Consumer Behavior and Advertising Involvement
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Consumer Behavior and Advertising Involvement

Selected Works of Herbert E. Krugman

Edward P. Krugman

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Consumer Behavior and Advertising Involvement

Selected Works of Herbert E. Krugman

Edward P. Krugman

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About This Book

This book is an honor to the many important contributions of Herbert Krugman, past president of APA, The Division of Consumer Psychology and The Association for Public Opinions Research. This reader contains his selected works in Consumer Behavior and Advertising which combine insights from Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology and Survey Methodology. William Wells, University of Minnesota, has provided the foreword and section overviews for the book which will help it appeal to all academics and students of consumer research.

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Publisher
Routledge
Year
2013
ISBN
9781136677953

FOREWORD

William D. Wells
University of Minnesota

SECTION I: THEMES

As he notes in Chapter 29 of this volume, the author of these papers began his research career as an aviation psychologist at Randolph Field, Texas. There he participated in a series of experiments intended to discover whether ā€œcritical flicker frequency,ā€ a little-known physiological phenomenon, could determine whether military aircrews were fit for duty.
These early experiments forecast major themes in his long and innovative research career. One theme is an enduring belief that social science research methods, including physiological responses measured in the laboratory, predict important behavior in the outside world. Another is an underlying assumption that academic social science theories, especially theories from academic psychology, provide useful guidance to managers who govern day-to-day events. Still another is unwillingness to accept conventional methods when something more sensitive, more reliable or more valid might be had.
Chapters 1, 2 and 3ā€”ā€The Learning of Tastes,ā€ ā€œThe Learning of Consumer Preferences,ā€ and ā€œAn Application of Learning Theory to TV Copy Testingā€ā€”report early efforts to apply social science theories and methods in studies of consumer preferences. Here, theories of learning from academic psychology help explain relationships between liking and familiarity, and predict effects of repetition upon reactions to advertisements, packages, music and art.
Chapter 3 introduces another preoccupation. In quoting an 1885 essay called Hints to Intending Advertisers, the author initiates an enduring interest in one of advertisingā€™s most fundamental issues: How many exposures are enough? As following chapters will show, this question absorbed a large portion of his research effort, time and thought, and ultimately produced a counterintuitive, radical and influential answer that is detailed in Chapter 16.
Chapters 4 and 5ā€”ā€Some Applications of Pupil Measurementā€ and ā€œA Comparison of Physical and Verbal Responses to Television Commercialsā€ā€” introduce eye movements and pupil dilation as ways of delving into marketing communications. These reports initiate another theme. They express a growing conviction that physiological responses may be more sensitive, more reliable, and more valid than ā€œconscious impressions verbally reported.ā€
Although this conviction was never fully accepted by the advertising research community, and ultimately retracted by the author himself, the underlying theme remains. Chapters 4 and 5, and those that follow, continue to demonstrate unswerving dedication to the scientific method, restless dissatisfaction with the commonplace, and enduring commitment to finding new and better ways.
Chapter 6ā€”ā€The Impact of Television Advertising: Learning Without Involvementā€ā€”pays off the work reported in Chapters 1 through 5 by calling attention to a fundamental difference between high-involvement persuasion and low-involvement persuasion. Its radical proposal to industry and academic researchers was (and is), ā€œperhaps our model of the influence process is wrong.ā€ In Chapter 6, the author advances cogent reasons for considering this proposal, and delineates its implications for basic and applied research.
When Chapter 6 was written, the most usual way of thinking about persuasion was AIDAā€”Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. In AIDA, the first duty of an advertisement is to attract Attention. The second duty is to arouse Interest in the product, service or issue being advertised. The third duty is to convert that Interest into Desire. The closing duty is to convert Desire into Action.
Underlying this dominant view is the key concept, attitude. Then as now, attitude theory held that consumers and voters learn enduring predispositions to behave in particular ways. According to AIDA, the role and duty of advertisements and other forms of persuasive communication is to revise these predispositionsā€”these attitudesā€”and thereby alter the behavior they evoke.
As the author notes in Chapter 6, one shortcoming of AIDA is lack of confirming empirical evidence. Despite years of dedicated effort, neither academic nor applied researchers had accumulated a body of evidence that could have been said to demonstrate that the persuasion process invariably or even typically follows the AIDA route.
Even more telling, the authorā€™s own studies of the learning of preferences, and of consumersā€™ responses to persuasive communications, had convinced him that AIDA was insufficient, especially when it comes to learning brand preferences from TV ads.
His radical resolution of this problem, outlined in Chapter 6, was to advance the notion that while AIDA may describe the process through which arguments influence important, well-thought-out decisions, it does not describe the process through which television commercials influence the many minor choices buyers make in supermarkets every day.
In these ā€œlow involvementā€ situations, he asserted, repeated exposures to television advertisements gradually shift the relative salience of vaguely apprehended brand impressions. At some point, in response to these shifts, and in response to whatever happens to have happened at the point of purchase, the buyer chooses then uses the brand. Then, and only then, a measurable change in attitude takes place.
This model is radically different from AIDA. It describes a different process, and it implies that advertising testing methods that are applied after exposure to the message but before purchase or use of the product or service are liable to overlook essential aspects of how low involvement advertising works.
This challenge to existing practice had major repercussions in two arenas. To advertisers and advertising researchers, it implied that while AIDA and the research methods based upon it may well be relevant to important, well-thoughtout purchasing and political decisions, they are mostly irrelevant to low involvement choices among brands. To academic researchers, it implied that the conditions under which attitude change can be expected to follow rather than lead to behavior change would need to be systematically laid out.
Chapter 7ā€”ā€The Measurement of Advertising Involvementā€ā€”picks up the major themes of Chapter 6, provides detailed instructions for measuring the personal connections that promote shifts in salience, describes a set of empirical findings based upon the low involvement model, and discusses implications for TV and print. The latter themeā€”television versus printā€”becomes increasingly important as the present volume unfolds.
Chapter 8ā€”ā€Psychological Perspectives on Marketing Strategyā€ā€”now blends findings from Chapters 1, 2 and 3 with findings from more recent work on low involvement. The author summarizes this integration in this way: ā€œwith low involvement choices one might look for product or service adoption through gradual shifts in perceptual structure, aided by repetition, activated by behavioral choice situations, and followed at some time by attitude change. With high involvement product preference, one could look instead for the classic, more dramatic, more familiar conflict of ideas at the level of conscious opinion and attitude that precedes changes in overt behavior.ā€ This is the fundamental insight of this portion of his work.
Chapters 9 and 10ā€”ā€Processes Underlying Exposure to Advertisingā€ and ā€œTelevision and Trust in Rationalityā€ā€”report additional work on events within the respondent during attention to persuasive communications. Like previous chapters in this section, they draw real-world inferences from laboratory experiments, and favor covert responses over ā€œconscious impressions verbally reported.ā€ They continue to contrast television advertising with print advertising, and they begin to speculate upon the broader implications of the thousands of hours American consumers spend with the tube.
At the time Chapters 9 and 10 were written, low involvement theory had attracted quite a lot of attention in the advertising and media worlds. To advertising researchers, low involvement theory meant that the most generally accepted advertising testing methods could not be trusted to assess the impact of television. To media researchers, it meant that cost per thousand viewersā€”the accepted metric for assessing media efficiencyā€”could not provide a valid way to weigh TV against print.
Chapter 11, the only chapter in this volume not written by Krugman himself, reviews this controversy from an outside point of view. Originally a feature article in Media Decisions, a widely read industry periodical, it outlines Krugmanā€™s heretical views on low involvement advertising, describes his measurement proposals, and reports reactions to his theories from leading figures in advertising and media research. Not surprisingly, these evaluations are tentative and mixed. Even so, all agree that this reformation ranks among the industryā€™s most interesting estimations of how persuasive communications work.

