Low Message Sensation Health Promotion Videos Are Better Remembered and Activate Areas of the Brain Associated with Memory Encoding

Abstract

Greater sensory stimulation in advertising has been postulated to facilitate attention and persuasion. For this reason, video ads promoting health behaviors are often designed to be high in “message sensation value” (MSV), a standardized measure of sensory intensity of the audiovisual and content features of an ad. However, our previous functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study showed that low MSV ads were better remembered and produced more prefrontal and temporal and less occipital cortex activation, suggesting that high MSV may divert cognitive resources from processing ad content. The present study aimed to determine whether these findings from anti-smoking ads generalize to other public health topics, such as safe sex. Thirty-nine healthy adults viewed high- and low MSV ads promoting safer sex through condom use, during an fMRI session. Recognition memory of the ads was tested immediately and 3 weeks after the session. We found that low MSV condom ads were better remembered than the high MSV ads at both time points and replicated the fMRI patterns previously reported for the anti-smoking ads. Occipital and superior temporal activation was negatively related to the attitudes favoring condom use (see Condom Attitudes Scale, Methods and Materials section). Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis of the relation between occipital and fronto-temporal (middle temporal and inferior frontal gyri) cortices revealed weaker negative interactions between occipital and fronto-temporal cortices during viewing of the low MSV that high MSV ads. These findings confirm that the low MSV video health messages are better remembered than the high MSV messages and that this effect generalizes across public health domains. The greater engagement of the prefrontal and fronto-temporal cortices by low MSV ads and the greater occipital activation by high MSV ads suggest that that the “attention-grabbing” high MSV format could impede the learning and retention of public health messages.

Individual differences in the processing of smoking-cessation video messages: An imaging genetics study

“…First, they extend prior studies on the mechanisms of neurocognitive processing of the high-MSV format (Langleben et al, 2009; Seelig et al, 2014; Wang et al, 2013) to genetic variability, i.e. the DAT1 polymorphism.…”

“…These findings suggest that greater rTPJ response to the high- MSV format is associated with poorer long-term behavioral responsiveness to smoking-cessation messaging. A possible explanation could be that the 10/10 individuals developed a less adaptive processing style that focused on the sensory features of the videos, and thus received less benefit from the anti-smoking information (Langleben et al, 2009; Seelig et al, 2014). …”

“…Message sensation value (MSV) is a validated measure that has been developed to quantify such sensory features in health promotion videos (Morgan et al, 2003). The prevailing assumption that higher MSV improves cognitive processing and effectiveness of health promotion videos has been challenged by recent neuroimaging studies, which found that videos with lower MSV were better remembered and elicited greater prefrontal and temporal response (Langleben et al, 2009; Seelig et al, 2014). These findings are consistent with predictions of the limited cognitive capacity theories.…”

Brain activity during traditional textbook and audiovisual‐3D learning

“…Dynamic motion and audio features may indeed be effective in making ads more memorable (Han et al, ). However, stimuli wealth and complexity may otherwise exceed the capacity to assimilate information and result in reduced message retention (Langleben et al, ; Seelig et al, ; Wang et al, ). In our audiovisual experiment, some balance may exist between the advantages and disadvantages of providing more complex information.…”

The persuasion network is modulated by drug-use risk and predicts anti-drug message effectiveness

“… Lang, 2006 ). Experimental fMRI work has shown that low-compared to high-MSV persuasive ads are better remembered, elicit increased activity in temporal and prefrontal cortex, and correspond to lower levels of occipital cortex activation ( Seelig et al , 2014 ).…”