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Good Sound, Good Research: How Audio Quality Influences Perceptions of the Research and Researcher
Abstract
Increasingly, scientific communications are recorded and made available online. While researchers carefully draft the words they use, the quality of the recording is at the mercy of technical staff. Does it make a difference? We presented identical conference talks (Experiment 1) and radio interviews from NPR’s Science Friday (Experiment 2) in high or low audio quality and asked people to evaluate the researcher and the research they presented. Despite identical content, people evaluated the research and researcher less favorably when the audio quality was low, suggesting that audio quality can influence impressions of science.
... Accents are one examplewhen provided audio information through a foreign accent, people rate information less likely to be true (Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010), provide harsher sentences to a defendant (Romero-Rivas et al., 2021), and find eyewitnesses less credible (Frumkin, 2007). Other research shows that people evaluate academic conference talks more negatively when there is a (simulated) slight echo on the microphone (Newman & Schwarz, 2018;see also, Fiechter et al., 2018). In short, whenever information is difficult to perceive, understand, or imagine, when processing is clunky or strained, recipients evaluate the substantive content of the information more negatively. ...
... Similarly, faces that have been seen less often, and are thus less easy to process compared to repeated faces, seem relatively less sincere and honest (Brown et al., 2002; see also Weisbuch & Mackie, 2009). And even scientific experts are perceived to be less competent when there is background noise in a radio interview (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). Taken together, incidental variables that produce cognitive difficulty in processing information about people, events, and products can have systematic consequences in human judgment-when processing is difficult, people arrive at more negative evaluations. ...
... In sum, the results of Experiment 2 show that participants had better memory for testimony when it was presented in high-quality audio. This is consistent with the robust finding that disfluency impairs the perceived trustworthiness of messages, as reviewed in Schwarz et al. (2021), and observed in Experiment 1 as well as Newman and Schwarz (2018) for manipulations of audio quality. Hence, participants may have attended less to witnesses who seemed to be less credible, reliable and accurate, resulting in reduced memory. ...
Objectives:
Recent virtual court proceedings have seen a range of technological challenges, producing not only trial interruptions but also cognitive interruptions in processing evidence. Very little empirical research has focused on how the subjective experience of processing evidence affects evaluations of trial participants and trial decisions. Metacognitive research shows that the subjective ease or difficulty of processing information can affect evaluations of people, belief in information, and how a given piece of information is weighted in decision making.
Hypotheses:
We hypothesized that when people experienced technological challenges (e.g., poor audio quality) while listening to eyewitness accounts, the difficulty in processing evidence would lead them to evaluate a witness more negatively, influence their memory for key facts, and lead them to weigh that evidence less in final trial judgments.
Method:
Across three experiments (total N = 593), participants listened to audio clips of witnesses describing an event, one presented in high-quality audio and one presented in low-quality audio.
Results:
When people heard witnesses present evidence in low-quality audio, they rated the witnesses as less credible, reliable, and trustworthy (Experiment 1, d = 0.32; Experiment 3, d = 0.55); had poorer memory for key facts presented by the witness (Experiment 2, d = 0.44); and weighted witness evidence less in final guilt judgments (Experiment 3, ηp² = .05).
Conclusion:
These results show that audio quality influences perceptions of witnesses and their evidence. Because these variables can contribute to trial outcomes, audio quality warrants consideration in trial proceedings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... Visual and auditory attributes of a stimulus can influence the speed and accuracy of low-level processes concerned with the identification of the stimulus' physical identity and form. Examples include figure-ground contrast (e.g., ; the readability of hand-writing (e.g., Greifeneder et al., 2010) and print fonts (e.g., Song & Schwarz, 2008a); the clarity of auditory presentations (e.g., Newman & Schwarz, 2018) and familiarity of a speaker's accent (e.g., Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010) or the duration of stimulus presentation (e.g., Whittlesea, Jacoby, & Girard, 1990). The associated metacognitive experience is often referred to as perceptual fluency (Jacoby, Kelley & Dywan, 1989). ...
... Other fluency variables similarly affect trust and credibility. Speakers with easy to understand accents are believed more than speakers with difficult to understand accents (Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010), and scientists' conference presentations and radio interviews are more compelling when the recordings have higher audio quality (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). Not only do the scientists themselves seem smarter, but even the importance of their research topic improves with the audio quality (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). ...
... Speakers with easy to understand accents are believed more than speakers with difficult to understand accents (Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010), and scientists' conference presentations and radio interviews are more compelling when the recordings have higher audio quality (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). Not only do the scientists themselves seem smarter, but even the importance of their research topic improves with the audio quality (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). ...
Thinking is accompanied by metacognitive experiences of ease or difficulty. People draw on these experiences as a source of information that can complement or challenge the implications of declarative information. We conceptualize the operation of metacognitive experiences within the framework of feelings-as-information theory and review their implications for judgments relevant to consumer behavior, including popularity, trust, risk, truth, and beauty.
... Therefore, it is unsurprising that there is renewed research interest in predicting consumers' responses to these media (Raza & Nanath, 2020). The findings of this are consistent with those obtained in other domains, namely, those improving processing fluency by using priming, specific literary devices, and ease of comprehension are all associated with greater liking and preference judgments (Filkuková & Klempe, 2013;Liebers et al., 2019;Newman & Schwarz, 2018). Aydin (2018) found a significant relationship between processing fluency and increased purchase intention in response to advertising. ...
... Filkuková and Klempe (2013) explored rhyming as a measure of advertisement slogan processing fluency: rhyming slogans were perceived as more likable, original, easy to recall, trustworthy, and convincing than nonrhyming slogans. With regard to other media, Newman and Schwarz (2018) showed that poorer quality radio broadcast audio was associated with the material being perceived as less fluent and less pleasant, and with the presenter being judged as less intelligent. Various other studies have demonstrated that readability scores are associated positively with the popularity of text-based media (Basyuk, 2018;Gao et al., 2019;Pancer et al., 2019;Wright, 2003). ...
Several studies show that a concept or object is more popular when it is easier to process. The present research applies this notion of processing fluency to the lyrics of all 271 top 5 songs on the United Kingdom chart for each week from 1999 to 2014. The processing fluency of the lyrics was computer scored for readability, presence of rhyme, and complexity, and popularity was assessed in terms of peak chart position and duration of tenure on the chart. After controlling for the energy of the musical component of the song, analyses showed that factors relating to the processing fluency of the lyrics predicted peak popularity but not duration of chart tenure. Significant relationships were observed between peak popularity and both rhyme saturation and basic lyric readability properties.
... So, it's important to adapt the length of our film to the area, category and target audience. Concerning the sound, recent findings suggest that good audio quality is in the researcher's or reporter's interest and that the technical quality of recordings can affect the evaluation of the research (Newman and Schwarz, 2018). The average quality of the audio and the narrator's voice of popular science videos are good and very good, showing values of production and a certain degree of professionalism on this feature . ...
... Although previous studies have shown that ensuring good audio quality should be in the researcher's interest (Newman and Schwarz, 2018), in our case, the quality of narrator's voice, given by the general audio quality, was not a determining factor for video viewing. However, it had a positive impact on the scientific reach of the written paper, measured as the Altmetric. ...
In this Research Topic we are interested in the impact of online video-sharing on the public communication of science and the environment, but also on intra-scientific communication and practice. The online video format has great potential for science and environmental communication, but there are also potential problems and pitfalls that need to be reflected. We are interested in the role of online video-sharing platforms, such as YouTube, Vimeo and others, for the public communication of science and research.