SECTION II: BRAIN WAVES

Chapter 12, written in 1947 on the basis of a study performed in the Army Air Forces in the Second World War, is a preview of the use of physiological methods that would characterize much of the authorā€™s work in the 1960s and 1970s. The development picks up in Chapter 13ā€”ā€Passive Learning from Televisionā€ā€”which introduces a new element into the discussion of what goes on within the viewerā€™s head during exposure to persuasive messages from print and television. Once again it rejects ā€œone sided emphasis on verbal data and the measurement of comprehension, recall, attitudes and the likeā€ in favor of more exacting analysis of the ā€œanimal, mechanical and physical properties, which define the limits, constraints, and conditions within which these verbal data function.ā€
Here, the emphasis turns to measurement of electrical activity within the right and left hemispheres of the brain, sensitive indices that, according to the author, hold special promise for tracing differences between active, voluntary attention associated with print media, and relaxed attention associated with TV. While the method is distinctly different, the major themes remain: reservations about the sensitivity, reliability and validity of introspective copy testing methods, continuing conviction that the laboratory will yield externally valid findings of great practical importance, preoccupation with the processes that occur within the respondent during exposure to persuasive messages, and analysis of differences between TV and print.
Chapters 14 through 16ā€”ā€Mass Media and Mental Maturity,ā€ ā€œā€˜Temporaryā€™ Effects of Communication,ā€ and ā€œBrain Wave Measures of Media Involvementā€ā€”develop these themes by reporting experiments in which measurements of eye movements and brain activity lead to the expectation that ā€œthe response to print generally may come to be understood as active, and composed primarily of fast brain waves while the response to television might come to be understood as passive and composed primarily of slow brain waves.ā€ As the author notes, this premise may account for Marshall McLuhanā€™s famous insight that print media are ā€œhotā€ in the sense that they require effortful, active attention and participation, while electronic media are ā€œcoolā€ in the sense that they ā€œeffortlessly transmit into storage huge quantities of information not thought about at the time of exposure.ā€
Chapter 17ā€”ā€Why Three Exposures May Be Enoughā€ā€”presents another challenge to conventional understanding of persuasive communication. In Chapter 3 of this volume, the author used Hints to Intending Advertisers and academic learning theories to launch a series of experiments on effects of repetition. In Chapter 17, he caps a decade of empirical investigation with a sensational conclusion: the first exposure to an advertisement stirs curiosity, the second prompts recognition, the third evokes decision, and further exposures yield nothing more than disengagement from a completed event.
To advertisers who were spending major resources on multiple exposures of the same advertisement, this conclusion, if deemed valid, would have most welcome impact on costly media plans. To the advertising industry, supported as it was by long-term, multi-repetition budgets, this conclusionā€”if acceptedā€” would have devastating economic effects.
Chapters 17 through 29 are devoted to defending this point of view and developing its implications. They report empirical research intended to support the three-exposure proposition, continue to assert the superiority of physiological measurements over verbal measurements, and reemphasize the need to focus on processes that occur within the brain during exposure to persuasive communication.
Chapter 30, the last chapter in this section, is perhaps the most surprising. In a ā€œpersonal retrospectiveā€ that reviews all this work, the author concludes, ā€œPhysiological research is not good at predicting success of advertising, and certainly not better than verbal data, although perhaps no worse.ā€ He then advocates a new measurement procedure in which physiological responses serve as cues that help direct depth interviews. Thus, after three decades of favoring physiological measurements over ā€œconscious impressions verbally reported,ā€ he asserts that physiological responses are most instructive when they are analyzed in conjunction with, rather than instead of, meanings derived from words.
This revision stands as testimony to the authorā€™s unwavering devotion to the principles of scientific work. Instead of forcing findings to fit a long-standing conviction, he followed the data where they took him, and concluded that a blend of covert and overt responses can be expected to be more informative than covert responses alone.

SECTION III: CORPORATE ADVERTISING

At General Electric, the author managed a national survey that tracked social and economic issues of strategic importance to the firm. In the chapters that follow he describes the outcomes of this research program, with special focus on the effects of GEā€™s corporate communications. As always, he reaches beyond the conventional to advocate new uses for established practices, and looks behind the obvious to gain new insights into how things work.
In Chapter 31ā€”ā€Adapting Existing Survey Data Banks to Social Indicator Purposesā€ā€”he advocates a productive practice that is abysmally underused today. He says, ā€œthe opinion survey profession overvalues current and newsworthy data, rarely stops to look back or take stock,ā€ and shows how looking back and taking stock of long-term changes in attitudes and opinions can improve interpretation of unfolding events. In this context, the issues of most interest included public introductions of great technological innovations, news reports of corporate profits, and political reactions to the power ā€œbigā€ business exerts.
In the ensuing chapters the author reports experiments in which findings from this survey assess the impact of GEā€™s corporate advertising. Here, he addresses interactions between spokespersons and advertisements, rethinks his earlier analysis of differences between TV and print, re-asks ā€œhow many exposures may be enough?ā€ and evaluates the impact of GE Theatre dramas upon the commercials that they frame.
In these experiments, data from the survey data bank show that corporate advertisements can make corporate spokespersons more effective by making them more credible, that corporate advertisements can be every bit as thought-provoking on television as they are in print, that the answer to the exposure question may be ā€œone,ā€ and that ā€œinteresting shows increase the effectiveness of interruptive but interesting commercials, and diminish the effectiveness of interruptive commercials of less interest.ā€
At the time they were made, these conclusions were actionable answers to critical strategic questions. Now, like all insightful scientific findings, they invite exploitation in extensions of the work.

