Levels of Subjective Comprehension in Advertising Processing and Their Relations to Ad Perceptions, Attitudes, and Memory

Two fundamental orientations toward message comprehension have appeared in advertising research: the traditional objective view, which applies an accuracy criterion to conceptualize and evaluate comprehension, and the subjective view, which applies other criteria related to the individual comprehender and the actual experience of the message. This article develops a framework for four levels of subjective comprehension on the basis of an elaboration criterion. Comprehension levels are hypothesized to differ in their relations to ad perceptions, attitudes, and memory. Results from an empirical study provide initial support for the framework, including new theoretical insights and explanatory ability beyond the objective orientation. Discussion focuses on implications for advertising theory and consumer research. Copyright 1992 by the University of Chicago.

[1]  H. E. Krugman.  THE MEASUREMENT OF ADVERTISING INVOLVEMENT , 1966 .

[2]  A. Greenwald.  6 – Cognitive Learning, Cognitive Response to Persuasion, and Attitude Change1 , 1968 .

[3]  F. Craik,et al.  Levels of Pro-cessing: A Framework for Memory Research , 1975 .

[4]  P. Wright.  The Cognitive Processes Mediating Acceptance of Advertising , 1973 .

[5]  J. Russell,et al.  The Basic Emotional Impact of Environments , 1974, Perceptual and motor skills.

[6]  A. Tesser,et al.  Attitude polarization as a function of thought and reality constraints , 1976 .

[7]  T. B. Rogers,et al.  Self-reference and the encoding of personal information. , 1977, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[8]  Theoretical issues in the psychology of implication: A reply to Keenan , 1978 .

[9]  Strategies of understanding , 1981 .

[10]  Steffen-Peter Ballstaedt,et al.  Effects of Elaboration on Recall of Texts , 1982 .

[11]  Judith A. Langer.  The Construction of Meaning and the Assessment of Comprehension: An Analysis of Reader Performance on Standardized Test Items. , 1982 .

[12]  H. Kelley,et al.  Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change , 1982 .

[13]  Jerry C. Olson,et al.  Do Cognitive Responses Mediate the Effects of Advertising Content on Cognitive Structure , 1982 .

[14]  Joseph W. Alba,et al.  The Effects of Product Knowledge on the Comprehension, Retention, and Evaluation of Product Information , 1983 .

[15]  A. Greenwald,et al.  Audience Involvement in Advertising: Four Levels , 1984 .

[16]  Esther Thorson,et al.  Viewer Recall of Television Commercials: Prediction from the Propositional Structure of Commercial Scripts , 1984 .

[17]  Terry L. Childers,et al.  Measurement of Individual Differences in Visual Versus Verbal Information Processing , 1985 .

[18]  J. Zaichkowsky.  Measuring the Involvement Construct , 1985 .

[19]  André I. Khuri,et al.  Multicollinearity in marketing models: Diagnostics and remedial measures☆ , 1986 .

[20]  N. Holland.  The Miller's Wife and the Professors: Questions about the Transactive Theory of Reading , 1986 .

[21]  Christine B. Mccormick,et al.  Self-referent processing and recall of prose. , 1987 .

[22]  J. W. Hutchinson,et al.  Dimensions of Consumer Expertise , 1987 .

[23]  Wayne D. Hoyer,et al.  The Comprehension and Miscomprehension of Print Communication , 1987 .

[24]  W. Griswold.  The Fabrication of Meaning: Literary Interpretation in the United States, Great Britain, and the West Indies , 1987, American Journal of Sociology.

[25]  Richard L. Celsi,et al.  The Role of Involvement in Attention and Comprehension Processes , 1988 .

[26]  Bernard J. Jaworski,et al.  Information Processing from Advertisements: Toward an Integrative Framework , 1989 .

[27]  D. Mick,et al.  Consumers' Interpretations of Advertising Imagery: a Visit to the Hell of Connotation , 1989 .

[28]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  An Empirical Examination of the Structural Antecedents of Attitude toward the Ad in an Advertising Pretesting Context , 1989 .

[29]  Marie Adele Hughes,et al.  Intercoder Reliability Estimation Approaches in Marketing: A Generalizability Theory Framework for Quantitative Data , 1990 .

[30]  S. Ratneshwar,et al.  The Effect of Cultural Orientation on Persuasion , 1997 .