Optimising the Use of Synaesthetic Metaphors in Advertising: The Roles of Metaphor Construction and Complexity
Metaphors; Synaesthetic Metaphors; Advertising; Persuasiveness
Metaphors are commonly employed in advertising to increase its persuasive effects. Research suggests that metaphors are most effective when conveyed visually, however linguists believe that additionally providing a linguistic cue, designed to help metaphor interpretation, can increase their effectiveness. In addition, metaphors of medium complexity are believed to drive higher effectiveness than simpler or more complex metaphors. This research aims to investigate how these issues relate to synaesthetic metaphors, those that reference two sensory modalities. Participants were presented with print adverts, the visual and linguistic elements of which were adapted to contain literal messages or synaesthetic metaphors. Participants provided ratings of appreciation, purchase intentions, and perceived advert complexity. Synaesthetic metaphors were shown to produce significantly stronger persuasive effects, measured via appreciation and purchase intentions, when conveyed visually and when rated highly on complexity. Implications for advertisers, who wish to incorporate and optimise the use of synaesthetic metaphors in print advertising, are discussed.
Participants This research recruited 122 participants via opportunistic sampling. Participants were native speakers of English aged 18 or over, with no history of disabilities in any of the sensory domains (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch). Twelve participants were excluded due to incomplete survey responses and/or ineligibility according to the inclusion criteria, resulting in a sample of 110 participants (88 female, 20 male, 2 other; age: M = 38.11, SD = 18.60) who were randomly assigned to complete one of four surveys (see Design). The demographics per survey are detailed in Table 1. Table 1 The Sample Size and Demographics Per Survey N Gender Age Male Female Other Mean SD Survey 1 28 4 24 - 43.68 18.94 Survey 2 29 7 21 1 32.90 17.77 Survey 3 28 5 22 1 35.07 17.09 Survey 4 25 4 21 - 41.32 19.48 Materials Advert Stimuli The advert stimuli used in this research were gathered and modified by previous researchers at Francesca Citron’s laboratory (Chen, 2019; Pan, 2019). The researchers obtained real adverts containing synaesthetic metaphors from the dataset of Bolognesi and Strik Lievers (2018). These base adverts were labelled 1-8 (see Appendix A). The researchers produced three modified versions of each base advert. They edited the visual and linguistic elements, of product images and slogans respectively, to contain, or not contain, a synaesthetic metaphor, in accordance with the ‘Metaphor Category’ they represented. One version of each base advert conveyed a synaesthetic metaphor in both the visual and linguistic advert elements (Visual-Linguistic SM; labelled “VL”). One version contained a synaesthetic metaphor in the visual, but not linguistic, advert elements (Visual SM Only; labelled “V). One version contained a synaesthetic metaphor in the linguistic, but not visual, advert elements (Linguistic SM Only; labelled “L”). The final version served as a control as a synaesthetic metaphor did not appear in the visual or linguistic advert elements (No SM; labelled “N”). These metaphor categories are illustrated by the example of Advert 2 (see Figure 1). In 2VL, the image displays a lemon wearing a studded mask whilst the slogan writes “A PLEASINGLY SHARP TASTE”. This synaesthetic metaphor, conveyed by the image and slogan, attributes the lemonade as having a sharp taste, which references the sensory modalities of touch (via “sharp” in the slogan, and the studded mask in the image) and taste (via “taste” in the slogan, and the lemon in the image). In 2V, the synaesthetic metaphor containing the image of 2VL is retained, however the slogan, “A PLEASINGLY SOUR TASTE”, no longer contains a synaesthetic metaphor since it a) is literal and b) only references one sense (via “sour taste”). In contrast, 2L retains the synaesthetic metaphor-containing slogan of 2VL (“A PLEASINGLY SHARP TASTE”) but contains a literal product image. The synaesthetic metaphor here therefore only appears in the linguistic advert elements. In 2N, the image of 2L and the slogan of 2V appear, meaning that a synaesthetic metaphor is not conveyed in either the visual or linguistic elements. This process, of creating four versions per base advert, resulted in 32 advert stimuli. Within this, eight adverts, one per base advert, represented each metaphor category. The advert stimuli were labelled according to their base advert number (1-8) and their metaphor category (VL; V; L; N). For example, 1VL presents the version of base advert 1 belonging to the visual-linguistic SM category. The full stimuli set can be viewed in Appendix A. The synaesthetic metaphors constructed in the stimuli, and the sensory domains referenced (see Table 2), are briefly explained in Appendix B. All adverts were written in English and printed in full colour. Online Survey This research used a modified version of a Qualtrics (Provo, UT) survey produced by Chen (2019) and Pan (2019). The original survey featured 11 bipolar Likert scales per advert stimuli, all intended to contain 5-points but with some mistakenly containing 7-points. This was corrected in the present research, with all scales measured 0-5. The first four scales, measuring “Appreciation”, asked participants whether they liked the advert (Agree – Disagree) and whether they perceived it as “Bad”–“Good”; “Unpleasant”-“Pleasant”; and “Unappealing”-“Appealing”. The two following questions measured “Perceived Complexity” and concerned participants’ perception of the advert as “Unclear”–“Straightforward” and as “Difficult to Understand”– “Easy to Understand”. The next three questions measured “Purchase Intentions”. In the original survey, these focused on the purchase intentions of the respondent. This was modified in this research, following Pan (2019) and Chen’s (2019) finding that purchase intentions were merged with appreciation in PCA, and the belief that personal factors influence purchase intentions (Habich-Sobiegalla et al., 2019). The current survey instead asked respondents whether others would like to purchase the product, soon and in the future, and whether the advert would make others more likely to purchase the product (“Disagree”-“Agree”). On the final two questions, measuring “Perceived Realism”, participants rated the advert as “Unrealistic”–“Realistic” and “Fictitious”– “Real”. This question set was presented per advert stimulus, resulting in a total of 88 questions per survey. Figure 1 The Four Versions of Advert 2 Table 2 The Sensory Domains Referenced by Each Advert, When Sensory Metaphors Were and Were Not Present Sensory Domains Referenced SM Present No SM Present Source Target Advert 1 Auditory Taste Taste Advert 2 Tactile Taste Taste Advert 3 Tactile Taste Taste Advert 4 Visual Auditory Auditory Advert 5 Visual Auditory Auditory Advert 6 Visual Smell Smell Advert 7 Auditory Taste Taste Advert 8 Tactile Taste Taste Design In an independent groups