SECTION IV: METHODS AND OBSERVATIONS

In Chapter 4 of this volume, the author first expresses lack of confidence in the common questionnaire. There and in ensuing chapters he proposes a gallery of alternatives to asking direct questions and accepting direct answers. The first chapter of this last section advocates still another indirect method, the ā€œdraw a supermarketā€ technique. Instead of being asked about their attitudes toward the various departments of supermarkets, respondents are asked to draw a supermarket layout. Their drawings are then analyzed in conjunction with more conventional interviews to gain insights into customersā€™ evaluations of supermarket planning and design.
The remaining chapters in this section are devoted to more general observations of the media landscape, additional evaluations of methods used to measure short term and long-term effects of advertising, and comments on history, present status and probable future of consumer research. These chapters repeat, organize and elaborate many of the anthems of the previous sections of this book. They discuss distinctions between the print media and the electronic media as instruments of mass communication. They lay new emphasis on the distinction between high involvement and low involvement responses to persuasion. They reiterate reservations as to the sensitivity, reliability and validity of conventional copy testing methods, and, from a ā€œhuman factorsā€ point of view, they speculate on the consequences of impending changes in the dimensions and capabilities of television sets.
Throughout these chapters the author maintains his interest in methodological innovation, his drive to draw insights from, as distinguished from merely reporting, the outcomes of surveys and experiments, and his fundamental premise that social science theories and social science methods can improve practical responses to real- world events.

