Clinically studied or clinically proven? Memory for claims in print advertisements

Abstract

Advertisers often use specifically chosen wording to convey the effectiveness of their product and we investigated memory accuracy for the scientific claims put forth by product advertisements. Participants were shown a cognitive enhancement product advertisement and were tested on their memory for various details. Critically, we were interested in participants' memory for a phrase describing the product as either “clinically proven” (indicating the product is effective) or “clinically studied” (which is ambiguous). Generally, both younger and older adults demonstrated poor memory for this detail and were more likely to remember the product as having been “proven” to be effective than to have been “studied”. Thus, we demonstrate the fallibility of memory and the potential for reliance on schematic knowledge in the absence of a veridical record of one's memory for the advertisement. We suggest that ambiguous efficacy claims be carefully considered by consumers so as not to be misled.

Full text

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Clinically studied or clinically proven? Memory for claims in
print advertisements
Dillon H. Murphy
1
| Shawn T. Schwartz
1
| Kylie O. Alberts
1
|
Alexander L. M. Siegel
1
| Brandon J. Carone
1
| Alan D. Castel
1
| Aimee Drolet
2
1
Department of Psychology, University of
California, Los Angeles, California, USA
2
Anderson School of Management, University
of California, Los Angeles, California, USA
Correspondence
Alan D. Castel, Department of Psychology,
University of California, Los Angeles, Los
Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Email: castel@ucla.edu
Funding information
National Institute on Aging, Grant/Award
Number: R01 AG044335
Abstract
Advertisers often use specifically chosen wording to convey the effectiveness of their
product and we investigated memory accuracy for the scientific claims put forth by
product advertisements. Participants were shown a cognitive enhancement product
advertisement and were tested on their memory for various details. Critically, we were
interested in participants' memory for a phrase describing the product as either “clini-
cally proven”(indicating the product is effective) or “clinically studied”(which is ambig-
uous). Generally, both younger and older adults demonstrated poor memory for this
detail and were more likely to remember the product as having been “proven”to be
effective than to have been “studied”. Thus, we demonstrate the fallibility of memory
and the potential for reliance on schematic knowledge in the absence of a veridical
record of one's memory for the advertisement. We suggest that ambiguous efficacy
claims be carefully considered by consumers so as not to be misled.
KEYWORDS
advertising, aging, false memory, metacognition, schematic knowledge
1|GENERAL AUDIENCE SUMMARY
Advertisers, including those touting enhancement supplements, often
use specifically chosen wording to convey the effectiveness of their
product (in some cases, regardless of the product's actual efficacy),
while maintaining conformity with legal standards –for example, Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. In the current study, we
tested how people may remember or misremember a claim regarding a
product's efficacy presented in an advertisement for a cognitive
enhancement supplement. After viewing the advertisement for 1 min,
participants were asked to remember various features such as the name
of the brand, the target age group, and whether the product was FDA-
approved. Critically, we were interested in participants' memory for a
phrase describing the product's efficacy as either “clinically studied”or
“clinically proven”. Results revealed that both younger and older adults
demonstrated poor memory for this detail and were more likely to
remember the product as having been “proven”to be effective than to
have been “studied”, indicating that people's memory for claims made
in product advertisements may not always be accurate. We suggest that
ambiguous claims of efficacy such as being “scientifically studied”or
“clinically studied”be carefully considered by consumers so as not to
be misled regarding the product's efficacy.
2|INTRODUCTION
Many people, from college students to older adults, are interested in
ways to enhance memory and cognitive functioning. Over-
the-counter dietary supplements have become a popular method of
cognitive enhancement (e.g., MemorAll, RediMind, CogniAid),
Received: 7 November 2020 Revised: 23 January 2023 Accepted: 23 June 2023
DOI: 10.1002/acp.4106
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2023 The Authors. Applied Cognitive Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Appl Cognit Psychol. 2023;1–9. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/acp 1

although there is insufficient evidence that these products improve
cognitive functioning in healthy adults (Butler et al., 2017; Gestuvo &
Hung, 2012). However, advertisements for dietary supplements often
include statements indicating that the product has been empirically
studied or validated (e.g., “clinically studied”,“clinically tested”,“sci-
entifically proven”), signaling to consumers that the product has some
degree of effectiveness.