design, participants were randomly assigned to complete one of four online surveys. The independent variable was the metaphor category of each advert. Each survey presented eight adverts, one belonging to each of the eight base adverts and two belonging to each of the four metaphor categories. For example, Survey 1 presented two Visual-SM only adverts (Adverts 1 and 5), two Linguistic-SM Only adverts (Adverts 2 and 6), two Visual-Linguistic SM adverts (Adverts 3 and 7), and two No-SM adverts (Adverts 4 and 8), with one version of each base advert appearing only once. Table 3 lists the advert stimuli presented per survey. The four dependent variables, of ‘Appreciation’, ‘Purchase Intentions’, ‘Perceived Realism’ and ‘Perceived Complexity’, are further detailed in Materials and Variable Construction. Table 3 The Adverts Displayed per Survey, In Order of Appearance Survey 1 Survey 2 Survey 3 Survey 4 1V 3N 5VL 7L 2L 4V 6N 8VL 3VL 5L 7V 1N 4N 6VL 8L 2V 5V 7N 1VL 3L 6L 8V 2N 4VL 7VL 1L 3V 5N 8N 2VL 4L 6V Procedure The entirety of this study was completed on Qualtrics (Provo, UT). Participants were informed of the researchers' background and requirements, and briefed of their anonymity, confidentiality and right to withdraw (Appendix C), before providing informed consent (Appendix D). Participants declared their age and gender and confirmed that English was their native language and that they did not suffer from any sensory inabilities. Participants viewed each of the eight adverts in turn and answered 11 five-point Bipolar Likert scales per advert (see Materials, Survey). Finally, participants were debriefed, reminded of their terms of participation, and provided with further reading (Appendix E). The study took 10 minutes to complete.
Follow up on previous research in Francesca Citron's lab
Perception of sounds sequences: predictions for behavioural measurements generated with a computational model of auditory cortex
Cartesian state space difference calculations
Behavioural and neuroscientific research into sound perception shows that our auditory system is able to represent the temporal structure of sounds over a wide range of time windows – a process labelled as temporal binding. Recent computational modelling work suggests that synaptic depression in auditory cortex, responsible for adaptation of neural responses to repeated stimuli, is also the memory mechanism which allows for temporal structure of sounds to be represented. This project aimed to generate behavioural predictions of this explanation of temporal binding. Simulations examined how the cortex is able to discriminate between sound sequences differing from each other in terms of the timing, amplitude, and frequency of the sequence elements. Along with the temporal length of the sequences, the lifetime of neural adaptation was manipulated. The results predict that the thresholds for discriminating sound sequences should be tuned to a given sequence duration. These findings are discussed in light of the previous research on how the dynamics and anatomical structures within the auditory cortex may facilitate neural adaptation.
The current project investigated the processing of sound sequences by applying a computational model of the auditory cortex described in more detail in the study by May and Tiitinen (2013). The coding of the experiment, including stimulus design and experimental design, along with data analysis all took place in MATLAB. Model structure and dynamics Structure. The model is made up of 14 brain areas, with 13 cortical areas that include three core, eight belt and two parabelt areas of the auditory cortex, and one sub-cortical area simulating the thalamus. Each area is made up of 16 computational units representing cortical columns, with each column comprising one excitatory (pyramidal) and one inhibitory population of neurons. Altogether, this meant that there are 224 columns within the model. There are three levels of structural connections, namely interaction within columns, interaction between columns and interactions between the different cortical areas. Structural connections are expressed through connection matrices that describe synaptic connections between the excitatory populations (Wee), from inhibitory to excitatory populations (Wei), and from excitatory to inhibitory populations (Wie). Intra-column connections are assumed to be the strongest, with the synaptic weight for the within-column excitatory feedback (i.e., the diagonal values of Wee ) being set to 6, and the within-column weight values of Wei and Wie (inter-neuron connections targeting excitatory and inhibitory cells respectively) being set to 3.5. The excitatory population of each column made lateral connections to the excitatory populations of neighboring columns within the area. These connections extended to a distance of two columns on either side. Similarly, the excitatory population connected to neighboring inhibitory populations across a distance of five columns, with these connections accounting for lateral inhibition (see Figure 1). In both cases, there was a Gaussian drop off of the weight strength. Also, there was a stochastic element to the weights, with a 10% random jitter added to them. These procedures represent modifications in relation to the original model of May & Tiitinen (2013) and are described in Hajizadeh, Matysiak, May, König (in preparation). Connections made by the inhibitory population were assumed to be local, and so targeted only the excitatory population in the same column (see Figure 1). Inter-area connections were modelled from anatomical research in primates (Kaas and Hackett, 2000) and were contained entirely in Wee. The tonotopically organized afferent input Iaff targeted the thalamus, where each column functioned as a frequency channel to spectrally organize the input. The thalamus was connected to the three core areas. These were interconnected with the eight belt areas, and the eight belt areas were subsequently interconnected with two parabelt areas. The model had a serial structure, with no direct connections between the core and the parabelt (see Figure 2). Core and belt connections only occurred between neighboring areas, resulting in multiple core-belt-parabelt streams that had roughly a rostral and caudal subdivision (De la Moethe, Blumell, Kajikawa & Hackett, 2006). Connections between the areas were topographic, with each inter-area sub-division of Wee being characterized by most connections occurring near the diagonal, with a Gaussian drop-off in weight strength (as explained in Hajizadeh et al., in preparation). Dynamics. The dynamical unit of the model was the cortical microcolumn, which was made up of a population of excitatory and inhibitory cells, characterized by a single state variable u and v, respectively, expressing the mean activity of the population. For each excitatory population, its mean firing rate g depended on the state variable u through a non-linear monotonically increasing function g(u) = tanh (2/3) (u - ) for u > , g(u) = 0 otherwise, where  = 0.1 was a threshold constant. The mean firing rate of the inhibitory population was similarly determined as g(v). Collecting the states of the excitatory