CHAPTER 12

FLICKER FUSION FREQUENCY AS A FUNCTION OF ANXIETY REACTION: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

The ability to perceive a certain number of visual stimuli per unit of time has been found to differ significantly between hypothyroid patients and normals,1 between older and younger persons,2 ā€™ 3 between fatigued and rested truck drivers,4 etc. In all such cases, the number of light-dark cycles per second at which a physically intermittent light was just perceived as a steady light was found to be lower for the more fatigued cases or those with lower metabolic rates than for normals or rested persons.
If it is shown that this variable clearly differentiates between normals and any clinically diagnosed psychoneurotic group, then flicker fusion frequency may be useful for measuring, more or less roughly yet objectively, the degree of disturbance possessed by various individuals, not only at the time of the original diagnosis but also at various stages of therapy as a check on the progress of therapy.
This question was formulated in response to a military assignment involving the study of a neurotic-like syndrome exhibited by many of the Army Air Forces combat veterans after their return to the United States. This syndrome was officially designated as ā€œoperational fatigueā€ and is described elsewhere very ably by Grinker and Spiegel.5 Insofar as this syndrome was, on the surface, characterized chiefly by indications of severe hypertension, we shall refer to it simply as anxiety reaction. It should be noted that this reaction may be understood as normal in response to the combat situation. It is described as a neurotic-like syndrome only with reference to those for whom the reaction persisted, and in some cases became intensified, in post-combat life.
It was this group of aircrew returnees who served as the experimental group for our study of flicker fusion frequency. All testing was conducted at Army Air Forces Redistribution Station No. 2, Miami Beach, Florida.
PROCEDURE
Fifty normal aircrew returnees and 50 anxiety reaction cases were selected, from 1 June until 23 June 1945, to report for a flicker fusion test.
1.From those returnees who were referred for psychiatric examination (approximately one-half the total processed at Station No. 2) during the course of routine medical processing, the psychiatrists selected 50 experimental cases showing fairly severe anxiety reactions.
2.From those returnees who were not referred for psychiatric examination, the medical officer at the final check station on the medical processing line selected 50 control cases.
3.Two testing conditions (A and B) were used, and the composition of the several groups of subjects was as follows:
image
The apparatus used in this study was a General Radio Company ā€œStrobotac,ā€ Model 631-B, which is capable of producing a variable oscillating light with a range of 600 to 14,500 cycles per minute. Because of certain extraneous light fluctuations which it was desirable to minimize, the apparatus was modified in the following manner:
1.The 5ā€ diameter of the light source and reflector was cut down to 1Ā¾ā€ by placing an opaque cardboard shield in front of the apparatus. A circle of 1Ā¾ā€ diameter was cut out of the shield.
2.A single sheet of white bond paper was fixed to the back of the cardboard shield and acted as a translucent screen between it and the apparatus.
3.A fixation point on the shield was provided by drawing a cross with axes 5/8ā€ long which intersected at a point 2ā€ below the center of the stimulus light.
The physical characteristics of the test room situation were as follows:
1.The test room was 9ā€™ high by 9ā€™ wide and 11ā€™ long. Blackout curtains cut off all light from windows.
2.The apparatus was placed against a wall 9ā€™ wide, and equidistant from either side. A 7ā€™ wide portable movie projector screen was placed against the wall and behind the apparatus, in order that the background of reflected light would appear standard when the subject faced the apparatus.
3.Each subject was seated in such a manner that his eyes were level with the center of the stimulus light, and 24 inches distant. This distance insured a 5 degree angle of vision when the subject fixated on the cross 2 inches below the center of the stimulus light. Vision was binocular.
4.The room was lighted by a 50-watt, 120-volt, G.E. Mazda lamp located in the center of the ceiling.
5.A General Electric fan effectively screened out sounds produced by the Strobotac motor and in this way completely eliminated possible auditory cues.
Upon entering the test room, the subject was seated, facing the apparatus. At this point a three-minute period, timed with a stopwatch, was given for the purpose of light-adapting the subject to the illumination level of the test room. During this three-minute period, the following data were recorded:
