School of Psychology

The influence of psychological and physiological characteristics of television viewing

Research team:            Brendan Smith, Shadi Bahbah, Dee Marevic

Supervisor:                  Professor Peter Drummond, Shiree Treleaven-Hassard, Duane Varan

Date:                            Nov 2008

Abstract
Author:  Brendan Smith

            With new advances in technology, consumers are more empowered to skip television advertisements. Consumers adapt to television advertisements. Adaptation is a process whereby consumers constantly seek out new information and therefore avoid advertisements at a faster rate. This study investigated whether any individual differences could predict the rate of advertisement avoidance. More specifically, it investigated whether indices of habituation and novelty seeking were able to predict the duration of advertisement watching.
            Seventy-eight university or TAFE students completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (Cloninger et al, 1994) to measure Novelty Seeking, and individually observed a 1.5 hour viewing session of three types of habituation stimuli (simple audio, complex visual, and complex audio visual) followed by a typical television session which included a program and advertisements.  Skin conductance responses and heart rate were measured in response to the habituation stimuli. The habituation stimuli sets consisted of 11 stimuli presented 15 seconds apart, with the exception of the missing stimulus at trial nine. Habituation was measured as the mean amplitude response for trials one through eight. The missing stimulus was incorporated to measure any responses to stimulus omission. Dishabituation was also measured as the response to the trial proceeding stimulus omission (i.e. the response to trial 10). During the program and advertisements section participants were able skip the advertisements five seconds after onset. The predictor variables were Novelty Seeking, habituation, response to a missing stimulus and dishabituation to a simple audio stimulus, a complex visual stimulus, and complex audio visual stimulus.
            The rate of habituation of skin conductance responses to complex audio visual stimuli was associated with the duration of advertisement watching. Novelty seeking did not predict rate of advertisement avoidance; this was surprising as sensation seeking has been related to advertisement avoidance in previous research. Changes in heart rate to the habituation stimuli or any physiological response to the missing stimuli or dishabituation did not predict rate of ad avoidance. Habituation, indexed by a decrease in skin conductance response amplitude, was the only predictor of the duration of advertisement watching. These findings indicate that a stimulus of high complexity will increase levels of arousal therefore decreasing the consumers desire to avoid advertisements.   
 
Abstract
Author:  Shadi Bahbah

            The present study builds on the work of Fredrikson and Öhman (1979), and investigated the influence of personality factors on habituation of the autonomic nervous system to complex and simple stimuli. Specifically, the possibility that novelty seeking could predict the rate of habitation was of interest. 35 male and 43 female drug and medication free students from tertiary education institutions across Perth, Western Australia participated in this study.

            The Temperament and Personality Inventory  (Cloninger) was used to measure novelty seeking. Participants also watched a habituation presentation consisting of 12 trials each of three stimuli sets, and where trial 9 of each set was a missing stimulus. The stimuli sets used included an innocuous complex audio visual of a moving car, a complex still image and a simple 1KHz tone. The amplitude of the skin conductance responses (SCRs), expressed as percentages of the maximum SCR per stimulus set, and changes in cardiac inter beat intervals (IBI), were considered physiological responses of habituation. 
In the habituation paradigm, heart rate deceleration was greater for participants in the high novelty seeking group but SCR amplitude was not affected by novelty seeking group.  SCR amplitude was greatest for the complex audio visual stimulus and the simple tone.
These results are discussed in the context of the theoretical accounts of the OR mechanisms with special attention given to the preliminary process theory. It is recommended that future research systematically investigates the conditions under which personality factors contribute significantly to individual differences in habituation.

Physiological responses to measure behaviour to a given stimuli are increasingly being used as a research tool to improve the quality of interactive complex media messages such as television advertisements in areas of media and consumer psychology.  This study aimed to investigate whether psychological variables such as gender differences and novelty seeking status would influence physiological arousal to advertisements that were skipped by participants or not skipped in a television viewing laboratory study.  Thirty eight university students or TAFE students in Western Australia with a mean age of 21.08 and an almost even distribution of males to females participated in television (TV) viewing study which measured heart rate (beats per minute) and skin conductance (microsiemen) to advertisement viewing.  Of interest was the period of 5 seconds prior to an advertisement being skipped (using a TV remote control) and 5 seconds post the advert skip.  Participants were also required to complete a Temperament and Character Inventory (Cloninger et al, 1994) to measure novelty seeking status as a personality trait.  The results indicated that overall physiological arousal was greater for heart rate and skin conductance for the advertisements that were skipped to those advertisements watched all the way through.  Furthermore gender and novelty seeking did influence physiological arousal to adverts that were skipped compared with those not skipped.  Heart rate and skin conductance increased significantly after the button press on the remote control to skip to the next advertisement.  These results indicate that people who engage with interactive media messages are able to maintain optimum levels of arousal as dictated by individual differences such as gender or personality traits such as novelty seeking status.