Although many companies use phrases like “clinically studied”in
their advertisements to convey a product's efficacy, this phrase is
ambiguous. Stating that something has been clinically studied only
indicates that a product's effects have been studied in a laboratory; it
does not necessarily mean that the product was effective in doing
whatever was claimed in the advertisement. For instance, the results
could have provided null evidence for the product or even shown that
the product has the opposite of the desired effect, but the product
was still “clinically studied”. Advertisers are likely aware that millions
of people may misunderstand or not pay attention to ambiguous
claims like “clinically studied”or could even later misremember a
product labeled as “clinically studied”as having been “clinically
proven”. Thus, strategically placing ambiguous phrases implying some
degree of efficacy may be a way advertisers take advantage of the
fallibility of memory to establish the credibility of their product.
Misremembering certain claims made by product advertisements
may reflect people's reliance on schematic knowledge when they can-
not successfully retrieve exact perceptual or conceptual information
(e.g., Alba & Hasher, 1983). Using schemas—cognitive heuristics based
on prior experience that predict what information is likely to be part
of a given event—generally aids the encoding and retrieval of memo-
ries. However, much like other cognitive heuristics, the usage of
schemas can also lead to memory errors. Such errors may be most
prevalent for atypical events and information (i.e., information that is
inconsistent with a schema), causing individuals to remember an event
or certain pieces of information based on expectation rather than how
the event was actually experienced (Alba & Hasher, 1983; Brewer &
Treyens, 1981; Castel, 2005; Lew & Howe, 2016; Miller &
Gazzaniga, 1998). For example, schemas can be beneficial in reducing
memory deficits when newly learned information is consistent with
schematic knowledge (e.g., Castel, 2005) but can produce false memo-
ries when information is inconsistent with one's past experience and
schemas (e.g., Brewer & Treyens, 1981; see also Murphy &
Castel, 2021). In a marketing context, advertisers may be aware of
people's tendency to rely on schemas and strategically pursue adver-
tising options that capitalize on such tendencies to portray their prod-
uct in a more favorable light.
Prior work has revealed that marketing communications can generate
expectations that impact the way purchasers remember their experience
with a product (Hoch & Deighton, 1989;LaTour&LaTour,2012). Addi-
tionally, there is evidence that people generate gist-based false memories
in the context of advertising due to the reliance on schemas (Braun-
LaTour & LaTour, 2004;LaTouretal.,2014). In one case, people thought
that they remembered an advertisement for a famous brand name when it
was actually a lesser-known brand or even a brand that was entirely ficti-
tious (Braun-LaTour & LaTour, 2004; Holden & Vanhuele, 1999).
Furthermore, while people may initially notice, accurately recall, and/or rec-
ognize some aspects of visually presented advertisements, the specific
details are often rapidly forgotten (Bagozzi & Silk, 1983). Thus, people may
be prone to misremembering advertisements and their efficacy.
Memory for features of a product depicted in an advertisement
may also be susceptible to misinformation. For example, Braun and
Loftus (1998) demonstrated that recollection of a chocolate bar's
packaging color was influenced by misleading information contained
in the advertisement. Similarly, Sherman et al. (2015) reported that
presenting participants with similar television advertisements created
false memories for competitor brands. Other research has shown that
the visual/pictorial component of a print advertisement is encoded
more elaboratively and distinctively than the verbal component and the
verbal aspects may be more prone to false memories (Childers, 1986).
Furthermore, one's goals, age, and interest when studying an advertise-
ment can also bias memory (e.g., Fung & Carstensen, 2003; Martín-
Luengo et al., 2015). Other individual differences, such as one's level of
commitment to a particular brand, have also been shown to influence
memory, with committed brand consumers more likely to form false
memories about a product experience than less-committed consumers
(Montgomery & Rajagopal, 2018). As a result, consumers may misre-
member an experience with a product that was similar to what the
advertisement suggested rather than recalling their own experience
(Braun, 1999; Cowley & Mitchell, 2003). Taken together, these findings
suggest that several traits and environmental factors can influence
memory accuracy for advertisements.