Production
We are looking for various perspectives on the production of online videos, i.e. who creates and uploads videos with scientific and environmental contents and what are the intentions and purposes of these videos? What are the differences and similarities between professional, amateur, institutional and other actors who produce online videos? How do the different creators of videos about science and the environment legitimize themselves and what audiences do they want to reach and for what reasons? What are the differences in practices and intentions of journalists, YouTubers, scientists, scientific institutions and others when it comes to online video-sharing?
Content
Which scientific and environmental topics and what kinds of research and knowledge are represented in publicly available online videos and which are not? Are there certain scientific disciplines that use online videos for public and/ or intra-scientific communication more often than others? What kind of video formats, genres, videographic styles etc. are most successful, widespread and adequate for science and environmental communication? How can the quality of scientific online videos be assessed? What role do misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories play in online videos about scientific and environmental topics and what could be done to successfully counteract erroneous and problematic video content? Can differences concerning topics, frames or aesthetic aspects be found and analyzed, and if so how? What are the differences between the online videos of professional, amateur, institutional and other user/ producer cultures? Are there differences in the online videos from diverse geographical locations, languages and disciplinary communities?
Audiences, reception and communities
How are online videos on science and the environment perceived by various audiences? Do scientists and researchers also make use of the online-video format, and if so, how and why? How do different audiences make sense of the online videos they are watching and how do they affect perceptions, knowledge and attitudes? How do different users seek and find online videos about science and the environment and how do they assess the credibility of the videos? What communities emerge around specific video channels featuring science and environmental online videos and how do various audiences/ communities and video creators interact? What is the role of specific online video-sharing platforms for the dissemination, recommendation and practices of environmental and science communication via online video?
Methodological innovations
What quantitative, qualitative, computational and other methods could be used to study scientific and environmental online-videos and practices of online video-sharing?
Practical perspectives
We are also interested in perspectives of online video practitioners or researchers and others who experimented with online videos for science and environmental communication. We also welcome case studies and the experiences of science YouTubers and experience reports of exchanges with scientists, scientific institutions, journalists, filmmakers and others who use online videos for environmental and science communication.
Keywords: Science Communication, Environmental Communication, Online Video, Video Platforms, YouTube, Vimeo, Public Understanding of Science, Science of Science Communication, Social Sciences, Media, Communications, Interdisciplinarity
See also:
https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/11604/new-directions-in-science-and-environmental-communication-understanding-the-role-of-online-video-sha
... In the auditory domain, clearer auditory presentations (Newman & Schwarz, 2018) and familiar accents (Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010) make it easier to hear and understand the claims, again with consequences for truth judgments. ...
... Participants were biased to accept statements as true when they were accompanied by a photo (Fenn et al., 2013;Newman et al., 2015). This bias occurs outside of conscious awareness (Newman et al. 2018) and can persist for several days (Fenn et al. 2013). Pairing a statement with a photo also increased participants' tendencies to like and share information in a simulated online environment (regardless of whether that information was true or false in reality; Fenn et al., 2019). ...
Why do consumers sometimes fall for spurious claims – e.g., brain training games that prevent cognitive decline, toning sneakers that sculpt one's body, flower essence that cures depression – and how can consumers protect themselves in the modern world where information is shared quickly and easily? As cognitive scientists, we view this problem through the lens of what we know, more generally, about how people evaluate information for its veracity, and how people update their beliefs. That is, the same processes that support true belief can also encourage people to sometimes believe misleading or false information. Anchoring on the large literature on truth and belief updating allows predictions about consumer behavior; it also highlights possible solutions while casting doubt on other possible responses to misleading communications.
... When researchers are interested in the issue of perceived credibility of science, they are interested in inter-individual or inter-group differences arising from the issuer of the information (e.g., a scientist's facial appearance [21]; the properties of the message itself [22]; and/or the characteristics of the audience receiving the message. Gauchat [23] studying temporal trends in public trust in science in the United States between 1974 and 2010 show differences by social class, ethnicity, gender, church attendance, region and especially political conservatism. ...
... [24,25]. Here we focus on the audience, and more specifically on the attitude that individuals may have towards science [22], but also on the social representations they may have of the same object. ...
Since the 1970s, there has been a growing interest in how individuals appropriate scientific knowledge, which has recently been reinforced by societal issues such as vaccine releases and skepticism about global warming. Faced with the health and social consequences of the mistrust of scientific knowledge, there is an urgent need for tools to measure the acceptance or rejection of scientific knowledge, while at the same time gaining a more detailed understanding of the processes involved. This is the purpose of this article. Thus, we conducted 4 empirical studies to provide a validation of the Credibility of Science Scale from the perspective of a French population, which aims to assess the credibility that individuals attribute to science and to empirically evaluate the link that may exist between the different levels of credibility attributed to science and the social representations of science. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrated good structural validity, the good fidelity (homogeneity and temporal stability), and the good criterion validity of the French version of the scale. In Study 2, we observed the same psychometric qualities of the French version of the scale. We also noted a structuring of the social representation of science based on age (Factor 1) and on the credibility attributed to science (Factor 2). Our results also raise the question of possible means of intervention to promote a better perception of science.
... So, it's important to adapt the length of our film to the area, category and target audience. Concerning the sound, recent findings suggest that good audio quality is in the researcher's or reporter's interest and that the technical quality of recordings can affect the evaluation of the research (Newman and Schwarz, 2018). The average quality of the audio and the narrator's voice of popular science videos are good and very good, showing values of production and a certain degree of professionalism on this feature (Morcillo et al., 2016). ...
... Although previous studies have shown that ensuring good audio quality should be in the researcher's interest (Newman and Schwarz, 2018), in our case, the quality of narrator's voice, given by the general audio quality, was not a determining factor for video viewing. However, it had a positive impact on the scientific reach of the written paper, measured as the Altmetric. ...
In recent years, the use of videos by the scientific community has evolved continuously. Researchers, communicators, and other players are using audiovisual media to reinvent their stories, to deconstruct complex phenomena and to increase the outreach and impact of their scientific publications. An example of this trend is the video abstract: an audiovisual representation of the key findings described in the written abstract. Much of the research in this area is new and focused on content analysis and classification of online science videos. Furthermore, studies with videos and environmental communication are attached to specific topics like climate change. So far, a small fraction of publications has explored the study of the video abstract, its effects, and its potential, as one general scientific area. This paper provides the first characterization of video abstracts in the areas of Ecology and Environmental Sciences. We identified video abstracts in 29 scientific journals, based on impact, representativeness and visibility criteria. A database of 171 videos, from 7 publishers and 17 different video channels was created. Each video was analyzed for different parameters. The analysis considered not only characteristics of each video, but also characteristics from the corresponding scientific papers. Results indicate that between 2010 and 2018 the number of video abstracts increased sevenfold. Despite this growth, there was no solid strategy for disseminating the videos. While most of them are still associated with classic models, such as documentaries, disruptive formats such as animation are the ones that arouse greater interest. Professional shorter videos (2-3 min in length) showed a significantly higher number of daily views and their papers garnered a higher number of citations per day. This data, combined with future qualitative research, will help to develop a model for validating the quality of an Ecology video abstract and provide new insights into the global study of audiovisual communication of science.
... Video abstracts can take over 20 hours to complete and graphical abstracts aren't far behind. They also require specialized equipment and skills to be effective [7,8]. While plain language summaries might seem the easiest to produce, even eLife found that they were publishing too many papers for each one to have its own plain language summary, and in 2016 they scaled back the number of summaries they publish [9]. ...