and inhibitory cell populations into vectors u = [u1….uN] and v = [v1…vN], the dynamic equation of the neural interactions were where m = 30ms is the membrane time constant and Iaff describes the afferent input targeting the thalamus. Adaptation. The underlying mechanism for neural adaptation operating on the time scale of seconds is short-term synaptic depression (Wehr & Zador, 2005). To simulate this, all excitatory connections in cortex (i.e., the elements ij of Wee and Wie) were modulated by a time dependent depression term aij(t), where i and j are the index of the post- and presynaptic population, respectively. This term depended on the pre-synaptic spiking rate through the equation. Here, on = 100ms is the onset time constant and rec is the time constant for the adaptation recovery from depression and thus expresses the lifetime of adaptation. In the current experiments, rec was varied in the 800-2000ms range in seven steps of 200ms. This range reflects electrophysiological findings whereby the adaptation of the N1m response (the MEG equivalent of the N1) can be encapsulated in a time constant that varies across participants in the range of 1-4 seconds (Lu, Williamson & Kaufman, 1992). Stimuli and Procedures Stimuli sets comprised sequences of three consecutively presented tones (50ms duration, 5ms linear onset & offset ramps), with the sequence being characterized by its total duration, measured as the onset from first tone to onset of third tone. For each measurement, two sequences of the same duration were presented to the model. While the third tone in each sequence was always the same (amplitude = 1; input via thalamic frequency channel 7, middle of tonotopic map), the two sequences differed in terms of the first two tones, that is, in terms of the stimulation history of the final tone (see Figure 3). Simulations were carried out in three experiments where the difference across the sequences was either in the timing, amplitude, or frequency of the first tones. In each experiment, all other aspects of the sequences were kept constant. This eliminated any counter-effects, with distinctions between sequences depending solely on the manipulation made (independent variable). In each experiment, the total duration of the sequence was varied in the range of 500-4000ms in steps of 200ms, creating a total of 18 different sequence durations. As explained above, the lifetime of adaptation was also varied (from 800-2000ms) to simulate a population of participants. For a diagram of the Stimuli sets, see Figure 3. Experiment 1: variations in timing. This looked at the model’s ability to discriminate temporal patterns represented by two sequences of three identical tones (amplitude = 1; frequency channel 7). These sequences were identical, except for the presentation time of the middle tone. In the first sequence, the SOI of the middle tone was jittered away from regular presentation by an amount representing 5% of the total duration of the sequence away (see Figure 3). The second sequence was a reversed version of the first. Experiment 2: variations in amplitude. Here, the two sequences varied in terms of the amplitude of the first two tones. In the first sequence, the amplitude of the first and second tone was 1.05 and 0.95, respectively. In the second sequence, these values were reversed. The final third tone had a fixed amplitude of 1. The three tones were presented at regular intervals, and their frequency was 7 on the tonotopic map of the thalamus. Experiment 3: variations in frequency. Here, the frequency history preceding the third tone was varied. In the first sequence, the first tone had a frequency of 6 and the second tone had frequency 8. Reversed frequencies were used in the second sequence. The three tones were presented at regular SOIs. Analysis The third tone was kept constant both within the two-sequence stimuli sets and across the experiments to ensure that the variations in the response to this final tone reflected changes in the stimulation history only. Thus, the ability of the model to discriminate between the temporal structure of two sequences could be analyzed by examining the activity elicited by the third tone of each sequence. As such, the firing rates of the excitatory populations in the cortical areas were treated as coding the previous stimulation history. The response to the third tone was quantified by averaging the firing rate of each excitatory population in a 200-ms time window following the onset of the third tone (see Figure 3). This resulted in a 208-dimensional vector, that is, a point in 208-dimensional state space where each axis represents the activity of one cortical column. The difference in the responses to two sequences was then quantified as the Cartesian distance (using the norm.m function in MATLAB) between the two respective points in state space. This distance measure, denoted by Dstate, was taken to represent the ability of cortex to discriminate between tone sequences. For each experiment, the analysis determined how Dstate changed as a function of the total duration of the sequence. Also, this dependence of Dstate on duration was examined in the case of different adaptation lifetimes
Persuasion within Advertising: Metaphorical Expressions vs. Literal Expressions
Metaphor literal persuasion advertising marketing figurative language emotion
The present research built upon research conducted by Citron and Goldberg (2014) on figurative language, emotion, and the brain. This study examined the three different data sets: sentences, stories and sentences with taste metaphors collected by Citron and Goldberg (2014). It examined three different data sets: sentences, stories and sentences with taste metaphors. Metaphorical and literal sentences, stories and taste metaphors were rated on emotional valence, imageability, emotional arousal, metaphoricity and similarity in meaning. Familiarity was rated within sentences and taste metaphors and understandability and naturalness were rated within stories. This study explored relationships among variables, relationships between metaphors and literal counterparts, relationships between each data set and lastly, relationships between each data set when split by type: metaphor and literal. Findings from this investigation provide evidence for marketers, of the benefits of using metaphors within advertising to increase persuasion and consumer buying behaviour. A company who wants to portray imagination, develop images within a consumer’s mind and evoke emotional arousal should use metaphorical sentences within their advertisements. Additionally, the more arousing a sentence the more imaginable, therefore, marketers should specifically employ emotionally arousing material to further engage a consumer. This study can add to literature on figurative language and persuasion. Also, provide evidence for marketers who want to increase their sales and further persuade consumers with an effective approach