Evidence indicating that advertisements can lead to the expression
of false memories fits with the general notion that memory retrieval is a
reconstructive process (Hasher & Griffin, 1978). Specifically, when a
memory is retrieved, it is a reconstruction that blends elements of what
truly happened with what we believe happened. These reconstructive
processes may be further distorted by other intervening cognitive func-
tions such as prior retrieval attempts, distraction, imagination, and social
influences (Roediger & McDermott, 2000; Schacter, 1999; see also
Gallo, 2010). Thus, through reconstructive memory processes, familiar-
ity, and the spreading of semantic activation (Collins & Loftus, 1975),
advertisement information likely influences consumers' memory. We
sought to determine if people—specifically younger and older adults—
are prone to misremembering certain scientific terms, claims, and
research conclusions when presented with an advertisement that uses
vague wording to support the product's efficacy.
3|THE CURRENT STUDY
In the current study, we examined how younger and older adults
(those over age 65 who may be especially interested in consuming
memory-enhancing supplements) would remember or misremember
different types of information depicted in a cognitive enhancement
product advertisement. We also investigated how the information
that was remembered would affect perceptions of the product. Partic-
ipants viewed a product advertisement and then completed a ques-
tionnaire containing a series of multiple-choice questions regarding
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the advertisement. Questions covered aspects of the advertisement
like the name of the brand, the presence or absence of a medical doc-
tor in the advertisement, and how much they expected the product to
cost. The primary question of interest tested whether participants
could correctly identify whether the phrase “clinically studied”or
“clinically proven”was included within the advertisement.
Consistent with the idea that memory for product features can
be biased by advertisements (e.g., Braun & Loftus, 1998), we pre-
dicted that participants would often misremember the phrase “clini-
cally studied”as “clinically proven”, indicating that consumers may be
prone to misremembering products as being more effective than they
were advertised. Previous work has established that the commonality of
words in the English language can impact how consumer-related informa-
tion is processed and subsequently remembered in both an explicit and
implicit manner (Krishnan & Shapiro, 1996; Shapiro & Krishnan, 2001),
and this may be more pronounced in older age. As such, in addition to
younger adults, we were also interested in investigating memory for
product claims in older adults who may be both consumers of these
types of products (i.e., cognitive enhancement supplements) and more
prone to reconstructive memory biases like relying on gist-based memory
(generally remembering the main message but misremembering details)
and schematic knowledge (Castel, 2005; Flores et al., 2017; Gallo
et al., 2019;Schacteretal.,1997;Umanath,2016;Umanath&
Marsh, 2014).
Older adults are particularly prone to falsely remember verbal infor-
mation and rely on gist-based memory (Devitt & Schacter, 2016). For
example, fuzzy-trace theory suggests that older adults have memory
impairments for verbatim details (the exact content and details associ-
ated with a memory) but can access and retrieve more gist-based
information in a variety of circumstances (Brainerd & Reyna, 2004;
Reyna, 2012; Reyna et al., 2016). Moreover, prior knowledge and sche-
matic support can enhance memory as older adults often use schemas
that may lead to accurate memory for schema-consistent information
(Castel, 2005;Floresetal.,2017; Gallo et al., 2019;Hess,2005). How-
ever, schemas can also be misleading, causing inaccuracies that may be
consistent with prior knowledge when to-be-remembered information
is schema-inconsistent (Umanath, 2016).
There is also evidence suggesting that older adults' gist-based
memory for health-related information can be differentially influenced
by certain factors relative to their verbatim memory (Friedman
et al., 2015; Hargis & Castel, 2018;Morrowetal.,2019). Specifically,
older adults may hold specific schemas for health-related information
that can aid or hinder their memory (Heller et al., 2017;Morrow
et al., 1991; Rice & Okun, 1994). Older adults may also be more likely
to form false memories due to their reduced ability to bind information
to its source (e.g., the context in which the information was learned;
Lyle et al., 2006; Mitchell et al., 2000). Given this reliance on gist-based
memory and propensity to falsely remember information, older adults
may be particularly prone to misremembering the precise terms used to
describe the claims regarding a product, consistent with gist-based
memory reliance in older age (e.g., Gallo et al., 2019). This could provide
important insight regarding how aging influences what information is
retained when presented with a product's claims in an applied context.