1.Time of day.
2.Age of subject.
3.Estimated visual acuity (by subject).
4.A short description of any strenuous exercise indulged in on the day of testing (e.g., physical training).
5.Estimated hours of sleep on previous night.
6.A short description of any drinking (alcoholic) which might have taken place on the night prior to testing.
Standardized directions were read to the subject and ten measures of flicker fusion frequency were taken. These were separated by fifteen-second rest periods, during which time scores were recorded. The stimulus light was turned off as soon as the subject made a response, and turned on again five seconds before the start of the next trial.
1.For the first 50 subjects (25 control and 25 experimental), scores were obtained by beginning with a frequency of 3,700 per minute and gradually diminishing the frequency until the presence of flicker was reported. For the second group of subjects, a frequency of 2,000 per minute was used at first, and gradually increased until the absence of flicker (flicker fusion) was reported. Although the second method is the traditional one it was felt worthwhile to try both. These two methods are referred to as Conditions A and B.
2.The frequency of the stimulus light was controlled by a hand-operated dial. The rate at which this dial was turned was subject only to the very rough kind of standardization afforded by kinaesthetic control on the part of the examiner. The examiner looked away from the dial, the frequency scale and the subject during the progress of each test trial in order that kinaesthetic control should not be influenced by what could be seen.
RESULTS
In Table 12.1 a statistical summary of the results is presented for each of the two testing conditions.
images
* Difference between the means significant at the 1% level or better.
** Correlation between flicker fusion frequency and psychiatric diagnosis (presence or absence of operational fatigue).
*** Corrected for twice the length by use of the Spearman-Brown formula.
It is apparent that the mean scores made by normals are significantly higher than those made by anxiety reaction cases, though there is considerable overlapping of the distributions. It is also evident that results for testing Condition A (fusion to flicker) seem to be somewhat more related to anxiety reaction diagnosis than the traditional testing condition, Condition B (flicker to fusion).
In order to evaluate the extent of the relationships between anxiety reaction and fusion frequency, it was considered desirable to determine the relationships between fusion frequency and some of the other variables in the test situation that might conceivably have affected the test scores. The intercorrelations of these variables and those of fusion frequency and psychiatric diagnosis are presented in Tables 12.2 and 12.3. Visual acuity and physical exercise are omitted because no distribution was obtainable (all subjects reported 20/20 vision and no exercise on the day of testing).
TABLE 12.2
VARIABLES FOR WHICH
INTERCORRELATIONS WERE COMPUTED
1.Flicker fusion frequency
2.Psychiatric diagnosis
3.Hours of sleep
4.Time of day tested (hours since 0001)
5.Age
6.ā€œAlcoholismā€*
*For this variable the sample was split into those who drank more, and those who drank less, than one bottle of beer on the previous night.
images
* The variables are so defined that these positive correlations indicate that normals slept more, drank more and got higher scores than the operational fatigue cases
** Fatigue cases tended to report later in the day.
images
* The variables are so defined that these positive correlations indicate that normals were older and got higher scores.
The intercorrelation tables suggest that flicker fusion frequency is not significantly related to any of the variables studied except that of psychiatric diagnosis. A clearer picture of this situation may be afforded in the table (Table 12.4) of partial coefficients of correlation where whatever slight degree of relationship between these other variables and fusion frequency is shown to have slightly obscured rather than exaggerated the degree of correlation between fusion frequency and psychiatric diagnosis.
TABLE 12.4
CORRELATION BETWEEN FLICKER FUSION FREQUENCY AND PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS WITH COMBINATIONS OF CERTAIN VARIABLES HELD CONSTANT
Coeffs Condā€™n A Condā€™n B
r12ā€¢3 .68 .45
r12ā€¢4 .54 .45
r14ā€¢5 .62 .55
r14ā€¢6 .62 .43
r12ā€¢34 .60 .45
r12ā€¢35 .68 .55
r12ā€¢36 .73 .43
r12ā€¢45 .56 .54
r12ā€¢46 .54 .44
r12ā€¢56 .62 .54
r12ā€¢345 .60 .56
r12ā€¢346 .68 .43
r12ā€¢356 .73 .53
r12ā€¢456 .54 .55
r12ā€¢3456 .68 .55