All metaphorical sentences and stories were created in German with words that would obtain a metaphorical interpretation. Then each word was replaced with its literal counterpart, which created: one hundred and twenty non-taste related sentences, sixty metaphorical “The bride was very moved by her wedding” and sixty literal “The bride was very happy about her wedding”. Sixty-four stories, thirty-two metaphorical “Lisa was sitting in her physics class and was still digesting the stuff from the lesson before when her teacher announced a task to bite your teeth out on.” and thirty-two literal “Lisa was sitting in her physics class and was still having problems with the stuff from the lesson before when her teacher announced a really difficult task.” Finally, seventy-four taste metaphors, thirty-seven metaphorical “She received a sweet compliment” and thirty-seven literal “She received a nice compliment”. Specific instructions were created by Francesca Citron for each variable to be rated (See Appendix A). Sentences, stories and taste metaphors were rated on emotional valence, imageability, emotional arousal, metaphoricity and similarity in meaning. Emotional Valence refers to how positive or negative the stimulus is which was rated on a scale from -3 (very negative) to + 3 (very positive) through 0 (neutral). All other variables were measured on a scale of 1 to 7. Imageability is the ability to evoke a mental picture rated: 1 “not imaginable at all” and 7 “very imaginable”. Emotional arousal describes to what extent the stimulus is emotionally stimulating rated: 1 “not intense at all” and 7 “very intense”. Metaphoricity describes the figurativeness of the stimulus rated: 1 “literal” and 7 “very metaphorical”. Lastly, similarity in meaning which refers to how similar the meaning of both metaphorical and literal counterparts are with regard to contents. For instance, the metaphorical sentence “He praised her to the skies” compared to the literal sentence “He praised her fulsomely”. These have the same meaning, thus the meaning similarity between metaphorical and literal sentence is high. This was rated 1 “not similar at all” and 7 “very similar/equal in meaning”. Familiarity was rated within sentences and taste metaphors, which describes how familiar the stimulus is rated: 1 “not familiar at all” and 7 “very familiar”. Additionally, taste relatedness was measured for taste metaphors which refers to the extent a sentence is associated with degustation. It was rated as 1 “not taste-related at all” and 7 “very taste-related”. Lastly, understandability and naturalness were rated within stories. Understandability is about the easiness of grasping what the content means rated: 1 “very difficult to understand” and 7 “very easy to understand”. Naturalness is how normal and daily a story or its parts are rated: 1 “not natural at all” and 7 “very natural”. To evaluate complexity, several measurable parameters were created. For each parameter one “complexity point” was given, therefore, creating one overall complexity score. For all data sets all 9 characteristics were the same: subordinate clauses, relative clauses, passive forms, compound nouns, appearing persons, adverbs and adverbial phrases, conjunctive forms, analytically-formed tenses/infinitive constructions and marked/deviating structure of sentence. For sentences and taste metaphors alone the number of words was also a characteristic and within stories the number of metaphors. (See Appendix B). Procedure Participants were each provided with a consent form to sign if they agreed to partake in the study. Once completed, participants were provided with a URL via E-mail to access the questionnaire. General instructions were shown first, followed by the specific instructions for the first variable to be rated. The words were then presented, each one at the centre of the page immediately followed by the 7-point scale. When all words had been rated for one variable, instructions for the next variable rating appeared. The order of variables were random for each participant. This procedure was the same for all sentences, stories and taste metaphors. Data Analysis All the means and standard deviations were calculated and used for the analyses for all sentences, stories and taste metaphors. Independent sample t-tests were then used to look at the differences between metaphors and literal counterparts of each variable within the three data sets. When there was a specific hypothesis a one tailed t-test was implemented however, when there was no hypothesis a two tailed t-test was applied. Next, the variable emotional valenced squared was computed to represent the quadratic relationship between all other variables and then used within the following data analyses. Firstly, a multiple regression was then used to analyse any quadratic or linear relationships between emotional valence and other variables within each data set. In each regression, features of no interest were partialled out by entering them as predictors in the first step; then valence and valence squared entered in the second step. Additionally, partial correlations were conducted within each data set to look at linear relationships between pairs of variables within metaphors and literal counterparts by controlling for other variables. Lastly two types of analyses of variances were conducted, firstly, one-way between subjects ANOVAs to look at the difference between datasets: sentences, stories and taste and their impact on emotional arousal, imageability, emotional valence and metaphoricity. Then one-way between subjects ANOVAs to look at the differences between datasets when split by type, metaphors and literal counterparts and their impact upon variables.
The rating data had been gathered already by Francesca Citron during her research in Berlin and ethical approval had been obtained at that time. The present study has been approved by the Department’s Research Ethics committee at Lancaster University.
Pitch-Brightness Correspondence in Four-month-old Infants
Adults, children, and infants as young as 10-months have been shown to appreciate a correspondence between auditory pitch and visual brightness, with most participants associating high-pitch with brighter stimuli and low-pitch with darker stimuli. Research across ages is vital for understanding more about the developmental trajectory of crossmodal correspondences. The present study used preferential looking to examine the sensitivity of 4-month-old infants to the pitch-brightness correspondence. Following Mondloch and Maurer (2004), infants were presented with a display of two balls bouncing simultaneously. One ball had a dark surface-brightness, whilst the other had a brighter surface. A single, high or low-pitch sound accompanied the bounce of both balls onto the surface. The research examined whether infants looked differentially to the ball which adults would generally classify as matching. Infants did not look significantly longer to the ball with the congruent pitch-brightness matching. Infants did however look preferentially towards the black ball across trials. It is proposed that this could be the result of the brightness-weight correspondence, whereby darker objects are thought of as heavier than brighter objects. It is therefore possible that infants look longer towards the black ball as it is the heavier ball which should produce the sound, regardless of pitch.