... The first author has made several of these Cell video abstracts and is familiar with the qualifications necessary. Audio quality was also carefully controlled as it plays a role in how favorable participants find the research [8]. ...
Background
Journals are trying to make their papers more accessible by creating a variety of research summaries including graphical abstracts, video abstracts, and plain language summaries. It is unknown if individuals with science, science-related, or non-science careers prefer different summaries, which approach is most effective, or even what criteria should be used for judging which approach is most effective. A survey was created to address this gap in our knowledge. Two papers from Nature on similar research topics were chosen, and different kinds of research summaries were created for each one. Questions to measure comprehension of the research, as well as self-evaluation of enjoyment of the summary, perceived understanding after viewing the summary, and the desire for more updates of that summary type were asked to determine the relative merits of each of the summaries.
Results
Participants (n = 538) were randomly assigned to one of the summary types. The response of adults with science, science-related, and non-science careers were slightly different, but they show similar trends. All groups performed well on a post-summary test, but participants reported higher perceived understanding when presented with a video or plain language summary (p<0.0025). All groups enjoyed video abstracts the most followed by plain language summaries, and then graphical abstracts and published abstracts. The reported preference for different summary types was generally not correlated to the comprehension of the summaries. Here we show that original abstracts and graphical abstracts are not as successful as video abstracts and plain language summaries at producing comprehension, a feeling of understanding, and enjoyment. Our results indicate the value of relaxing the word counts in the abstract to allow for more plain language or including a plain language summary section along with the abstract.
... For example, research indicates that emotional arousal occurs when images can be recognized but not when images are so pixelated that they cannot be (Schupp et al., 2008). Audio is also prone to distortion effects, with individuals rating audio with poor quality lower than clear audio (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). In addition, the number of technical difficulties affecting the video may influence perceptions, with some research indicating that individuals who viewed a clear stimulus were more tolerant of audio asynchronies than those seeing a blurred stimulus (Shatzer et al., 2018). ...
... And though we did not teach people Danish, our data suggest we made it easier for them to understand a video clip. The fact that perceptual and conceptual manipulations of fluency can produce similar outcomes suggests an avenue for future work-testing the possibility that perceptual manipulations, such as the clarity of the video, the contrast of the subtitles, or the quality of the audio track, would also change people's confidence about their Danish skill (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). ...
General Audience Summary
When people encounter new information, it can be made easier to understand by an accompanying cocktail of words, gestures, and behaviors. The problem is this same cocktail—called semantic context—can also create the illusion of understanding. Take, for example, foreign films and television series. Subtitles help viewers understand what characters are saying and what is happening. What is interesting is that viewers attend to subtitles effortlessly and may even lose awareness of the subtitles despite still relying on the subtitled information. But could subtitles create a semantic context that encourages viewers to be more confident they had learned the foreign language even when they had not? To answer this question, we conducted five experiments in which we showed participants a video clip of people speaking Danish—either with or without subtitles—and asked everyone to rate their ability to understand Danish in new situations. Then we asked people to translate Danish audio clips to see if they had learned any Danish. We found those who saw the subtitled video were more confident in their ability to understand Danish in new situations compared to those who saw the unsubtitled clips, even though they were not able to translate any more of the Danish audio clips. These findings suggest that relative to situations of lesser semantic context, greater semantic context can create illusions of one’s ability to do something implausible.
... When it is not good, the sound is a critical negative factor in the viewing experience ( Figure 8). This finding aligns with the conclusion that research is less positively evaluated when the sound is terrible [Newman & Schwarz, 2018]. ...
Video abstracts, filmed versions of scientific written abstracts, are an exciting trend in the world of online science videos, but, to date, the classification, conception and reception of these videos still need to be explored. This study aims to identify the most and least valued features, exploring future guidelines for producing an effective video abstract. For this purpose, 30 science video experts watched 21 video abstracts and filled out a questionnaire. Content analysis showed that video abstracts in Ecology and Environmental Sciences should be short, clear, objective, creative, dynamic and informative, mixing impactful live images with animation.
... Numerous elements, including spoken delivery, can influence the popularity of podcasts. Delivery can affect popularity because audible content is necessary for listeners to comprehend the sounds and make meaning, particularly if distortions or disruptions are limited (Newman and Schwarz 2018). Therefore, clear recording, coherent scriptwriting and a focus on editing to ensure clear and coherent dialogue and story are essential to podcasting and, therefore, educational podcasting. ...
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Radio presents exciting new research on radio and audio, including broadcasting and podcasting. Since the birth of radio studies as a distinct subject in the 1990s, it has matured into a second wave of inquiry and scholarship. As broadcast radio has partly given way to podcasting and as community initiatives have pioneered more diverse and innovative approaches so scholars have embarked on new areas of inquiry.
Divided into seven sections, the Handbook covers:
- Communities
- Entertainment
- Democracy
- Emotions
- Listening
- Studying Radio
- Futures
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Radio is designed to offer academics, researchers and practitioners an international, comprehensive collection of original essays written by a combination of well-established experts, new scholars and industry practitioners. Each section begins with an introduction by Hugh Chignell and Kathryn McDonald, putting into context each contribution, mapping the discipline and capturing new directions of radio research, while providing an invaluable resource for radio studies.
... Familiar faces are rated more favorably and their statements as more convincing (Brown et al., 2002;Weisbuch & Mackie, 2009). Speakers who have clear audio are rated as more credible, reliable, and trustworthy (Bild et al., 2021;Newman & Schwarz, 2018). While people are sensitive to the experience of easy processing, they are less sensitive to the origin of the fluency (Jacoby et al., 1989;Schwarz, 2015). ...
... building materials, furniture and books). We base this reasoning on the fluency literature, which has demonstrated that processing fluency shapes consumers' preferences and decisions in a myriad of domains (Alter and Oppenheimer, 2009), influencing phenomena ranging from effort allocation (Schwarz et al., 2021;Shah and Oppenheimer, 2008) and action orientation (Okuhara et al., 2017;Song and Schwarz, 2008) to risk inferences (Dohle and Siegrist, 2014;Song and Schwarz, 2009) and credibility judgments (Lev-Ari and Keysar, 2010;Newman and Schwarz, 2018). For example, Shah and Oppenheimer (2007) tested whether fluently and disfluently processed stimuli carry the same weight in decision-making and found that people put a greater weight on fluently (vs disfluently) processed customer reviews, ratings and financial information. ...
Design/methodology/approach: We conducted two high-powered field studies (N = 1,312) to test whether salesperson‐customer proximity influences consumers’ purchase behavior and store loyalty. Moreover, we investigated whether the short-term effects on purchase behavior were moderated by the extent to which the consumption context had a clear connection to consumers’ own bodies.
Purpose: Previous research on salesperson-customer proximity has yielded mixed results, with some studies documenting positive proximity effects on shopping responses and others demonstrating the reverse. To reconcile such mixed findings, we test whether and how salesperson proximity influences a series of key customer outcomes in actual retail settings using sample sizes that are considerably larger than most former investigations.
Findings: Salesperson proximity increased purchase incidence and spending in consumption contexts with a bodily basis (e.g., clothes, beauty, health), suggesting that consumers “buy their way out” in these contexts when a salesperson is violating their personal space. If anything, such proximity had a negative impact on consumers’ purchase behavior in contexts that lacked a clear bodily connection (e.g., building materials, furniture, books). Moreover, the link between proximity and consumer responses was mediated by discomfort, such that a salesperson standing close-by (vs. farther away) increased discomfort, with negative downstream effects on shopping
responses. Importantly, we found opposite proximity effects on short-term metrics (purchase incidence and spending) and long-term outcomes (store loyalty).
