Implicit Measures

Measures of Attention

Many of the implicit measures used in communication research are derived from the model of information processing. According to this model, individuals acquire knowledge through four phases: attention (selecting specific information in the environment), encoding (understanding selected information), storage of information in long-term memory, and retrieval (information that is remembered). One of the assumptions of the information-processing model is that individuals are limited in their ability to attend to multiple stimuli in a single moment of time. Hence, attention involves selecting among multiple stimuli (e.g., visual, auditory) according to their importance and salience to the receiver. Researchers can indirectly assess the importance and salience of stimuli to individuals using methods that measure attention to specific inputs upon exposure to several stimuli, or comparing length of attention given to some stimuli over others.

A widely used method in attention research is measuring visual attention, which utilizes advanced technology that tracks duration and direction of eye gaze when exposed to pictures, symbols, and words. For example, an impression formation study may use eye-tracking technology to assess the selective attention of participants when exposed to several individuals. Other studies have measured the direction and sequence of eye fixation when analyzing features of web content, and the relationship between eye-gaze patterns and decision making. Attention can also be measured by the duration of eye gaze as an indicator of processing time, attention, or interest. For example, individuals spend a long time processing information that is unfamiliar, interesting, and complex.

Another method that measures automatic attention (unintended attention) uses stimulus interference. In this method, the researcher assesses whether the presence of a certain stimulus will interfere with the attention given to other surrounding stimuli. A popular measure of automatic attention is the Stroop effect, which measures how long (reaction time) it takes a participant to identify the color of a word when the semantic meaning matches the correct color (e.g., the word “red” printed in red ink) in comparison to when it does not (e.g., the word “red” printed in green ink). Studies have found that it takes longer to correctly identify the color of the word in the interference condition (mismatch between name of the color and color of the ink) than when the name of the color matches the color of the ink. These results indicate that processing the semantic meaning of words is automatic and unchanged by interfering stimuli (such as changing the ink color). In other words, individuals automatically understand the meanings of the words whereas recognizing the colors of words is not an automatic process. Hence, individuals will recognize the word “red” as the color red automatically although the word “red” is printed in green ink.

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