Animations were displayed on a 49cm x 39cm screen, surrounded by black card and screens to block-out excess light and other distractions. Initially, infants were seated (legs stretched forwards) on their caregiver’s lap for the experiment. In this position infants tended to lean forwards, looking towards the floor, meaning that the amount of codeable looking-time was very limited; this procedure was therefore abandoned after four infants had been tested and these infants were excluded from the sample. To increase looking towards the display new approaches were taken. Nine infants were seated 80cm from the screen in a supportive, from-birth highchair. Fourteen infants were seated in an alternative position on the caregiver/researcher’s lap. Infants were now held in a relatively upright position to reduce the likelihood that infants would look towards the floor or their feet. How infants were seated was decided by considering: infants’ head-support, familiarity with high-chair, and infant reactions. It was not thought that being in the high-chair or on the lap would significantly affect looking behaviour. All animations involved variants of balls bouncing on a horizontal surface. All balls had a diameter of 4cm and were identical to one another aside from their surface brightness. The brightness of balls was measured in candela per square meter (cd/m²) using a lux-meter. A higher cd/m² reading equates to a higher degree of luminosity/brightness. The balls appeared to bounce on a medium brightness (39.52cd/m²), green surface, which had a 49cm diameter. The background of displays was a diffused cloud image which was also medium brightness (57.06cd/m²). The image was blurred slightly to reduce contrast and make the background less visually interesting. It was important that the surface and background had a medium brightness and were not distracting, so as not to alter the effect of ball brightness. Previously, white dots on a black background have been used to portray depth; alternatively this experiment used the clouds and converging-line surface to depict 3-Dimensions. In the familiarization phase there was one ball of standard-brightness (53.86cd/m²) with a diameter of 4cm. This ball moved up and down along a 25cm vertical axis, stopping for 0.05s at the bottom and 0.1s at the top. The up-down motion of the ball gave the impression that it was bouncing on the surface. The bounce was accompanied by a sound of standard-pitch (782Hz) which lasted for 0.25s. The familiarization trial was presented to indicate to infants that a single ball produces a single noise when it hits a surface. This was important for the test trials as we did not want infants to perceive that the balls in unity were producing the sound. The standard-brightness and standard-pitch of this ball could also be used as reference-points for the brightness and pitch in test trials. The test animations consisted of three balls, each with a diameter of 4cm. The standard-brightness ball (53.86cd/m²) from the familiarization phase remained stationary at the centre of the surface as a reference point. Alongside the standard ball there were two test balls. Both balls differed only in terms of their surface-brightness. One of the balls had a duller, black surface-brightness (6.3cd/m²) and the other had a brighter, white surface-brightness (144.25cd/m²). Two, independent, vertical trajectories of 25cm formed the path of movement for each ball. Similar to the standard animation, the balls bounced on the surface in synchrony, to either side of the stationary ball (see Figure 1); stopping for 0.05s at the bottom and 0.1s at the top. As the balls hit the surface, a higher-pitch (2096Hz) or a lower-pitch (228Hz) sound was produced which lasted for 0.25s. Figure 1. These figures are screenshots of the animations seen by infants. The two shots display how the two balls moved in synchrony along vertical trajectories. The pitch of a sound can affect its perceived loudness. Controlling for sound loudness was crucial because of the correspondence between loudness and brightness (Marks, 1989). To ensure that loudness was not responsible for the effect, the perceived loudness of sounds were equalized. dBA (A-weighted decibels) is a measure of relative intensity perceived by the human ear, weighted for frequency (Plack, 2013). To ensure that perceived loudness did not vary, it was important that sound dBA was approximately the same. A sound-level meter (placed where the infant would sit) was used to measure the dBA of each sound. When sounds were created in Audacity, they were produced with equivalent amplitude. However when the sounds were played, the medium-pitch (782Hz) sound produced a higher 77.2dBA , compared to 72dBA and 71.3dBA for the high (2096Hz) and low-pitch (228Hz) sounds respectively. This meant that the medium-pitch sound would be perceived louder. To compensate for this, a 6dB gain was added to the high and low-pitch sounds. Therefore the relative loudness of the sounds had a much smaller range of values: 76dBA (high-pitch), 76.6dBA (low-pitch), and 77.2dBA (medium-pitch). Although the dB of two sounds needed to be increased, the frequencies of all sounds are within the normal hearing range of 20Hz to 20kHz (Plack, 2013). To confirm that these tones sounded psychologically equivalent, four adults listened to the sounds and were asked ‘Does any tone sound louder than any other tone?’ All participants reported that sounds had equivalent volumes. Design The dependent variables in this study were looking-time and number of fixations to the white and black balls. These variables were measured to examine whether infants look preferentially to congruent/incongruent pitch-brightness displays to determine whether they appreciate the pitch-brightness correspondence. To examine this, a 4 (trial) x 2 (pitch: low vs. high) x 2 (brightness: black vs. white) x 4 (condition) mixed ANOVA design was used with 3 within factors (trial, pitch, brightness) and 1 between factor (condition). There were four distinct trials that were all seen twice by each infant, producing eight test trials. In one trial the black ball was on the left of the screen and a high-pitch sound was heard. In another high-pitch trial, the black ball was on the right. In one trial the black ball was on the left and a low-pitch sound was heard. In another low-pitch trial, the black ball was on the right. It was important that infants saw an equal number of trials with each ball on each side as this ensured that preference for looking towards one side did not affect the results. Each infant was randomly allocated to one of four conditions. All conditions contained the same displays, the conditions varied only in terms of order. Procedure The parent and infant were greeted by the experimenter, told the aims of the study and given the opportunity to ask any questions. Parents were instructed not to point towards the screen to avoid influencing looking. Informed consent was then obtained from all parents. Once the introduction was complete, the infant was seated and the study began. Firstly, infants were shown the standard animation which consisted of a single, standard-brightness ball bouncing with a standard-pitch tone. This display lasted for a maximum duration of 120s, however the trial ended once 20s of looking towards the screen had been accumulated. This time was pre-defined to ensure that all infants saw the initial display for the same duration. Once the accumulated looking-time was reached, an attention getter (auditory and visual rattle) was presented to re-direct the infants’ attention towards the screen. The test trials begun when the observer used a computer key-press to indicate that the infants attention had been retrieved. The two balls of the test trials were accompanied by a high or low-pitch sound upon bounce. Each display was presented for a maximum duration of 60s, however the trial ended if the infant looked away from the screen for 2s or longer. After each test trial, an attention getter was presented until the infant looked again. The next test trial was presented when the observer indicated that the infant regained attention. Eight test trials were presented meaning the test trials lasted a maximum of 8 minutes. Looking-times were coded live using the updated version of Habit2000 software (Cohen, Atkinson & Chaput, 2000). Each session was recorded on camera so that a proportion of infant data could be re-coded by a second observer. This allowed measurement of inter-rater reliability. Once the infant had completed the experiment, the parent was thanked for their time and given a book for their infant. They were also given a debrief and reminded of their right to withdraw their infant’s data.
