Origins of Project

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Origins of Project

• Interest generated from TV Matters Conference
• Need for generic data on television
• Need for more information on the differences
  between
• the media
• Need for information not just based on volume /
• numbers
• Need to fill in Why

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Television needs more generic data

• Television /Advertising Industries needed to
  understand
• more about the power of the medium
• ITV has begun to research into the process of
  human
• communication
• Research projects are unique and are universal
• First stages are completed

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Professor Geoffrey Beattie Professor of
Psychology University of Manchester
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How the mind works with TV

• Perception and integration of basic information.
• How we build a memory.

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• How the mind works
• The mind and everyday life
• We need to know something about
• the nature of human communication
• Action and speech

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• A fundamental characteristic of human talk is
  that action, particularly of the hands and arms,
  accompanies speech.

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• Iconic gesture
• A gesture which in form and manner of execution
  exhibits a meaning relevant to the simultaneously
  expressed linguistic meaning.

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• she chases him out again Hand, gripping an
  object,swings from left to right.

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• The sentence conveys the concepts of pursuit
  (chases) and recurrence (again) but not the
  means of pursuit.
• The gesture shows the method swinging an
  umbrella.
• The sentence is well formed and the gesture is
  not a repair.
• To get the full cognitive representation that the
  speaker has in mind, both the sentence and the
  gesture must be taken into account.

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Speech and Gesturedifferent vehicles of meaning

• Quote The table can be raised up towards the
  ceiling
• Gesture hands are resting on knee hand move
  upwards, palms pointing down, forming a large
  gesture hands continue moving until the hands
  reach the area just above the shoulder level

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Differences between speech and gesture

• Speech linear and segmented
• Identifies
• What is being raised (the table)
• The action (can be raised up)
• The direction of the action (towards the
  ceiling)

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Gesture Multidimensional
Object Movement Speed Direction
All Simultaneous
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David McNeill (1992)

• Gestures are like thoughts themselves
• Gestures are a window on the human mind
• Cognitive aspects of watching television -
  nothing short
• of mind reading!

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Big Philosophical Question

• Why, in all cultures in which hearing is
  possible, has
• language become the province of speech and not of
  
• gesture?
• Goldin-Meadow and McNeill (1999).

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• If exposed to language in the manual modality (
  a signed language ) children will learn that
  language as quickly and effortlessly as they
  learn a spoken language.

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Obvious Answer

• Speech triumphed because it is so good at
  delivering messages in segmented and
  combinatorial form - human language
• BUT
• Gestures just as good, eg sign language.

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• Speech assumed segmented and combinatorial code
  not because of its strengths but to compensate
  for its weaknesses.

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Gestures convey meaning differently from speech

• Speech conveys meaning by rule-governed
  combinations of discrete units - words.
• Gesture conveys meaning through images (Issue
  that is critical for the relevance to television )

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Left Hemisphere better at segmentation and
analysis
Right Hemisphere Better at extracting global,
holistic information
AUDIO VISUAL MESSAGES MAKE BOTH SIDES WORK
TOGETHER
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David McNeill (1992)
Utterances possess two sides, only one of which
is speech the other is imagery, actional and
visuo- spatial. To exclude the gesture, as has
been the tradition, is tantamount to ignoring
half the message out of the brain.
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What does this tell us about human communication
so far?

• To communicate effectively humans use speech and
  gesture
• Gesture is good at delivering messages in the
  form of images that speech cannot
• The integrated system delivered simultaneously is
  the most effective communication method

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• Integrated system is seen in audio-visual
  messages
• The brain has evolved to work best with
  audio-visual messages
• audio-visual messages are therefore more
  effective at communication

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• What implications does all of this have for TV?

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• Only TV presents
• Action and speech All this lost in
• Iconic gestures and speech audio and text
• Images and speech versions

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3 stages of experiment

• Stage OneDifferences between amount of
  information received from separate communication
  channels after one exposure to a message.
• Stage TwoDifference between the channels after
  multiple exposures to a message.
• Stage ThreeDifference between channels on recall
  after three months with just one exposure to the
  message.

