Hearing versus Seeing: A Comparison of Consumer Learning of Spoken and Pictorial Information in Television Advertising

Abstract Many television viewers process only the audio or visual channel. The generalizability of the picture superiority effect observed for print is studied by comparing product information presented aurally with similar information presented pictorially. The study supports a picture superiority effect that unexpectedly did not decline when the number of exposures increased from one to two or four or increase when learning was measured after a seven-day delay rather than immediately. However, it was smaller when recognition rather than recall was used to measure learning. Advertisers should be aware of single channel processing and the paper offers suggestions for designing appropriate messages.

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