Research implications/limitations: Drawing on the nonverbal communication literature and theories on processing fluency, the current work introduces a theoretically relevant boundary condition for the effects of salesperson-customer proximity on consumers’ purchase behavior. Specifically, the bodily basis of the consumption context is discussed as a novel moderator, which may help to explain the mixed findings in this stream of research.
Practical implications: Salesperson-customer proximity may serve as a strategic sales tactic to improve short-term revenue in settings that are closely tied to consumers’ own bodies and characterized by one-time purchases. However, as salesperson proximity was found to be associated with lower store loyalty, irrespective of whether the shopping setting had a bodily basis, the risk of violating consumers’ personal space may have costly consequences from a long-term perspective.
Originality/value: The present field studies make three central contributions. First, we introduce a novel moderator for proximity effects in various sales and service settings. Second, we test our focal hypotheses with much higher statistical power than most existing proximity studies. Finally, we document that salesperson-customer proximity ironically yields opposite outcomes on short-term metrics and long-term outcomes, thus underscoring the importance of not solely focusing on sales effectiveness when training frontline employees.
... This allowed us to evaluate the audio quality and judge that it was relatively poor in both, when compared with many professionally produced videos. Audio quality has been established as an important principle of instructional design (Kühl et al., 2014;Newman & Schwarz, 2018), and had other researchers also included links to their worked example videos, some meta-analysis of audio quality on learning may be possible. We propose that the inclusion of a link to the actual video used is the optimal way to communicate the video design. ...
Instructional videos are increasingly part of the teaching practices of educators across all sectors. The most common theoretical lens used to design and evaluate instructional videos has been to apply principles emerging from the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. However, these principles have been largely developed from research using instructional media other than videos. In addition, there is no comprehensive list of principles that have been shown to improve learning from instructional videos. Therefore, this paper seeks to identify principles of video design that are empirically supported in the literature. A systematic literature review was conducted, with a final analysis of 113 papers describing 28 principles. While some of the existing cognitive theory of multimedia learning principles, notably coherence, segmenting and learner control, have been found to improve learning from instructional videos in a variety of contexts, others, such as redundancy and modality, are not supported. These findings serve as clear guidance to instructional designers creating educational video content. In addition to describing the breadth of research in the field, this paper also found that the development of the research field suffers from a lack of coherence and is in urgent need of clear nomenclature and improved reporting of media and research design. Implications for practice or policy: Instructional videos that are shorter, segmented, coherent and paired with learning activities are more likely to lead to improved learning gains in students. Researchers reporting on the use of videos should provide comprehensive descriptions of media, including links to the media where possible. Designers of instructional videos should critically evaluate design principles established for non-video media.
... Numerous studies have shown how fluency, that is the ease with which a text can be processed, enhances its liking (Reber et al., 2004), perceived truthfulness (Dechêne et al., 2009), and its trustworthiness (Newman et al., 2014; for an overview, see Schwarz et al., 2020). When research was presented with high audio quality or easy-to-read fonts, thus in a way that could be processed easily instead of hard, it was perceived to be of higher quality and the associated researchers were perceived to be more competent and intelligent (Newman & Schwarz, 2018;Oppenheimer, 2006). When exercise routines and cooking recipes were presented in an easy-to-read (vs. ...
We investigated linguistic factors that affect peoples’ trust in science and their commitment to follow evidence-based recommendations, crucial for limiting the spread of COVID-19. In an experiment ( N = 617), we examined whether complex (vs. simple) scientific statements on mask-wearing can decrease trust in information and its sources, and hinder adherence to behavioral measures. In line with former research on social exclusion through complex language, we also examined whether complexity effects are mediated via feelings of social exclusion. Results indicate that negative effects of text complexity were present, but only for participants with a strong conspiracy mentality. This finding informs how to increase trust in science among individuals with a high conspiracy mentality, a population commonly known for its skepticism towards scientific evidence.
... Since fluency perceptions are constantly available, people rely on them regularly when evaluating information [Greifeneder and Bless, 2007;Whittlesea and Leboe, 2003]. Messages that are hard to read [Reber and Schwarz, 1999] or delivered in bad audio quality [Newman and Schwarz, 2018], for example, are deemed less credible. Based on these findings, in can be argued that Tweets that almost exclusively rely on capital letters are more difficult to read and therefore decrease processing fluency. ...
Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the global community, politicians as well as scientists increasingly turn to Twitter to share urgent health information using various message styles. The results of our 2x2 between-subject experiment show that if a Tweet is written in lower-case letters, participants perceive the information source as more trustworthy. Furthermore, the information is perceived as more credible, and people are more willing to read the health information and share it via social media. Furthermore, scientists are perceived as possessing more expertise than politicians. However, politicians are perceived as possessing more integrity and benevolence than scientists.
... Numerous studies have shown how fluency, that is the ease with which a text can be processed, enhances its liking (Reber et al., 2004), perceived truthfulness (Dechêne et al., 2009), and its trustworthiness (Newman et al., 2014; for an overview, see Schwarz et al., 2020). When research was presented with high audio quality or easy-to-read fonts, thus in a way that could be processed easily instead of hard, it was perceived to be of higher quality and the associated researchers were perceived to be more competent and intelligent (Newman & Schwarz, 2018;Oppenheimer, 2006). When exercise routines and cooking recipes were presented in an easy-to-read (vs. ...
We investigated linguistic factors that affect peoples’ trust in science and their commitment to follow evidence-based recommendations, crucial for limiting the spread of COVID-19. In an experiment (N = 617), we examined whether complex (vs. simple) scientific statements on mask-wearing can decrease trust in information and its sources, and hinder adherence to behavioral measures. In line with former research on social exclusion through complex language, we also examined whether complexity effects are mediated via feelings of exclusion. Results indicate that negative effects of text complexity were present, but only for participants with a strong conspiracy mentality. This finding informs how to decrease distrust in science among individuals with high conspiracy mentality, a population commonly known for its rejection of scientific evidence.
... The truthiness effect suggests that nonprobative information can influence the perceived truthfulness of a claim by increasing the fluency with which the information is processed: the more easily information is processed, the more likely people are to believe it to be true (Newman et al., 2012). This effect has been found with a variety of types of nonprobative information; for example, claims are more likely to be judged as trustworthy if they are presented alongside a decorative image (Newman et al., 2012), attributed to a person with a name that is easy to pronounce (Newman et al., 2014), or played with high audio quality (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). Therefore, it could be that neurotypical individuals display a constellation of behaviors that render their communication more easily processed than that of autistic individuals. ...
We hypothesized that autistic adults may be erroneously judged as deceptive or lacking credibility due to demonstrating unexpected and atypical behaviors. Thirty autistic and 29 neurotypical individuals participated in video-recorded interviews, and we measured their demonstration of gaze aversion, repetitive body movements, literal interpretation of figurative language, poor reciprocity, and flat affect. Participants ( N = 1410) viewed one of these videos and rated their perception of the individual’s truthfulness or credibility. The hypothesis was partially supported, with autistic individuals perceived as more deceptive and less credible than neurotypical individuals when telling the truth. However, this relationship was not influenced by the presence of any of the target behaviors, but instead, by the individual’s overall presentation.
... Certain points may be considered before embarking on designing one (Fig. 1). 32 - 37 1. A 3-5 minute VA is considered ideal. ...