Prospect theory and intermediate audience: the effects of context on behavioural intention
Prospect theory, gain/loss framing, intermediate audience, communication research, health communication, vaccination
Prospect theory predicts how people react to gain or loss-framed outcomes in dilemma situations, where the potential consequence of the choice is framed as a gain (e.g., lives saved) or as a loss (lives lost). This gain-loss framing communication strategy, derived from the theory, has been applied in many contexts, from promoting the use of reusable coffee mugs to vaccination compliance, with loss-framed appeals being found generally to be more persuasive than gain-framed appeals in the context of promoting vaccination. The current study focused on exploring whether these well-established effects persist when an intermediate audience is exposed to gain/loss-framed messaging, using influenza (flu) vaccination intentionality as an outcome. Intermediate audiences refer to those who are evaluating the gains and losses from the message on behalf of someone else (the ultimate audience), while normal audiences are those making decisions on their own behalf. Two hundred participants were recruited for an online, between-subject study, in which participants were split into two audience conditions and within which they were further split to view a gain-framed or a loss-framed message. Their subsequent behavioural intentions were measured as the outcome, with age as a potential moderating factor (and emotional attachment as a potential mediator exclusively for the intermediate audience condition). Results indicate that neither age nor emotional attachment are significant moderators or mediators. Loss-framed appeal enjoyed a persuasive advantage over the gain-framed appeal only in the intermediate audience condition. Possible interpretations of results, along with potential further directions of research, are discussed.
To test the outlined hypotheses, our current study took the form of an online Qualtrics questionnaire (see appendix B for questions) where the questionnaire would introduce participants to one of the audience conditions and view the appropriate version of the manipulated message before moving on to answering some items measuring their behavioural intention and emotional attachment. The study has a 2 (intermediate/normal audience condition) X 2 (gain/loss-framed appeal) design with emotional attachment as a potential mediating variable for the intermediate audience condition and behavioural intention as the outcome variable for all audience conditions. Participants We recruited 200 healthy adults based in the UK on Prolific, an online research participant recruitment platform. Participants have provided consent and completed the study remotely with their personal devices. Their unique Prolific ID was used in this study as the only identifier, which cannot be traced back to them personally. Participants were compensated monetarily for their participation. We randomly assigned our participants to one of the four audience conditions with 50 participants each: the normal gain-framed condition, the normal loss-framed condition, the intermediate gain-framed condition, and the intermediate loss-framed condition. Questionnaire design Consent The participant gave consent to participate in the study with the Qualtrics consent element so that participants can check a box for each item. There were seven items that the participants had to check one by one before commencing the study. Responses which failed to provide a full response in the consent item would be removed from the study. Demographics For demographics, we have recorded the participants' age and gender for the records. As mentioned, age was also analysed as a moderator as part of our analysis. We have also recorded their Prolific IDs to ensure completion and arrange payment. Settings of the study After giving demographic information, participants were introduced to a small piece of information that gave them the context of this study. In normal audience conditions, participants were told that someone had sent them an ad about the flu vaccination, which refers to the manipulated message they will soon view. While for the intermediate audience, on top of the information that is revealed to the normal audience, they were exclusively told that they were a manager in a small town's paper company, which gives them the role of an intermediate audience (manager) who must evaluate the later presented message on behalf of other parties (employees) with themselves irrelevant to the gains and losses. Material We have chosen flu vaccination as our topic malady for the manipulation messages as COVID vaccines, as used in recent studies, are perhaps less relevant in what is generally thought of as the post-COVID era. Flu vaccinations, unlike many other vaccines, remain relevant to the major population and most age groups. To allow a closer resemblance to real-world settings and increase the generalisability of the results, we have made unofficial Facebook posts that claim to be from the NHS as the message format. Participants were informed that the graphics were not an actual Facebook post from the NHS but rather a material used solely for this study. See Figure 2 for an example, and appendix A for the complete set of stimuli presented to the participants in the study. Audience condition. Figure 2 is the gain-framed version of the message from the normal audience condition. In normal audience conditions, the message communicates directly to the participants, stating the potential pros or cons for the participants when the participants decide to vaccinate or not vaccinate. In this condition, it is assumed that the participants evaluated the message on their behalf and nobody else's. While on the contrary, the intermediate audience condition communicates a slightly different message. The "you" in the message is replaced by "your employees". The purpose of this is to highlight that the participants evaluate this message as an intermediate audience (the manager), deciding whether they would recommend the vaccine to somebody else (the ‘ultimate audience’) given the outlined potential gains and losses, while the gains and losses remain irrelevant to the participants personally. Message framing. The figure is a gain-framed message, and as mentioned, it follows the logical flow of "if you vaccinate, good things will happen". As we can see in Figure 2, if the recipient vaccinates, then according to the text, he/she would have a reduced chance of infection and a reduction in the duration and severity of the symptoms. The lost-framed version of the message follows the logical flow of "if you do not vaccinate, bad things will happen." So, in contrast to figure 2, the lost framed messages would say if the recipient does not vaccinate, he/she would have an increased chance of infection and increase in duration and severity of the symptoms. The two messages communicate the same reality and are logically equivalent. Hence, any differences between the groups can be attributed to the message framing. Check questions. After viewing the message, the participants were asked two questions regarding the ads content before moving on to later questions. The check questions were designed to be simple reading comprehension questions that check whether the participants attended to the message in the reading process. We have removed all responses failing to provide a correct answer in either one of the questions. Behavioural