3.1 |Method
3.1.1 | Participants
An a priori power analysis was conducted using G*Power (Faul
et al., 2007). For a 2 (age: old, young)3 (label: clinically studied, clini-
cally proven, control [i.e., none]) between-subjects ANOVA, assuming
alpha =.05 and power =.95, 297 participants would be needed to
reliably detect a medium effect size (η
p2
=.05). A total sample of
316 younger (n=150; M
age
=24.79, SD
age
=3.60) and older adults
(n=166; M
age
=72.42, SD
age
=5.29) was recruited from CloudRe-
search (www.cloudresearch.com), a website that allows users to com-
plete small tasks for pay (Chandler et al., 2019). Participants were
required to have normal or corrected to normal vision (self-reported)
to participate. Participants were excluded from analysis if they admit-
ted to cheating (e.g., writing down answers) in a post-task question-
naire (they were told they would still receive payment if they
cheated). This exclusion process resulted in three exclusions from the
younger adult group and two exclusions from the older adult group.
Informed consent was acquired and the study was completed in
accordance with the UCLA Institutional Review Board.
3.1.2 | Materials
The advertisement used was for a cognitive enhancement product
from a popular nutritional supplement company. The advertisement
was obtained from the back cover full-page format of Psychology
Today published in 2018 (and has also appeared in other similar peri-
odicals) and was displayed to participants on their computer screens
in a similar full-page format.
Within the advertisement are various features describing the
product and its uses. At the top is the company logo and product line
“Dr. Formulated Brain Health”. Just below, the main slogan reads
“Sharpen your memory & focus”with three boxes of the relevant
products presented underneath. Below the boxes and presented in a
green font is the critical phrase of interest in the current study. The
phrase either states “Clean, clinically studied whole food ingredients
to support brain health at three stages of life”,“Clean, clinically
proven whole food ingredients to support brain health at three stages
of life”,or“Clean, whole food ingredients to support brain health at
three stages of life”(i.e., the control condition). Beneath the critical
phrase, the target demographic is identified as “Kids Young Adults 
Adults 40+”. In the bottom left-hand corner is the image of a physi-
cian and his credentials and in the bottom right-hand corner are the
symbols designating the product as United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) Organic and non-genetically modified-organism
(non-GMO) project verified. Finally, the background in the top half of
the advertisement contains a greyscale, stylized image of neurons
while the bottom half is a plain white background.
The questionnaire contained multiple-choice questions asking
about the name of the brand, the main caption/slogan, the number of
boxes of the product visible in the advertisement, whether a doctor
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was present, whether the product was USDA organic, the target age
group(s), the presence and identity of a background image, and
whether they would purchase the product. The critical question
asked, “Which of the following phrases was present?”with the fol-
lowing answer choices: “Clinically studied whole food ingredients to
support brain health”,“Clinically proven whole food ingredients
to support brain health”,“Scientifically studied whole food ingredients
to support brain health”,“Scientifically proven whole food
ingredients to support brain health”, and “None of these”. For each
multiple-choice response, participants were also asked to indicate
their confidence in the correctness of their response on a scale from
1 (low confidence) to 10 (high confidence). Next, participants were
asked to describe the product in a free-response format and to pro-
vide an estimate of the cost of the product (i.e., one box of the prod-
uct as shown in the advertisement).
After answering questions about the product, we asked partici-
pants questions about how seriously they took the advertisement as
well as their beliefs in their memory abilities. Specifically, on a 5-point
Likert scale, we asked participants “How seriously did you engage
with the advertisement?”,“In general, how is your overall memory
ability relative to other people your age?”, and “How worried/
concerned are you about changes in your memory abilities?”. Finally,
we administered Obermiller and Spangenberg's (1998) Advertising
Skepticism (SKEP) scale, which is comprised of nine questions with
responses on a 5-point Likert scale. On all questionnaires, the order of
questions and choices within each question was the same for every
participant, and each question was presented sequentially with partic-
ipants responding at their own pace.