Video abstracts (VAs) are a motion picture equivalent of written abstracts. With greater use of social media platforms for post publication promotions of research articles, VAs have gained increasing popularity among researchers in recent years. Widespread lockdowns and social distancing protocols in the pandemic period furthered the use of VAs as a tool for efficient learning. Moreover, these may be the preferred medium for communicating certain types of information, such as diagnostic or therapeutic procedures, qualitative research, perspectives, and techniques. In this article, the authors discuss the role of VAs in the advancement of academic research, plausible designs, freeware for making videos, and specific considerations for crafting good VAs.
... How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark? ˜% poor phone connection during a researcher's radio interview can impair listeners' impression of the quality of her research program (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). People also find a statement to be more true when presented with a version of it that rhymes rather than one that doesn't, even when the two versions are substantively equivalent (McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000). ...
... The source of difficulty may come from content, but we may also be influenced by superficial factors relating to the presentation of the material. For example, when the sound quality of a scientific presentation (conference or radio show) was poor, listeners rated the quality of the science and the researcher less favorably than when the sound quality was good (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). A poor quality This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. ...
Tele-forensic interviewing (tele-FI; e.g., via video-conferencing software) may be an effective way of increasing the accessibility of skilled interviewers for children who are questioned as part of a criminal or care and protection investigation. The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted how critical it is that we have evidence-based procedures to draw upon when traditional face-to-face interviews cannot be used. In this article we discuss the benefits and risks associated with tele-FI, review the small number of studies that have examined its effectiveness for eliciting memory reports from adults and children, and discuss practical considerations that should inform planning for an interview. Tele-FI appears a promising avenue for creating resiliency within organizations, and overcoming factors that might otherwise undermine the reliability of children’s evidence. Available research indicates children’s memory reports elicited in tele-FIs are likely to be as good or better than those from face-to-face interviews, but a more comprehensive evidence-base is needed. Interviewers should be aware of how using this approach may influence their questioning strategies and engagement with children.
... Unfortunately, people are more sensitive to their processing experience itself than to the source of this experience (Schwarz, 2010) and sometimes misread fluent processing due to incidental influences as bearing on the truth of a statement. Indeed, numerous incidental variables that affect processing fluency have been found to influence judgments of truth, from print font and color contrast (e.g., Garcia-Marques, Parks & Toth, 2006;Reber & Schwarz, 1999; to accent (Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010) and audio quality (Newman & Schwarz, 2018), to the ease of pronouncing the information's source (Newman et al., 2014). Such fluency effects are incidental and unrelated to the semantic content of the claim. ...
General Audience Summary
People are more likely to believe a statement when they have seen or heard it before, a phenomenon called the illusory truth effect. This has important implications for daily life, where we are repeatedly exposed to both true and false information as we scroll through social media, read the news, or talk with others. We test whether the influence of repetition on belief depends on whether one is warned that information presented may be false. In three experiments, we first asked participants to read a series of trivia claims. Half of the claims were true and half were false. We explicitly told some of the participants that some claims were false, whereas other participants were not alerted to this. After a delay, participants saw another set of trivia claims, including ones they had already seen before and ones that were new. As in earlier studies, participants believed the repeated claims were more true than claims they read for the first time. Importantly, the influence of repetition on belief was over twice as large when participants had not been warned that some claims were false. The protective effect of these initial warnings was observed even when participants did not judge the truth of those claims until three to six days later. However, the warnings were only helpful when they preceded the first reading of the claims. Waiting to warn people until they later had to judge their truth had no detectable influence. These results show that warnings can curb the influence of repetition on belief in false information, provided the warning precedes initial exposure. They also show that many truth effect experiments may have underestimated the impact of repetition on belief due to the presence of warnings in their experimental designs that are usually absent under real world conditions.
... How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark? ˜% poor phone connection during a researcher's radio interview can impair listeners' impression of the quality of her research program (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). People also find a statement to be more true when presented with a version of it that rhymes rather than one that doesn't, even when the two versions are substantively equivalent . ...
This open-access book examines the phenomenon of fake news by bringing together leading experts from different fields within psychology and related areas, and explores what has become a prominent feature of public discourse since the first Brexit referendum and the 2016 US election campaign. Thanks to funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation, all chapters can be downloaded free of charge at the publisher's website:
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429295379
There is also an Amazon Kindle edition that's free of charge:
https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Fake-News-Correcting-Misinformation-ebook-dp-B08FF54H53/dp/B08FF54H53/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=
... But as in other domains of judgment, people are more sensitive to their feelings than to the source of those feelings and hence misread incidental subjective experiences as relevant to the judgment at hand (for reviews, see Schwarz, 2012;Schwarz & Clore, 2007). Hence, many incidental manipulations of fluency have been found to increase a claim's acceptance, from repeating a claim (e.g., Hasher et al., 1977) to repeating its denial (e.g., Skurnik et al., 2005), presenting it in an easy-to-read color contrast (e.g., Reber & Schwarz, 1999), in high acoustic quality (e.g., Newman & Schwarz, 2018) or a rhyming form (McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000). ...
Claims are more likely to be judged true when presented with a related nonprobative photo (Newman, Garry, Bernstein, Kantner, & Lindsay, 2012). According to a processing fluency account, related photos facilitate processing and easy processing fosters acceptance of the claim. Alternatively, according to an illusion-of-evidence account, related photos may increase acceptance of the claim because they are treated as tentative supportive evidence. We disentangle these potential mechanisms by using comparative claims. In forming comparative judgments, people first assess attributes of the linguistic subject of comparison and subsequently compare them to attributes of the referent (Tversky, 1977). Hence, photos of the linguistic subject in a sentence should facilitate, but photos of the linguistic referent impair, fluent processing of this sequence. In contrast, a photo of either the subject or the referent can be perceived as tentative evidence. In two experiments (total N = 1200), photos of the subject increased acceptance of comparative claims relative to a no-photo condition (a truthiness effect), but only when the subject was otherwise difficult to visualize. Photos of the referent decreased acceptance of comparative claims relative to a no-photo condition (a falsiness effect), but only when the subject of comparison was otherwise easy to visualize. All results are consistent with a context-sensitive fluency account: increases in fluency foster, and decreases in fluency impair, acceptance of a claim as true. The results provide no support for an illusion-of-evidence account.
... For example, handwritten essays are more compelling when the handwriting is easy to read (Greifeneder, et al., 2010) and so are spoken messages when the speaker's accent is easy to understand (Levy-Ari & Keysar, 2010). Similarly, the same conference talk is less impressive when its video recording has low audio quality, and a poor phone connection during a researcher's radio interview can impair listeners' impression of the quality of her research program (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). People also find a statement to be more true when presented with a version of it that rhymes rather than one that doesn't, even when the two versions are substantively equivalent (McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000). ...
... How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark? ˜% poor phone connection during a researcher's radio interview can impair listeners' impression of the quality of her research program (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). People also find a statement to be more true when presented with a version of it that rhymes rather than one that doesn't, even when the two versions are substantively equivalent . ...
... Medical podcasts (or videos) are audio interviews (in digital format) with authors of key articles and clinical experts about cutting-edge medical research, journal highlights, evidence-based medicine or guidelines. The podcasts can be listened (or viewed) from personal computers, mobile phones or MP3/MP4 players on-demand (Cuschieri, 2019;Kraft, 2007; and the audio quality or the accent of the speaker may influence impressions of research (Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010;Newman & Schwarz, 2018). ...
Background
Keeping up to date with the latest medical information using Web‐based resources has been sparsely described, and a comprehensive up‐to‐date review is needed.
Objectives
To summarise the Web‐based ‘channels’ that may assist the actors of the health care system (clinicians, medical researchers and students) to keep up to date with medical information.
