Neurophysiological Profile of Antismoking Campaigns

Abstract

Over the past few decades, antismoking public service announcements (PSAs) have been used by governments to promote healthy behaviours in citizens, for instance, against drinking before the drive and against smoke. Effectiveness of such PSAs has been suggested especially for young persons. By now, PSAs efficacy is still mainly assessed through traditional methods (questionnaires and metrics) and could be performed only after the PSAs broadcasting, leading to waste of economic resources and time in the case of Ineffective PSAs. One possible countermeasure to such ineffective use of PSAs could be promoted by the evaluation of the cerebral reaction to the PSA of particular segments of population (e.g., old, young, and heavy smokers). In addition, it is crucial to gather such cerebral activity in front of PSAs that have been assessed to be effective against smoke (Effective PSAs), comparing results to the cerebral reactions to PSAs that have been certified to be not effective (Ineffective PSAs). The eventual differences between the cerebral responses toward the two PSA groups will provide crucial information about the possible outcome of new PSAs before to its broadcasting. This study focused on adult population, by investigating the cerebral reaction to the vision of different PSA images, which have already been shown to be Effective and Ineffective for the promotion of an antismoking behaviour. Results showed how variables as gender and smoking habits can influence the perception of PSA images, and how different communication styles of the antismoking campaigns could facilitate the comprehension of PSA's message and then enhance the related impact.

Antismoking Campaigns’ Perception and Gender Differences: A Comparison among EEG Indices

“…The EEG activity in the theta band over all the frontal electrodes has been considered for the estimation of the mental effort/processing processes. An increase in the frontal theta (i.e., mental effort/processing) would imply an increase in the task difficulty [38, 49] and therefore in the attendance to the antismoking content of the PSA, as also already evidenced by studies in which the frontal theta activity has been investigated during the exposure to antismoking advertising [19–22].…”

“…The approach/withdrawal (AW) index and the frontal theta index have been already applied to the study of antismoking PSAs, in relation to the investigation of neurophysiological correlates of effectiveness in such kind of advertising [19–22]. The AW was based on the theory of the frontal alpha asymmetry introduced by Davidson [23] and further adopted in several studies [24–27].…”

Neuroimaging Techniques in Advertising Research: Main Applications, Development, and Brain Regions and Processes

“…Neuromarketing tools (e.g., psychological and neuroimaging tools) have been used to know the influence of advertising on the neural mechanisms of consumers and decision-making [51][52][53]. For example, these tools enable to identify neural correlates of emotional and cognitive processes in advertising, to identify the negative or the positive elements in advertising that cause aversion or approach behavior, to determine visual and sound features, to select the suitable media for advertising [54], to obtain unspoken new information [24], and thereby creating more effective commercial advertisings [55], social initiative ads [56], and antismoking campaigns [57,58]. These tools record and measure the emotional and cognitive processes toward advertising and the effect of stimuli to be implemented at the purchase point to promote sales [59].…”

Narrative Styles and Narratology Formats in PSAs: Assessing the Effects on Arousal, Attention, and Memory

“…Using heart rate to indicate orienting responses as a measure of tonic cognitive effect and using skin conductance as a measure of arousal has included dozens of studies since the 2000s (e.g., Grabe, Zhou, Lang, & Bolls, 2000;Lang, Zhou, Schwartz, Bolls, & Potter, 2000). While these studies have analyzed television and PSAs (e.g., Lang 1990;Modica et al, 2018;Wang & Lang, 2012;Zhang, et al, 2016), websites (e.g., Kallinen & Ravaja, 2007), still photographs (e.g., Codispoti, Ferrari, & Bradley, 2006), audio (e.g., Bolls, Lang, & Potter, 2001), and video games (e.g., Lissak, 2018;Schneider, Lang, Shin, & Bradley, 2004) in relation to ways media are produced (e.g., Lang, Chung, Lee, Schwartz, & Shin, 2005;Lang et al, 2000), incorporate audio (Dillman Carpentier, & Potter, 2007), use animation (Lang, Borse, Wise, & David, 2002), include textual warnings (e.g., Lang, Borse, Wise, & David, 2002), and other related variables, studies using psychophysiological methods to analyze reactions to PSAs narrative formats while considering POV are not noted, although a similar concept has been considered for POV effects of video games (Schneider et al, 2004).…”