3.1.3 | Procedure
After completing an initial demographics questionnaire, participants
were instructed that they would be viewing an advertisement for a
product. They were told “In this task, you will be shown an advertise-
ment for a product for 1 min. After viewing the advertisement, you will
be asked some questions about it, including the specific content
shown.”When participants indicated that they understood the instruc-
tions, they advanced to the next page where the advertisement was dis-
played. The advertisement remained on the screen for 1 min at which
point the screen automatically progressed. Participants then completed
a 1-min distractor task where they were asked to rearrange the digits of
several three-digit numbers in descending order (e.g., “456”would be
rearranged to “654”; adapted from Rohrer & Wixted, 1994;
Unsworth, 2007). Participants were given 5 s to view each of the
12 three-digit numbers and subsequently rearrange the digits. After
completing this distractor task, participants completed the question-
naire. Participants were required to answer all questions and provide
confidence ratings (where applicable) before advancing to the next
question. Data were collected online using Collector, an open-source
program for presenting web-based psychological experiments (Garcia &
Kornell, 2015). All materials and procedures used in the current study
were approved by the UCLA Institutional Review Board.
3.2 |Results
Descriptive statistics for responses to each question in the question-
naire are shown in Table 1. The results are divided into three primary
sections. First, we examined memory accuracy and confidence for
the phrase “clinically studied”,“clinically proven”, or neither within
the advertisement. Next, we investigated the propensity to remem-
ber the advertisement containing the word “proven”. Finally, we
examined differences in confidence as a function of participants'
answer selection and accuracy. We provide the full dataset including
responses to the other questions as well as exploratory correlations
between age, the correctness of memory for the critical phrase,
whether participants remembered the phrase “proven”, price estima-
tions, SKEP scores, self-reported worry about cognitive decline, and
participants' ratings of how seriously they engaged with the adver-
tisement on OSF. An examination of participants' responses regard-
ing purchasing behavior and price estimation is also available
on OSF.
3.2.1 | Critical phrase memory and confidence
The frequency of selected choices on the critical question “Which of
the following phrases was present?”is depicted in Figure 1. To examine
the accuracy of participants' memory for the critical phrase in the adver-
tisement (see Figure 2a),
1
we conducted a 2 (age: old, young)3 (label:
clinically studied, clinically proven, none) between-subjects ANOVA.
Results revealed a main effect of the label used in the advertisement
[F(2, 310) =9.25, p< .001, η
p2
=.06] such that participants who were
shown the advertisement with the phrase “clinically proven”were more
accurate (M=.38, SD =.49) than participants who were shown the
advertisement with the phrase “clinically studied”(M=.27, SD =.44),
[p
holm
=.049, d=.28] and participants who were shown the control
advertisement with neither phrase (M=.14, SD =.25), [p
holm
< .001,
d=.59]; additionally, participants who were shown the advertisement
with the phrase “clinically studied”were more accurate than partici-
pants shown the advertisement with neither phrase [p
holm
=.049,
d=.31]. Moreover, younger (M=.31, SD =.46) and older adults
(M=.22, SD =.42) were similarly accurate [F(1, 310) =3.12, p=.078,
η
p2
=.01]. Label interacted with age group [F(2, 310) =4.67, p=.010,
η
p2
=.03] but no comparisons of interest reached significance.
Next, to examine participants' confidence in their selection of the
critical phrase in the advertisement (see Figure 2b), we conducted a
2(age:old, young)3 (label: clinically studied, clinically proven, none)
between-subjects ANOVA. Results did not reveal a main effect of the
label used in the advertisement [F(2, 310) =.48, p=.618, η
p2
<.01]
such that participants shown the advertisement with the phrase “clini-
cally proven”(M=5.89, SD =2.32), “clinically studied”(M=5.77,
SD =2.47), or neither phrase (M=5.57, SD =2.32) were similarly con-
fident in their memory for the phrase. Furthermore, younger (M=5.89,
SD =2.40) and older adults (M=5.61, SD =2.33) were similarly confi-
dent in their memory [F(1, 310) =.99, p=.320, η
p2
< .01]. Label did
not interact with age group [F(2, 310) =1.63, p=.197, η
p2
=.01].