Methods
We searched PubMed and Scopus for English language articles published between January 1990 and February 2019 that investigated ways for keeping up with medical information. We used the results from our search and relevant information from other sources to conduct a narrative synthesis.
Results
We found that resources that push information (e.g. web alerts, medical newsletters, listservs), resources that rely on the active information seeking (e.g. access to health librarians and electronic databases, podcasts, mobile apps), collaborative resources (e.g. web conferences, online journal clubs, web social media) and resources that synthesise information (e.g. bibliometrics, living systematic reviews) can contribute in keeping up with new findings and can enhance evidence‐based medicine. Clinicians, medical researchers and students can benefit from the proper use of such Internet‐based technological innovations.
Conclusion
Internet provides many resources that can help the actors of the health care system stay up to date with the latest scientific findings.
... Indeed, in one study, after completing the commodity market prediction task, Newman et al. (2018) asked people how they thought the photos of commodities had influenced their judgements. A total of 62% of participants said that the photos helped them understand or imagine the claim, while another 28% said the photo did nothing or slowed them down. ...
True or false? “A woodpecker is the only bird that can fly backwards.” When such a claim appears with a related, but non-probative photo (e.g., a photo of a woodpecker perched on a tree) people are more likely to think the claim is true—a truthiness effect. This truthiness effect holds across a range of judgments, including judgments about general knowledge facts, predictions about future events, and judgments about our own episodic memories. Throughout, adding a photograph to a claim rapidly increases people’s belief in that claim. We review the literature on truthiness, documenting the ways in which photos and other kinds of non-probative information can rapidly change people’s beliefs, memories, and estimations of their own general knowledge. We also examine the mechanisms contributing to truthiness and explore the implications for misinformation and fake news.
... For example, handwritten essays are more compelling when the handwriting is easy to read (Greifeneder, et al., 2010) and so are spoken messages when the speaker's accent is easy to understand (Levy-Ari & Keysar, 2010). Similarly, the same conference talk is less impressive when its video recording has low audio quality, and a poor phone connection during a researcher's radio interview can impair listeners' impression of the quality of her research program (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). People also find a statement to be more true when presented with a version of it that rhymes rather than one that doesn't, even when the two versions are substantively equivalent (McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000). ...
To evaluate whether something is likely to be true, people attend to whether it is compatible with other things they know, internally consistent and plausible, supported by evidence, accepted by others, and offered by a credible source. Each criterion can be evaluated by drawing on relevant details (an effortful analytic strategy) or by attending to the ease with which the claim can be processed (a less effortful intuitive strategy). Easy processing favors acceptance under all criteria, even when more careful processing would identify the claim as faulty. Intuitive assessments of truth have important implications for the role of social media and the correction of false claims. Social media are characterized by high message repetition, selective filtering and sharing, and easy-to-process formats, all of which foster acceptance of a claim as true. Popular correction strategies typically confront false claims with facts. This works while the facts are still highly accessible, but backfires after a delay because extensive thought about false claims during the correction phase increases fluent processing when the claim is re-encountered later. At that point, the facts are less accessible and fluent processing of the now familiar false claim can facilitate its acceptance.
... Additionally, disfluency diminishes evaluations of items even when they are not compared to anything. For example, a recording of a podcast is rated less favorably when the audio quality is poor versus when it is excellent (Newman and Schwarz 2018). Thus, if speech reduces fluency, one would expect evaluations of items to be lower for speech versus text even in separate evaluation mode. ...
Voice assistants often present choices where consumers listen to product options. But do consumers process information differently when listening compared to reading? Bridging theories on evaluability and memory, six experiments, including one conducted in consumers’ homes on Alexa voice speakers, demonstrate that consumers listening to speech utilize higher-evaluability product information (which can be understood without making comparisons to other options) to guide their judgments and choices relatively more than consumers reading the same text. A difference in memory drives this tendency. This is because (1) due to its ephemeral nature, processing speech requires greater reliance on memory and (2) information higher in evaluability is more easily remembered. Thus, higher-evaluability information is likely to be remembered regardless of presentation mode (speech vs. text), while memory for lower-evaluability information is likely to favor text, leading to the observed effect. The findings speak to the evaluability, memory, and auditory information processing literatures, and underscore that marketing managers presenting choices via speech will do well to highlight favorable highly-evaluable information about products such as recommendations, sales ranks, or descriptions such as “like new.” Substantively, a new format for presenting information is demonstrated which may improve voice-based sales.
... Ferner hat auch die Bewertung der Quelle (z. B. Reputation) sowie deren Qualität (Newman & Schwarz, 2018) Einfluss auf die Intensität des Effekts. Eine weitere Einflussvariable stellt die Distanz zu den 3 rd -Persons -auch Social-Distance-Corollary (Cohen, Mutz, Price & Gunther, 1988;Eveland, Nathanson, Detenber & McLeod, 1999) -dar. ...
Werbung wirkt! Aber nur auf andere – nicht auf mich selbst. Gehen wir davon aus, dass andere Menschen stärker von Medien oder Werbung beeinflusst werden als wir selbst? Und welchen Einfluss hat diese Annahme auf unsere Einstellungen und unser Verhalten? Diese Kernfragen bilden die Medienwirkungstheorie des 3rd-Person-Effekts. Die nachfolgende Arbeit bietet eine Einführung in diesen Ansatz, die anhand dreier Interviews mit aktiven Medienrezipienten ermittelt wurde. Die daraus abgeleiteten Erkenntnisse wurden mit bestehenden theoretischen Betrachtungen zusammengeführt und in Verbindung gebracht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen eine deutliche Effektwirkung im Sinne einer Wahrnehmungsverzerrung, kongruent zu der Theorie des Ansatzes. Darüber hinaus konnten Auswirkungen auf individuelle Vor- und Einstellungen, Einstellungsänderungen, Verhalten und Verhaltensabsichten festgestellt werden. Die wahrgenommene Distanz zum Empfängerkreis wurde als kritische Komponente bestätigt, wobei selbst geographische Distanz eine wichtige Rolle spielte. Zustimmung zu staatlichen Zensurmaßnahmen „gefährlicher“ medialer Botschaften wurde hingegen unisono abgelehnt.
... As a large body of experimental research (reviewed in Schwarz, 2018) indicates, fluent processing provides an affirmative answer to each of these truth tests, even when more careful processing would identify the claim as faulty. Hence, any variable that increases processing fluency -from repetition (e.g., Hasher, Goldstein, & Toppino, 1977; Unkelbach & Koch, Chapter 3 this volume) and color contrast (e.g., Reber & Schwarz, 1999) to rhyme (e.g., McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000), ease of pronunciation (e.g., Newman et al., 2014) and audio quality (e.g., Newman & Schwarz, 2018) -also ...
... However, some studies have found that audio messages that include music can detract from information quality and lose empathy because of the low sound of the music and the high pitch of the voice (Lu, Chen, Li, & Huang, 2013). Good audio quality and clear information leads to efficient interaction adaptation and enhances information-processing, which is necessary to affect consumers' behavior (Newman & Schwarz, 2018). The current study demonstrates the role of Halal restaurants' audio messages in consumers' interaction adaptation. ...
... As a large body of experimental research (reviewed in Schwarz, 2018) indicates, fluent processing provides an affirmative answer to each of these truth tests, even when more careful processing would identify the claim as faulty. Hence, any variable that increases processing fluency -from repetition (e.g., Hasher, Goldstein, & Toppino, 1977; Unkelbach & Koch, this volume) and color contrast (e.g., Reber & Schwarz, 1999) to rhyme (e.g., McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000), ease of pronunciation (e.g., Newman et al., 2014) and audio quality (e.g., Newman & Schwarz, 2018)also increases acceptance of the fluently processed message, whereas disfluency curbs acceptance of the message. ...