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Stage One - Research Objectives

• Develop unique experiments, to examine possible
  communication benefits from the audio-visual
  medium.
• To determine how fundamental gestures might be to
  communication and analyse the implications for
  television

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Three Product Descriptions Were Created
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Methodology

• 150 respondents
• Stimulus material created / they were not
  commercials
• Communication channels tested at their most
  basic level- audio-visual - plain pieces of film
  / no product shown / no music / no set / no
  emotion generated- audio - sound track of the
  audio-visual piece / no music - text - verbatim
  transcripts of the audio-visual piece / no images

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After 1 exposure audio-visual communicated
significantly more information than other media
channels - on average...
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For holiday company message, the audio-visual
increase grew to 111 gt audio and 127 gt text
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Findings

• The audio-visual version of each product after a
  single showing delivered
• 43 better knowledge than audio message
• 38 better product knowledge than the text
  message
• But for some products it was much higher, for
  example in the case of the holiday
• 111 better product knowledge than audio message
• 127 better product knowledge than the text
  message

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An example

• You can relax and sunbathe on long golden
  beaches, where there is a
• clear blue sky and the sun is out.
•  
• Right hand is in a vertical position fingers
  are pointing straight upwards hand moves in a
  straight line from the left to the right. Hand
  then stops and fingers move apart. Fingers then
  curl up before stretching open again and this is
  repeated three times.
•  

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Percentage of correct answers about how sunny
holiday destinations really are!
Audio Visual Almost Double correct information
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• Even including all possible information in the
  speech there is still a statistically significant
  advantage to audio-visual.
• Remember severe constraints on this process.
  The flight is really, really, smooth. It is
  really never bumpy.
• The sun is out all of the time. Ive never
  ever seen a cloudy day in this location.

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• Figures are impressive but important issue is
  that there are some elements of the communication
  that the text and audio versions find it almost
  impossible to deliver
• Remember this is not real advertising so these
  figures would undoubtedly increase significantly
  - particularly the audio-visual messages as they
  are even more basic

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Summary of Stage One

• TV is significantly more effective than audio or
  text messages alone
• The brain actively processes information within
  television commercials
• Brains like TV its what it is used to, after
  all
• But some gesture images are more effective than
  others. Why?

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Stage Two Difference between communication
channels after multiple exposures

• How quickly do the audio and text messages catch
  up with the audio-visual?

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The mean scores obtained for all five trials
(Holiday version)
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Summary of Stage Two

• Audio-visual is 51 larger than the mean of
  audio/text at first exposure, and it increases to
  62 by trial 5
• For the audio-visual message, the accuracy about
  the product increases and is maintained at the
  highest level until after the 4th exposure
• The audio and text modalities never even catch up
  to even the score achieved by audio-visual after
  1st exposure

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Stage Three Television and Memory

• Why TV images are likely to be significantly more
  memorable.

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• Aristotle regarded imagery as the main medium of
  thought.
• Orators in ancient Greece used imagery-based
  mnemonic techniques to memorise speeches.
• Modern equivalent - Paivios dual-coding theory
• TV advertising is doing what ancient Greeks
  advised

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Pilot data Total number of questions answered
correctly after 3 months

Down 13
Down 28
3.8
3.0
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Pilot data Total number of questions answered
correctly after 3 months
Down 13
Down 28
Down only 0.8 No Change
5.93
3.8
3.0
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Summary of Stage Three

• Gesture not only affects basic communication but
  recall as well
• Audio-visual recall levels hardly diminishes over
  the three month period
• Are we tapping into a truly primitive process?

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Conclusions - 1

• Television taps into psychologically primitive
  processes
• The brain has evolved to deal with audio-visual
  messages
• Audio-visual messages communicate better than any
  other communication channel

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Conclusions - 2

• Audio-visual messages generate more enduring
  memories
• TV can generate flashbulb memories and influence
  our most personal experiences
• TV involves both cerebral hemispheres and some
  most primitive parts of the brain in laying down
  some of its most basic messages

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This is why TV Works
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Implications of study to Advertising Industry

• New level of communication in commercials to
  exploreand increase effectiveness
• Consider when planning advertising measurement
• Data on multiple exposures reveals useful data on
  effective frequency
• Depth of processing of TV images by the brain is
  evidentthrough initial recall findings
• Justifies TVs rightful place as the most
  powerful medium

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Summary

• Numbers alone cannot deliver effective
  communication,
• Impact that television delivers means other media
  can never catch up
• Television delivers images that last
• The brain likes tv its what it is used to,
  after all