CONCLUSIONS

Flicker fusion frequency is a rather easily measured, almost physiologic function, and its relationship with other types of abnormal-metabolic rate states is fairly well known. Should the results of this admittedly preliminary study be confirmed by further studies, the measure of flicker fusion frequency may provide a means of assisting in the better evolution of therapeutic results with patients exhibiting anxiety reaction.
Although overlap in the distributions of normal and anxiety reaction (ā€œoperational fatigueā€) cases prevents fusion frequency from being used for purposes of initial diagnosis or screening, the results obtained in this study suggest the possible usefulness of this index as an objective check on the progress of therapy. Because this study has demonstrated what appears to be a fairly close relationship between flicker score and psychiatric diagnosis of anxiety reaction, it may be expected that flicker fusion frequency would rise during the progress of successful treatment regardless of what an individualā€™s flicker fusion frequency might have been when first referred.
The results of this preliminary study are sufficiently promising to indicate that a larger number of cases should be obtained. Experience in the preliminary study indicates that it might be well to take certain additional precautions in future studies. These are as follows:
1. Attempt to improve the flicker source. It was observed that the Strobo-tac light source, which is a neon tube, emitted certain slight irregular extraneous light fluctuations which confused some of those subjects who showed high thresholds for flicker fusion.
2. Standardize the rate at which the frequency of the source light oscillations are increased or decreased during fusion testing by substituting mechanical for human control of the frequency dial.
3. Attempt better to match the anxiety reaction cases and the control cases with respect to time of day tested.

SUMMARY

Flicker fusion frequency has previously been found to differentiate between normals and cases exhibiting various types of abnormal metabolic-rate states. This experiment attempted, in an exploratory way, to study the relationship between FFF and an anxiety reaction state found rather frequently among Army personnel shortly after their return from Air Forces combat assignments overseas.
Fifty such cases (termed ā€œoperational fatigueā€ in the AAF) and 50 normal aircrew returnees were selected for testing under standardized conditions. Statistically significant differences were found between the mean FFF scores of the two groups although the distribution of scores overlapped considerably.
Because of the relationship between FFF and anxiety reaction (ā€œoperational fatigueā€) demonstrated in this study, it would be expected that the FFF scores of such patients would rise during the progress of successful therapy. Further research would seem to be indicated.