In all languages studied, suspicion is metaphorically associated with the sense of smell. The relevant smell is a smell of rotting organic matter that one may eat. In some languages, one specific smell dominates the metaphors; in English, that smell is fishy. The smell-suspicion link is presumably adaptive – if something you may eat doesn’t smell right, you better inspect it closely before proceeding. Given this link, does incidental exposure to a fishy smell make people more suspicious and does this curb gullibility? The empirical answer is a resounding Yes. Incidental exposure to a fishy smell reduces (i) trust in economic trust games and (ii) cooperation in public good games; increases (iii) the detection of misleading presuppositions in language comprehension and (iv) the detection of discrepancies between different versions of a story; (v) decreases confirmation bias and (vi) increases attempts at falsification (negative hypothesis testing). Conversely, making people suspicious through a social manipulation (vii) increases their sensitivity to fishy smells and (viii) improves smell identification. These effects emerge on classic reasoning tasks, such as the Wason rule discovery task or the Moses illusion, and standard trust games. They do not emerge for aversive smells without a metaphorical suspicion link (e.g., fart smell), but may not require that the smell is the one specified by one’s native language. We discuss the accumulating findings in the broader context of cognition as situated, experiential, embodied, and pragmatic and offer conjectures about broader implications.
Courts are making increasing use of audiovisual links (AVL) for many purposes, including taking evidence from witnesses. However, there has been little in the way of research to provide guidance for courts and judges on conditions or standards that should apply to their use. Participant expert and lay witnesses in a mock trial were randomly assigned to AVL experiences that varied (a) the quality of the technology and supporting physical environment, and (b) the way witnesses were informed, supported and orientated. After providing their testimony, mock witnesses answered questions about their experience. We found that high quality technology and appropriately designed supporting physical environments increased perceived respect. Similarly, enhanced information and support improved perceived voice and rapport. Further, the combination of advanced environment and process had a compounding effect on perceived voice and respect, suggesting that courts seeking the best outcomes will implement both aspects. These results have significant implications for judicial officers and court administrators making decisions about AVL use, and implementing the AVL design and operation.
This chapter outlines the operationalization of the Individuality Assisted Estimation model entities, emphasizing relevant dimensions in the context of multimedia Quality of Experience (QoE) research. Building on the fundamentals discussed earlier, the chapter identifies core metrics for evaluating QoE in video-telephony, including audiovisual, speech, and video quality perceptions, as well as cognitive dimensions like mental load and effort. Emotional states are also considered, though primarily as transitory states rather than outcome measures. The chapter details the experimental paradigms used to gather data, including a video-based conversation simulation and an active conversation study, both designed to elicit realistic quality degradation scenarios. It describes the assessment of experience ratings, dependent states (such as affective states and social perception), independent states (including hunger, sleep, and drug use), and individual traits (like personality dimensions and frustration intolerance). Additionally, it explores physiological and behavioral reactions using sensors for Electrocardiogram (ECG), Electrodermal activity (EDA), eye tracking, and facial configuration tracking, as well as conversational interactivity metrics. The chapter concludes by proposing a systematic approach to validate the selected variables’ meaningful relationships with the Individuality Assisted Estimation (IAE) model entities, paving the way for comprehensive analysis and enhanced QoE prediction in multimedia contexts.
Recently, gender-ambiguous (nonbinary) voices have been added to voice assistants to combat gender stereotypes and foster inclusion. However, if people react negatively to such voices, these laudable efforts may be counterproductive. In five preregistered studies ( N = 3,684 adult participants) we found that people do react negatively, rating products described by narrators with gender-ambiguous voices less favorably than when they are described by clearly male or female narrators. The voices create a feeling of unease, or social disfluency, that affects evaluations of the products being described. These effects are best explained by low familiarity with voices that sound ambiguous. Thus, initial negative reactions can be overcome with more exposure.
Advertising music is an important component of advertisements that influences consumer responses as a non-verbal cue. Extensive research on this music has been conducted since the 1980s. This paper reviews these advertising music studies by focusing on the theoretical foundations upon which they rely. The review classifies research on advertising music into three categories based on: (1) classical conditioning theory, (2) elaboration likelihood model, and (3) processing fluency. The findings suggest potential future research directions, including (A) research on the effects of music in internet advertising and (B) research focused on improving processing fluency through the congruence of various factors such as consumer factors and marketing information factors, with an emphasis on unconscious information processing.
Social Media haben in den letzten Jahren zwei Formate entstehen lassen, die für die Wissenschaftskommunikation besonders relevant sind: Digital Audio und Digital Video. Wissenschaftler*innen können mit Podcasts quasi ihre eigenen Radiosendungen sowie als Video für Instagram oder YouTube ihre eigenen Fernsehbeiträge produzieren. Beide Formate decken unterschiedliche Kommunikationsziele und -möglichkeiten ab: der Podcast vertieft Inhalte und schafft Verbindung zur Scientific Community, das Video macht neugierig und verstärkt den emotionalen Bezug. Jedenfalls braucht es aber klare Konzepte, denn auch wenn niemand dieselbe Qualität wie im professionellen Funk und TV erwartet, sind Themenwahl, Ablauf und Durchführung nicht egal. Podcast-Moderator*innen tun gut daran, sich im geplanten Plaudern und Nachhaken zu üben, Video-Produzenten müssen sich selbst ins Bild bringen und auf Dialog in Alltagssprache setzen. In beiden Fällen ist Regelmäßigkeit ein wichtiger Erfolgsfaktor.
Das Digitalisierungspotential wird in Hochschulen bislang unzureichend ausgeschöpft. Gleichzeitig besitzt der Digitalisierungsprozess hohen Stellenwert. In der Verwaltung wie in Lehre und Forschung spielt der Einsatz digi-taler Werkzeuge eine zunehmende Rolle. Auch die Organisation von außercurricularen Veranstaltungen nimmt an Hochschulen stetig zu. Dabei können die Zielgruppen stark divergieren. Besonders für Mitarbeitende sind die Qualifizierungsmaßnahmen von hohem Interesse, da sie den Karriereweg nachhaltig prägen. Die Einführung eines hochschulweiten Veranstaltungsmanagementsystems bietet die Chance nachhaltiger Personalentwicklung. Dabei entsteht ein digitales Netzwerk zwischen beteiligten Einrichtungen, Abteilungen und Fachbereichen. Das diverse Angebot kann somit effizienter koordiniert und beworben werden. Die Teilnehmenden können in ihrem Trainingsprofil erkennen, welche Veranstaltungen sie bereits besucht haben. Dieses Wissen kann in speziellen Karrierecoachings zielsicher genutzt werden. Der Praxisbericht gibt nach einer Einführung in das Wissensma-nagement in der Personalentwicklung Einblick in die Chancen und Risiken bei der Einführung eines hochschul-weiten Veranstaltungsmanagementsystems am Beispiel der Universität Kassel.