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3.2.2 | Selecting “proven”
We next examined participants' propensity to select either “scientifi-
cally proven”or “clinically proven”as the critical phrase present in the
advertisement. We believed remembering that the product has been
“proven”is more critical to viewers' opinions of the product than
whether the product was examined “scientifically”versus “clinically”,
which are essentially synonyms in this instance. To examine the likeli-
hood of participants selecting a phrase containing the word “proven”
(see Figure 3), we conducted a 2 (age: old, young)3 (label: clinically
studied, clinically proven, none) between-subjects ANOVA. Results did
not reveal a main effect of the label used in the advertisement [F
(2, 310) =.75, p=.475, η
p2
=.01] such that participants shown the
advertisement with the phrase “clinically proven”(M=.56, SD =.50),
“clinically studied”(M=.49, SD =.50), or neither phrase (M=.50,
SD =.50) were similarly likely to select an option containing the term
“proven”. Moreover, younger (M=.51, SD =.50) and older adults
(M=.52, SD =.50) were similarly likely to select an option that used
the term “proven”[F(1, 310) =.01, p=.915, η
p2
< .01]. Label did not
interact with age group [F(2, 310) =1.41, p=.245, η
p2
=.01].
We were also interested in whether participants were more likely
to remember the word “proven”or “studied”in the advertisement
(again, we collapsed across responses containing the term “clinically”
and “scientifically”). Among participants whose advertisement included
the claim “clinically proven”, selecting a response using the phrase
“proven”(56%) was more likely than selecting a response using the
phrase “studied”(34%), [χ
2
(1) =8.07, p=.004]. Similarly, among partic-
ipants whose advertisement included the claim “clinically studied”,
selecting a response using the phrase “proven”(49%) was more likely
than selecting a response using the phrase “studied”(39%), [χ
2
(1)
=3.93, p=.048]. Additionally, among participants whose advertise-
ment did not include the claim “clinically proven”or “clinically studied”
(i.e., the control group), selecting a response using the phrase “proven”
(50%) was more likely than selecting a response using the phrase “stud-
ied”(36%), [χ
2
(1) =4.19, p=.041]. Thus, participants were more likely
to remember the product as being “proven”than to have been “stud-
ied”, regardless of the claim actually present in the ad (and even if there
was not an efficacy claim present in the ad). However, this tendency
does not appear to differ as a function of the label used in the ad
because each group demonstrated a similar propensity to select an
option containing “proven”.
3.2.3 | Differences in confidence based on
selections and accuracy
We were also interested in differences in confidence based on partici-
pants' answer selection. We conducted a one-way ANOVA which
revealed differences in confidence between groups [F(4, 311) =5.41,
p<.001,η
p2
=.07] such that participants selecting “none of the above”
were less confident than participants selecting any other answer [all
p
holm
< .025]; there were no other pairwise differences [all p
holm
>.902].
We also looked at differences in confidence based on accuracy; how-
ever, participants who selected the correct phrase from the advertise-
ment were similarly confident as those who were incorrect [F(1, 314)
=1.00, p=.317, η
p2
<.01].
4|GENERAL DISCUSSION
The current study aimed to examine how people remember specific
aspects of advertisements. Specifically, we used a cognitive enhance-
ment supplement advertisement to determine if people misremember
a critical efficacy phrase that is often common when presenting
TABLE 1 Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for responses to each question in the questionnaire.
