1. Youth Perceptions on Anti-Texting and Driving Campaign Messages: an Eye-Tracking Approach
Jessica Dénommée, Anick Labonté, Victoria Foglia & Annie Roy-Charland
ABSTRACT
VISUAL STIMULI
The current study recorded eye movements to determine what type of message would be more effective in attracting young adults’ attention. Participants viewed 60 texting and driving advertisements. Advertisements consisted of two categories; statistical and emotional messages that were divided based on target individual (passenger and driver). The emotional messages were also divided based on valence (positive and negative). Results reveal that both if the target was the drivers or passengers, participants spent significantly more time on statistic messages than on emotional messages. However, more time was spent on passenger emotional messages than on driver emotional messages. Moreover, passenger positive messages were looked at longer than negative ones but driver negative messages were looked at longer than positive ones.
Statistical Messages
Emotional Messages
Driver
Passenger
Positive
Negative
INTRODUCTION
RESULTS
Nowadays, cellphones are being used on a daily basis (e.g. communicate, navigate, plan etc.)
Vehicles now also incorporate cellphone technology within the design of the vehicle (e.g. Bluetooth technology), which may lead to drivers assuming cellphones are safe to use while driving (Adeloa & Gibbons, 2013).
However, texting and driving is suggested to account for 21% of crashes involving young drivers (Tucker et al., 2015) which classifies this behaviour as a public health issue.
One of the most reoccurring prevention strategy suggested is public health advertisements (Kahn et al., 2002).
A recent eye-tracking study showed that text-based only texting and driving advertisements are more effective at attracting attention of young drivers aged years old (Foglia et al., Submitted).
Pieter and Wedel (2004) have previously shown the superiority ability of text content on attention towards advertisements since the larger the text on an advertisement, the more effective it is at capturing and keeping attention.
It may thus be that text-only advertisements increases attention as no other element (e.g image) is present to distract and deviate attention from the message.
Current study: Using eye-tracking technology, the current study explored text only content to determine what content is most effective in attracting young adults’, aged years, attention. * * * *
METHODS
DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
Participants
29 participants (21 females, 8 males) were recruited for the current study.
All participants were between the ages of 16 and 24 years old (M = 20.14; SD = 1.48), with reported normal or corrected to normal vision.
Procedure
Participants viewed a total of 30 advertisements. Twenty of which were emotional messages (driver positive, driver negative, passenger positive and passenger negative) and ten of which were statistical messages (driver and passenger).
All stimuli were presented twice for a total of 60 images.
Participants viewed all advertisements in a randomized order while their eye-movements were tracked (SR Research Eye Link 1000).
Participants were asked to view the advertisements as though they are flipping through a magazine. When ready they were asked to pressed the spacebar to move to the next advertisement.
The results indicated that participants spent significantly more time on statistical messages compared to emotional messages.
According to Maughan, Gutnikov & Stevens (2007), the more an individual likes an advertisement, the longer and more fixations a person makes.
It may thus be that individuals of this particular age group have a preference for statistical messages and that statistical campaign messages could potentially have a more persuasive power than do emotional message.
When observing time spent on emotional messages only, more time was spent on passenger emotional messages than on driver emotional messages.
Moreover, passenger positive messages were looked at longer than negative ones but driver negative messages were looked at longer than positive ones.
In sum, that texting and driving advertisements may be more effective if they include statistical messages rather than emotional message. However if emotional messages are being used, valence should be considered depending on the target group of the prevention campaign.
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Foglia, F., Leroux, D., Roy-Charland, A., Lemieux, S., Yantzi, N & Skjonsby-McKinnon, T. (2016). Young Adults Perceptions on Anti-Texting and Driving Advertisements: An Eye-Tracking Approach. Submitted for publication.
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