** Note: This post includes the text accepted for publication, which was subsequently highly copy-edited to fit the magazine format of the journal. **
Erroneous beliefs are difficult to correct. Worse, popular correction strategies may backfire and further increase the spread and acceptance of misinformation. People evaluate the truth of a statement by assessing its compatibility with other things they believe, its internal consistency, amount of supporting evidence, acceptance by others, and the credibility of the source. To do so, they can draw on relevant details (an effortful analytic strategy) or attend to the subjective experience of processing fluency (a less effortful intuitive strategy). Throughout, fluent processing facilitates acceptance of the statement – when thoughts flow smoothly, people nod along. Correction strategies that make false information more fluent (e.g., through repetition or pictures) can therefore increase its later acceptance. We review recent research and offer recommendations for more effective correction strategies.,
Feelings-as-information theory conceptualizes the role of subjective experiences – including moods, emotions, metacognitive experiences, and bodily sensations – in judgment. It assumes that people attend to their feelings as a source of information, with different feelings providing different types of information. Whereas feelings elicited by the target of judgment provide valid information, feelings that are due to an unrelated influence can lead us astray. The use of feelings as a source of information follows the same principles as the use of any other information. Most important, people do not rely on their feelings when they (correctly or incorrectly) attribute them to another source, thus undermining their informational value for the task at hand. What people conclude from a given feeling depends on the epistemic question on which they bring it to bear; hence, inferences from feelings are contextsensitive and malleable. In addition to serving as a basis of judgment, feelings inform us about the nature of our current situation and our thought processes are tuned to meet situational requirements. The chapter reviews the development of the theory, its core propositions and representative findings
When people make judgments about the truth of a claim, related but nonprobative information rapidly leads them to believe the claim-an effect called "truthiness" [1]. Would the pronounceability of others' names also influence the truthiness of claims attributed to them? We replicated previous work by asking subjects to evaluate people's names on a positive dimension, and extended that work by asking subjects to rate those names on negative dimensions. Then we addressed a novel theoretical issue by asking subjects to read that same list of names, and judge the truth of claims attributed to them. Across all experiments, easily pronounced names trumped difficult names. Moreover, the effect of pronounceability produced truthiness for claims attributed to those names. Our findings are a new instantiation of truthiness, and extend research on the truth effect as well as persuasion by showing that subjective, tangential properties such as ease of processing can matter when people evaluate information attributed to a source.
Evaluations of handwritten essays or exams are often suspected of being biased, such as by mood states or individual predilections. Although most of these influences are unsystematic, at least one bias is problematic because it systematically affects evaluations of handwritten materials. Three experiments revealed that essays in legible as compared to less legible handwriting were evaluated more positively. This robust finding was related to a basic judgmental mechanism that builds on the fluency with which handwriting can be processed. The present research further revealed that this evaluative bias is not inevitable but can be controlled for. Given the importance of evaluations based on handwritten work samples for individual success throughout school, college, university, and work life, it is important for individuals to be aware of this bias.
Reports 4 experiments concerning the effect of repetition on rated truth (the illusory-truth effect). Statements were paired with differentially credible sources (true vs false). Old trues would be rated true on 2 bases, source recollection and statement familiarity. Old falses, however, would be rated false if sources were recollected, leaving the unintentional influence of familiarity as their only basis for being rated true. Even so, falses were rated truer than new statements unless sources were especially memorable. Estimates showed the contributions of the 2 influences to be independent; the intentional influence of recollection was reduced if control was impaired, but the unintentional influence of familiarity remained constant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Most texts on writing style encourage authors to avoid overly-complex words. However, a majority of undergraduates admit to deliberately increasing the complexity of their vocabulary so as to give the impression of intelligence. This paper explores the extent to which this strategy is effective. Experiments 1–3 manipulate complexity of texts and find a negative relationship between complexity and judged intelligence. This relationship held regardless of the quality of the original essay, and irrespective of the participants' prior expectations of essay quality. The negative impact of complexity was mediated by processing fluency. Experiment 4 directly manipulated fluency and found that texts in hard to read fonts are judged to come from less intelligent authors. Experiment 5 investigated discounting of fluency. When obvious causes for low fluency exist that are not relevant to the judgement at hand, people reduce their reliance on fluency as a cue; in fact, in an effort not to be influenced by the irrelevant source of fluency, they over-compensate and are biased in the opposite direction. Implications and applications are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Non-native speech is harder to understand than native speech. We demonstrate that this “processing difficulty” causes non-native speakers to sound less credible. People judged trivia statements such as “Ants don't sleep” as less true when spoken by a non-native than a native speaker. When people were made aware of the source of their difficulty they were able to correct when the accent was mild but not when it was heavy. This effect was not due to stereotypes of prejudice against foreigners because it occurred even though speakers were merely reciting statements provided by a native speaker. Such reduction of credibility may have an insidious impact on millions of people, who routinely communicate in a language which is not their native tongue.
Names are rich sources of information. They can signal gender, ethnicity, or class; they may connote personality characteristics ranging from warmth and cheerfulness to morality. But names also differ in a much more
fundamental way: some are simply easier to pronounce than others. Five studies provide evidence for the
name-pronunciation effect: easy-to-pronounce names (and their bearers) are judged more positively than
difficult-to-pronounce names. Studies 1–3 demonstrate that people form more positive impressions of
easy-to-pronounce names than of difficult-to-pronounce names. Study 4 finds this effect generalizable to
ingroup targets. Study 5 highlights an important real-world implication of the name-pronunciation effect:
people with easier-to-pronounce surnames occupy higher status positions in law firms. These effects obtain
independent of name length, unusualness, typicality, foreignness, and orthographic regularity. This work
demonstrates the potency of processing fluency in the information rich context of impression formation.
Processing fluency, or the subjective experience of ease with which people process information, reliably influences people's judgments across a broad range of social dimensions. Experimenters have manipulated processing fluency using a vast array of techniques, which, despite their diversity, produce remarkably similar judgmental consequences. For example, people similarly judge stimuli that are semantically primed (conceptual fluency), visually clear (perceptual fluency), and phonologically simple (linguistic fluency) as more true than their less fluent counterparts. The authors offer the first comprehensive review of such mechanisms and their implications for judgment and decision making. Because every cognition falls along a continuum from effortless to demanding and generates a corresponding fluency experience, the authors argue that fluency is a ubiquitous metacognitive cue in reasoning and social judgment.
The subjective impression that statements are true increases when statements are presented repeatedly. There are two sources for this truth effect: An increase in validity based on recollection (a controlled process) and increase in processing fluency due to repeated exposure (an automatic process). Using multinomial processing trees (MPT), we present a comprehensive model of the truth effect. Furthermore, we show that whilst the increase in processing fluency is indeed automatic, the interpretation and use of that experience is not. Experiment 1 demonstrates the standard use of the fluency experience and Experiment 2 demonstrates that people can change the interpretation of the experience according to its ecological validity. By implication, the truth effect represents the adaptive usage of feedback received from internal processes.
Statements of the form "Osorno is in Chile" were presented in colors that made them easy or difficult to read against a white background and participants judged the truth of the statement. Moderately visible statements were judged as true at chance level, whereas highly visible statements were judged as true significantly above chance level. We conclude that perceptual fluency affects judgments of truth.
We explored the role that poetic form can play in people's perceptions of the accuracy of aphorisms as descriptions of human behavior. Participants judged the ostensible accuracy of unfamiliar aphorisms presented in their textually surviving form or a semantically equivalent modified form. Extant rhyming aphorisms in their original form (e.g., "What sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals") were judged to be more accurate than modified versions that did not preserve rhyme ("What sobriety conceals, alcohol unmasks"). However, the perceived truth advantage of rhyming aphorisms over their modified forms was attenuated when people were cautioned to distinguish aphorisms' poetic qualities from their semantic content. Our results suggest that rhyme, like repetition, affords statements an enhancement in processing fluency that can be misattributed to heightened conviction about their truthfulness.