Made You Listen

Abstract

This experiment tested an intuitive principle in the radio industry: that production effects (i.e., laser sounds, voice modulation, etc.) increase listener attention to messages. Professional voice talent created 5-10 second promotional announcements (promos) for nine fictitious stations. Each contained a slogan considered typical of industry practices (“Channel 97 WRRK—The Classic Rock Station”). Three of the promos were produced as announcer only, three with laser effects, and three with an echo effect. The promos systematically alternated between 2-minute segments of talk show content to resemble typical broadcast programming. Heart rate data were collected, time locked to the media presentation, from 62 participants as they listened to the stimulus. Afterwards, recognition data were collected. Results show cardiac deceleration following production effects, indicative of automatic allocation of attention. Memory data show an expected increase in recognition for information in the promos containing production effects, although not all memory tests reach statistical significance.

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