposition that ad-stimulated curiosity and question responses are indicators of the viewer's comprehension and learning processes during initial exposures to new product advertising. Results indicate that prior product knowledge affects the extent of ad-evoked curiosity cognitive responses as well as questions concerning product class- related attributes and values. Recommendations for future research and testing of new product ads are provided.

  5. MacLachlan, James and Pradeep Jalan (1985). The Effect of Pre-Questions on Advertising Recall. Journal of Advertising, 14 (1): 18-22, 49.

    Results indicate that the recall of brand name for advertised products substantially increases when advertisements are preceded by questions concerning facts, ambiguous or unfamiliar phrases, incomplete versions of a slogan, or questions encouraging a personal connection.

  6. Christopher P. Puto (1984). Memory for Scripts in Advertisements. Advances in Consumer Research, 12: 404-9.

    Hypotheses derived from psychological research on scripts that have relevance to potential applications to advertising are tested in a pilot study conducted with a group of college students. The study uses written scripts presented in a story format resembling a slice-of-life ad. Results of the study indicate that scripts can be an effective method for enhancing the memorability of key points in an advertisement. No effects of scripts on measures of beliefs, attitudes, or purchase intention are found.

  7. James H. Leigh (1984). Recall and Recognition Performance for Umbrella Print Advertisements. Journal of Advertising, 13 (4): 5-18, 30.

    This study investigates the extent to which the branding policy and the number of products included in an umbrella print advertisement influence consumer awareness. Recall and recognition performance among a sample of college students are measured in an experiment employing umbrella print ads for unfamiliar brands of laundry, household, personal care products. Findings indicate superior recall and recognition for the family branding and the overall effectiveness of an umbrella approach, providing a support for the knowledge assembly theory of cognitive structure.

  8. James MacLachlan (1983/1984). Making a Message Memorable and Persuasive. Journal of Advertising Research, 23 (December/January): 51-58.

    This article identifies from the psychology literature 12 techniques which could help make a message memorable. The author illustrates that several techniques can be utilized simultaneously by citing the Good Samaritan story in the bible.

  9. Surendra N. Singh and Michael L. Rothschild (1983). Recognition as a Measure of Learning from Television Commercials. Journal of Marketing Research, 20 (August): 235-48.

    The paper discusses the distinction between recall and recognition and some methodological problems associated with each. A measure which uses a large number of distractors in the multiple-alternative forced-choice recognition test and tests recognition after a delay is developed and tested in an empirical study involving 211 undergraduates. The research uses as stimuli actual 30-second commercials (and the edited versions) for three low-involvement products that have not been aired in the experimental locale. Results of the study are shown to demonstrate the discriminability and sensitivity of the recognition measure. Implications of the findings are discussed for media strategy and copy testing.

  10. Esther Thorson and Rita Snyder (1984). Viewer Recall of Television Commercials: Prediction from the Propositional Structure of Commercial Scripts. Journal of Marketing Research, 21 (May): 127-36.

    This paper presents a psycholinguistically based model for predicting the viewer's recall of a television commercial based from the propositional structure of the commercial scripts. The predictive utility of the model is demonstrated in its application involving 19 commercials differing in length, execution, etc. and a total of 941 viewer protocols of immediate or day-after recall.

  11. Esther Thorson (1983). Propositional Determinants of Memory for Television Commercials. Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 6 (1): 139-155.

    Based on a model of viewer memory which identifies the proposition - a group of concepts forming an idea - as its unit of analysis, this article explores the notion that the linguistic form in which the verbal content of a commercial is organized largely determines remembering. Scripts of fifteen television commercials for nine household products and the recall protocols of adult viewers for the commercials are analyzed. Results indicate that propositional measures can explain a significant portion of the variance in viewer recall beyond that accounted for by simple word counts in the scripts or protocols. The potential of the propositional measures as a useful tool for analyzing the relationship of verbal commercial content to recall is discussed.

© 1995, 1996, 1997 Jef I. Richards
Some material here may be subject to copyrights of other contributors.