1 ENZER, N., SIMONSON, E., and BLANKSTEIN, S. S.: The State of Sensory and Motor Centers in Patients with Hypothyroidism. Ann. Int. Med., 15:659, 1941.
2 BROZEK, J., and KEYS, A.: Changes in Flicker Fusion Frequency with Age. J. Consult. Psychol., 9:87, 1945.
3 ENZER, N., SIMONSON, E., and BLANKSTEIN, S.S.: The Influence of Age on the Fusion Frequency of Flicker. J. Exper. Psychol., 29:252, 1941.
4 LEE, R. H.: Fatigue and Hours of Service of Interstate Truck Drivers. IV: Critical Fusion Frequency of Flicker. Publ. Health Bull., 265:195, 1941.
5 GRINKER, R.R., and SPIEGEL, J.P.: Men Under Stress, Philadelphia, Blakiston, 1945.

CHAPTER 13

PASSIVE LEARNING FROM TELEVISION

(with Eugene L. Hartley)
When we speak about the processes of learning we usually talk about motivation, practice, achievement, new skills or insights attained ā€” we usually talk, that is, about learning as active and purposive behavior. We think of it as the province of school and classroom. We know that there are other, more passive kinds of learning, but we focus less on these, in part because they are presumed to be less effective, in part because they have been less noticeable ā€” at least until the rise of the mass media, especially the electronic media.
Much of what is taught by the mass media does involve passive learning, and especially so among young television viewers. This type of learning presents a difficult evaluation problem since the passively learned material is almost by definition unrelated to immediate needs or situations. If it were, the learning would be more than passive.
Critics of television recognize that later events or situations may trigger what has been passively learned and lain dormant. They have therefore been concerned about the content, especially the violent content of television that may be shown to children. However, few have asked how the child learns such content at the time of exposure, or how this may be different in process or consequence from the more active classroom types of learning. It is almost as if the more passive types of learning are presumed to be invisible, and therefore incapable of study. Yet most learning at most ages is outside the classroom, and much of it is passive.
The purpose of this paper is to identify some of the differences between passive and active learning, and to suggest some implications for education and for television.
A major distinction between passive and active learning is physical and concerns constitutional, inborn characteristics of the human being. In the visible history of research on communication influence such characteristics have been ignored in a one-sided emphasis on verbal data and the measurement of comprehension, recall, attitudes, and the like. The favorite research tool has been the interview. In the midst of the easily gathered verbal data many have lost sight of manā€™s animal, mechanical, and physical properties, which define the limits, constraints, and conditions within which those verbal data function.
Research on those physical properties related to communication influence has been less visible until recently for several reasons. (1) Most of the pioneers (e.g., Wundt, Helmholtz, James) died before the development of radio and television. (2) Most of the medical people who are interested in manā€™s physical properties are not interested in the question of passive vs. active learning (to a great extent the same is true of experimental psychology). Furthermore, the branch of medicine most relevant to the question is among the more recent. This involves certain aspects of the study of the brain, specifically electroencephalography, which began its modern history in 1933 with Bergerā€™s classical work on electrical emanations from the brain. (3) The relevant work done within the field of physiology achieved little cohesiveness in U. S. academic circles until translation and publication in the early sixties of the major Russian accomplishments (e.g., Sokolov1).
This research has relevance to the mass media in direct proportion to its age. That is, the older nineteenth-century research has the most relevance because it contains scientific observations that have been repeatedly rediscovered, repeatedly reconfirmed, and prior to its current relevance, repeatedly forgotten.2Many of these observations concern some physical qualities of the phe-nomenon of attention. These acquire special relevance when attention is treated as the core aspect of human experience. For example, William James has said: ā€œMy experience is what I agree to attend to.ā€3
James defined two types of attention, voluntary and involuntary, and noted that voluntary attention cannot be continuous; i.e., voluntary attention is a continual returning of attention to its object when it wanders away. He said, ā€œVoluntary attention is always derived; we never make an effort to attend to an object except for the sake of some remote interest which the effort will serve. . . . There is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few seconds at a time. What is called sustained voluntary attention is a repetition of successive efforts which bring back the topic to the mind. No one can possibly attend continuously to an object that does not changeā€4
Jamesā€™s distinction between voluntary and involuntary attention means that much of thinking, learning, and reading represents a sequence of successive efforts to attend, while much of the viewing of life around us, films, TV, and other changing stimuli are far less likely to require effort. In other words, the change, the switching or the rhythmic process goes on inside man when he is working at the job of attention, or it goes on outside man and inside (e.g.) the moving film as it relieves man of that work. The alternation process, furthermore, has an upper ceiling. Posnerā€™s review of...

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