Clinically
proven
Younger adults
clinically studied Control
Clinically
proven
Older adults
clinically studied Control
Brand name accuracy 45% (50%) 45% (50%) 36% (49%) 66% (48%) 57% (50%) 37% (49%)
Brand name confidence 6.51 (2.75) 6.69 (2.64) 6.00 (2.47) 7.00 (2.89) 6.83 (2.99) 6.04 (3.06)
Slogan accuracy 51% (51%) 41% (50%) 54% (50%) 61% (49%) 60% (49%) 61% (49%)
Slogan confidence 7.75 (2.21) 7.10 (2.50) 7.56 (2.29) 7.30 (2.26) 7.15 (2.46) 7.19 (2.58)
Critical efficacy phrase accuracy 45% (50%) 39% (49%) 8% (27%) 32% (47%) 15% (36%) 19% (40%)
Critical efficacy phrase confidence 6.26 (2.15) 5.55 (2.59) 5.84 (2.45) 5.55 (2.42) 5.96 (2.37) 5.33 (2.20)
Number of boxes accuracy 75% (44%) 65% (48%) 74% (44%) 80% (40%) 79% (41%) 83% (38)
Number of boxes confidence 7.55 (2.69) 7.65 (2.87) 7.94 (2.37) 8.59 (2.19) 8.49 (2.04) 8.60 (2.11)
Doctor pictured accuracy 75% (44%) 63% (49%) 70% (46%) 71% (46%) 83% (38%) 72% (45%)
Doctor pictured confidence 8.26 (2.36) 8.24 (2.47) 8.26 (2.02) 8.49 (1.80) 9.14 (1.48) 8.62 (1.81)
Organic accuracy 67% (48%) 59% (50%) 58% (50%) 48% (50%) 42% (50%) 47% (50%)
Organic confidence 8.40 (2.06) 7.70 (2.56) 7.24 (2.29) 7.73 (2.35) 7.76 (2.07) 7.90 (2.29)
Target age accuracy 69% (47%) 69% (47%) 70% (46%) 73% (45%) 77% (42%) 72% (45%)
Target age confidence 8.51 (2.13) 7.96 (2.61) 8.12 (2.40) 8.66 (1.87) 8.74 (2.16) 8.39 (2.45)
Would buy 29% (46%) 33% (47%) 38% (49%) 9% (29%) 25% (43%) 14% (35%)
Product price $47 ($113) $83 ($212) $57 ($198) $25 ($20) $25 ($17) $33 ($23)
MURPHY ET AL.5
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scientific information in consumer settings. To test this, we had partic-
ipants view an ad containing a claim regarding the product's efficacy
(either “clinically studied”or “clinically proven”); we also included a
control group with no efficacy claim. We then asked participants whether
they believed that the claim that was present in the advertisement was
“scientifically studied”,“scientifically proven”,“clinically studied”,“clini-
cally proven”, or none of these. Despite being able to remember certain
aspects of the advertisement (such as visual information regarding the
layout of the ad and the presence of a photo of a doctor), participants
demonstrated poor memory for this critical efficacy phrase (only 26% of
participants accurately remembered the phrase) which was also reflected
in their confidence ratings (i.e., participants were similarly confident
whether they accurately remembered the critical phrase or not). Most
importantly, regardless of which ad participants studied, participants dem-
onstrated a greater propensity to remember the critical phrase as contain-
ing the word “proven”than “studied”which may represent a greater
reliance on gist-based memory and schematic knowledge over the precise
recollection of the exact phrase that was in the ad.
FIGURE 1 The percentage of
participants in each condition (whether
the studied advertisement contained the
phrase “Proven”,“Studied”, or no efficacy
phrase (control condition)) selecting each
of the options on the questionnaire
regarding the advertisement.
FIGURE 2 The probability of selecting the correct answer
regarding which phrase was present in the advertisement (a) as well
as confidence in participants' responses (b) as a function of age and
the phrase present when viewing the advertisement. Error bars reflect
the standard error of the mean.
FIGURE 3 The probability of selecting an answer containing the
term “proven”as a function of age and the phrase present when
viewing the advertisement. Error bars reflect the standard error of
the mean.
6MURPHY ET AL.
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Regarding participants' confidence ratings, the lack of differences
in confidence for the various answer choices suggests that partici-
pants were generally unsure of which phrase was present. We found
it especially surprising that participants who were correct were no
more confident in their memory than those who remembered a
phrase including entirely absent words, providing evidence of the
frailty of memory. The present results are also consistent with
the fuzzy-trace theory such that biases may influence the reconstruc-
tion of one's memory for this type of advertising claim (Brainerd &
Reyna, 2002,2004; Reyna, 2012; Reyna et al., 2016).
It could be the case that participants misremembered the criti-
cal phrase in the advertisement because they may not have
attended to and/or encoded the phrase in the first place. Interest-
ingly, we found that many participants remembered other visual
aspects of the ad, such as whether a picture of a doctor was pre-
sent or the number of boxes presented in the ad, although partici-
pants showed poorer memory performance for more specific verbal
information such as the brand name and slogan. Specifically, as can
be observed in Table 1, some questions were answered much more
accurately (e.g., the target age groups were correctly remembered
by 72% of participants). Thus, participants did accurately remember
certain contents of the advertisement but memory for the critical
efficacy phrase was relatively poor (26%). As such, the efficacy
phrase was not well encoded (or perhaps even received no top-
down attentional allocation at all), leading to poor memory for this
information.
In terms of potential age-related differences and similarities for
various aspects of the ad, both younger and older adults were similarly
inaccurate in their memory for the critical phrase and were also simi-
larly likely to remember the term “proven”in the advertisement. Older
adults remembered information fairly well relative to younger adults,
and this may be due to experience and the use of context that can
help older adults remember relevant information, perhaps by relying
on schematic support (Castel, 2005; Hess, 2005). However, age-
related differences may emerge if memory were tested at a longer
delay and/or involved remembering specific associations between
similar advertisements (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000). In general, older
adults may remember gist information as well as certain aspects that
are important and this could be useful in terms of making informed
decisions regarding consumer products, but future research is needed
to determine how well older adults can accurately remember specific
details that may be relevant to consumer behavior.
Future work should aim to replicate these findings in a more
diverse array of advertising phrases and contexts. However, we antici-
pate that similar results would be found with other advertisements
such that participants would demonstrate poor memory for many spe-
cific details of the ad—particularly efficacy claims—and generally rely
on schematic knowledge in the absence of verbatim memory for cer-
tain pieces of information. It would also be informative to implement
eye-tracking technology to study how top-down and bottom-up
attention predicts subsequent memory for components of a product
advertisement (Bott et al., 2017; Hervet et al., 2011; Wedel &
Pieters, 2007). We also note that the fixed order with which
participants viewed the multiple-choice options for each question
may be a limitation; future work could randomize the order of the
options to avoid potential confounds.
In sum, understanding memory for health-relevant information
is critical given the prevalence of health information (and misinfor-
mation) abound on news and social media platforms that could have
adverse effects on public health (Bode & Vraga, 2018;Chou
et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2019). In the present study, we examined
memory for an efficacy claim in a health-related product advertise-
ment. Results indicated that advertisers may be able to take advan-
tage of people's poor memory when attempting to convince
consumers of the efficacy of health products. Specifically, if a prod-
uct has been “scientifically”or “clinically”proven, this implies that
the product has been tested for effectiveness and the results indi-
cated that the product yielded benefits compared to controls or
competing products. However, simply stating that something has
been “studied”only implies that a study was conducted—the results
could have indicated that the product does not work or even has
negative effects. Yet, even if this is the case, the product has still
been “studied”. Importantly, if consumers are unable to differentiate
between this terminology (“studied”versus “proven”)intheirmem-
ory for a product, advertisers may be able to mislead consumers
regarding the efficacy of the product. We suggest that ambiguous
claims of efficacy such as being “scientifically studied”or “clinically
studied”be carefully considered by consumers so as not to be mis-
led regarding a product's efficacy. While the present results may be
limited to a particular domain (i.e., memory for dietary supplement
information), we highlight the way human memory—even for conse-
quential health-related information—may be malleable and
inaccurate.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Mary Hargis, Tyson Kerr, Catherine
Middlebrooks, Julia Schorn, Katie Silaj, Mary Whatley, and the rest of
the members of the Memory and Lifespan Cognition Laboratory at
UCLA for their guidance and support. We would also like to thank
Matt Rhodes for helpful comments on a previous version of the
manuscript.
FUNDING INFORMATION
This research was supported in part by the National Institutes of
Health (National Institute on Aging; Award Number R01 AG044335
to Dr. Alan Castel).
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement
in any organization or entity with any financial or non-financial inter-
est in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The stimuli and data from the present study have been made available
on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/6hya3/?view_only=
503efdc974d54e83879c8bbfdb3abb2b.
MURPHY ET AL.7
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ORCID
Dillon H. Murphy https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5604-3494
Shawn T. Schwartz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6444-8451
Alan D. Castel https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1965-8227
ENDNOTE
1
Across all participants and conditions, memory accuracy for the critical
phrase (M=.26, SD =.44) was better than chance (.20), [t(315) =2.53,
p=.012, d=.14].
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