intention After viewing the framed messages, we have several Likert scale 7-point agree-disagree items used to measure the behavioural intention of the participants. However, given the audience condition differences and hence the potential differences in the decision-making process, behavioural intention for the two types of audience is defined differently. For the intermediate audience condition, behavioural intention is defined as "the intention to recommend/promote behaviour to the ultimate audience (employees)". While for the normal audience conditions, we measure their intention to get the vaccination for themselves. Both audience conditions responded to six items probing their behavioural intentions. In the normal audience condition, participants were asked how likely they would be to get the flu jab, how urgent they thought it is, and whether they would likely plan to get a flu jab after viewing the message. There are also items with reversed wordings asking whether they think getting a flu jab is NOT urgent. The intermediate audience was asked how likely they are to recommend the flu vaccine to their employees and how urgent and necessary they believe the vaccine is to their employees. (See the appendix for the complete set of questions.) Emotional attachment As mentioned, there are speculations revolving around the involvement of relational dynamics and relevant emotions in the intermediate audience. Therefore, we have arranged a set of questions probing the participant's emotional attachment towards the employee exclusively for the intermediate audience condition. There were four questions in total in this part of the study, which focused solely on the participants' sense of protection towards the employee, asking to what extent the participants thought that the vaccine was necessary for the employee's own good and well-being, and to what extent were the participants eager to protect them; an item with reversed wordings were also included. (See the appendix for the complete set of questions.) Method of analysis We analysed the data using the clm() and clmm() functions from the ordinal package in RStudio using R version 4.1.1. We first confirmed the main effects of message framing and audience conditions using clm(), and then we moved on to analyse the magnitude of random interacting effects of age, question type and individual differences. The reason for choosing cumulative link models (clm) was that the models were designed explicitly for ordinal variables like Likert scales, which predict the probability of each response level, unlike some metric models and prevent type 1 and type 2 errors resulting from forcing ordinal variables onto metric models (Liddell & Kruschke, 2018). As for emotional attachment, given each item was probing quite a different emotion (e.g., sense of responsibility/ sense of protection), we have decided to fit a multivariate ordinal variable using the mvord() function to see if there is a significant difference in the multiple emotional outcomes under different audience condition, after which we investigated if any emotional attachment item was a significant predictor of behavioural intention using another clm model. We have also fitted clm() models including the interaction term between age and conditions predicting behavioural intention to see if age moderates the relationship between message framing and behavioural intention as proposed. Lastly, we have fitted a cumulative link mixed model (clm) to consider the role of potential sources of random effects such as participant differences and question differences in the analyses.
Eleanor Little, Alicia Turner, Laurie Dixon
Data/Excel.csv Analysis/r_file.R Text/Word.doc
Recalling Memories of Childhood Bullying: Links Between Early Victimisation and Anxiety in Adulthood
Objectives: This study investigated the relationship between retrospective reports of bullying (primary school, secondary school and general experiences of bullying) with social anxiety (SAD), generalised anxiety (GAD) and grit (perseverance). Method: Demographic information was obtained from participants (n=147) as well as measures from primary school bullying, secondary school bullying and general bullying experiences utilising the Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire (RBQ; Schafer et al., 2004). The Social Phobia Inventory (Connor et al., 2000) measured social anxiety in participants, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer et al., 1990) assessed general anxiety and the Grit Test (Duckwoth et al., 2007) evaluated participant’s determination. Results: There was evidence that primary school bullying was associated with higher levels of GAD whilst higher levels of SAD were associated with general bullying experiences. There was no evidence to suggest that the individual difference measure of grit impacted upon anxiety for participants. The results support previous studies which have linked anxiety disorders in adulthood to earlier experiences of bullying
In the Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire (RBQ) (Schafer et al., 2004), there are a number of sections, three of which were used in this study. The first looks at bullying in primary school, the second at bullying in secondary school and the third section at general bullying behaviour. The general bullying behaviour section concentrated on the long-term effects of any bullying the participants had experiences of in primary or secondary school. This section asked such questions as “Do you ever have dreams or nightmares about the bullying events?” and “Do you ever feel distressed in situations which remind you of the bullying event(s)?” (appendix A). This questionnaire was subject to intensive pilot studies by Schafer et al. (2004) and insight was gained from the success of Rivers (2001) study which also utilised a retrospective measure. Reliability of the RBQ was assessed in the Schafer et al. study, which found a good level of test-retest reliability (Spearman correlation coefficients, primary school r=.88, secondary school r=.87). The Social Phobia Inventory is a 17-item self-report questionnaire (Connor et al., 2000) that screens for social anxiety disorder and assesses the acuteness of such a disorder. The measure has three subsections which evaluate key symptoms of SAD: fear of social situations, avoidance of social situations and physiological discomfort within social situation. Each item is rated on a scale from zero to four. Scores ranged from 0 to 68, and a cut off score of 19 or above distinguishes between healthy controls and SAD sufferers. The SPIN has previously demonstrated good internal consistency as well as suitable test-retest reliability. The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer, Miller, Metzger & Borkovec, 1990) is a 16-item questionnaire which has been considerably utilised in existing studies to measure generalised anxiety disorder in participants. This questionnaire has been shown to differentiate between different anxiety disorders, e.g. General anxiety sufferers score higher than phobics (Meyer et al., 1990). The scoring for questions 1, 3, 8, 10 and 11 were reverse scored for the analysis. Each answer is scored on a five point likert-type scale ranging from 1= not at all typical to 5= very typical. The scores could range from 16 to 80 where the average score in a “normal” student population was 49. The average score in a GAD population was 68 for men and women (Hawkins, 2008). The Grit Test (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, D.R. (2007) is 12-item questionnaire which considers how ‘gritty’ a person you are. It looks at how you face challenges as a person and what your reaction to them is. The scores are added up and divided by 12. The maximum score on this scale is 5 (extremely gritty), and the lowest scale on this scale is 1 (not at all gritty). This measure was included as a personality measure to explore if there are any links between what type of person you are, and whether this affects if you are bullied or not. Procedure Following the briefing sheet, participants received a consent form to inform them of the nature of the study, their participation requirements, and their right to withdraw should they so wish. Once consent was gained, participants were asked to provide some demographic information on the following: gender, age, educational achievement, relationship status, ethnicity and employment status. For the purposes of analysis, females were coded as 1, whilst males were coded as 2. Questionnaires made up the materials for this research project. Once participants had completed these they were informed of the end of the study and given more insight into the nature of the study. Participants were also given helplines and details of advisory websites, where they could go if they felt they had been affected by the nature of the research. The information for two journal articles whose research has facets of the current research were given, so that participants could gather more information if they so wished
Running Memory Span Development: The Input Mechanism and Hebb effect
running memory span development input mechanism Hebb effect
It is unclear whether active strategy or passive strategy is used and whether the Hebb effect is elicited in the running memory task. The aim of this study was to explore the input mechanism and the Hebb effect in the running memory task via a developmental study. Children were asked to perform four working memory tasks: counting span task, free recall task, Hebb digit task, and running memory task. In order to explore the Hebb effect in the running memory task, the last three digits of every third list were repeated. The results suggested that running memory was a recency-based phenomenon and the Hebb effect is elicited in children.
The experiment was presented using SuperLab 4.0 on a Sony Laptop with a 14-inch colour screen. The responses of participants were recorded by the tester on answer sheets. Every child completed a counting span task, a free recall task, a Hebb digit task, and a running memory task. Counting span task. The counting span arrays were developed from Towse and Hitch (1995) and consisted of equal number of target triangles and non-target squares. The target triangles were red, approximately 30 mm in length, and the non-target squares were blue, approximately 28 mm in length. The number of both target triangles and non-target squares varied from 3 to 9 (mean = 6). The counting span arrays were presented on the centre of the computer screen with a white background. The triangles and squares were randomly displayed at different positions in every display. Free recall task. For this task, 144 Chinese high-frequent two-syllable nouns (see Appendix A) were recorded by in a male’s voice at rate of 1 word per second. The words were recorded using Adobe Audition 3.0. Two practice lists and ten test lists were presented, and every list included 12 words at the rate of 1 word per second. The words were played by a computer. Hebb digit task. All digit lists were created had the digits 1 to 9 in random order, avoiding any repetition of digits (see Appendix B). The voice of digits was recorded by Adobe Audition 3.0 at the rate of 1 digit per second. There were 2 practice lists and 24 test lists, and each list contained nine digits. Among the test lists, 16 lists were different, and the other 8 were the same – termed as Hebb list – presented on every third trial beginning on Trial 3. The 24 test lists were divided into 8 blocks, which involved 2 different lists and a Hebb list. Running memory task. The lists included 12, 14, 16, 18, or 20 random digits from 1 to 9 (see Appendix C), which were recorded by voice. Two presentation rates were used in this task: 0.5 s per digit as the fast rate and 2.5 s per digit as the slow rate. In both conditions, there were 2 practice lists and 24 test lists. In order to test the Hebb effect in running memory task, the 24 test trials comprised 16 completely different lists, and 8 lists with the same last 3 digits which were the same and presented on every third trial. Procedure The experiment lasted 45 min, and every child completed 4 tasks. Each participant was seated on a chair in front of the computer screen, at a distance of 65 cm. All tasks included two practice trials for helping children be familiar with the procedure. Once children completed the practice trials and understood the procedure, they could proceed to the test trials. When children were performing the tasks, the experimenter gave no feedback about the accuracy of the words or digits. The order effect was counterbalanced as shown in the Table 1, which is a Latin Square design. Because there were two conditions in the running memory task, the fast speed and slow speed running, the tasks were counterbalanced. Therefore, in all, there were eight orders in the present study, and all children were equally divided into eight groups based on the eight orders. When participants completed each task, they were given sufficient time to rest. Table 1 Task Orders for Four Tasks Task Orders a b c d e f g h Counting span task 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 Free recall task 2 1 4 3 2 1 4 3 Hebb digit task 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 Running memory task 4(FS) 3(FS) 2(FS) 1(FS) 4(SF) 3(SF) 2(SF) 1(SF) Note. F = Fast-running memory task, S = Slow-running memory task. Counting span task. The children were informed to the counting and recall tasks. Before every trial, a fixation symbol was displayed on the centre of screen for 0.5 s. When the target triangles and non-target squares were presented, participants were required to count the red triangles aloud, and repeat the final number. Once the children repeated the last number, the experimenter pressed the keyboard to show the next display, and the counting speeds were recorded by the computer automatically. There were three trials in every level and every trial included the n + 1 displays in level n. For example, participants counted 2 displays in level 1 and 3 displays in level 2. The final level was level 4, which contained 5 displays. After 2 to 5 displays, children were asked to report all the final numbers of red target triangles in the previous displays. If a child failed to recall correctly for at least two of the three trials, the counting span task was ended at that level; otherwise, they could progress to the next level. Free recall task. Children were required to listen to some words, and repeat them as many as possible in any order, after the 12th word. The experimenter wrote down the responses of participants on answer sheets. If the children could not report a new word within 30 s, the experimenter would proceed to the next trial. Hebb digit task. The procedure for the Hebb digit task was developed by Hebb (1961). Children were asked to listen to every list, and report all digits in the right order. Children reported the digits orally, and the experimenter recorded the response on an answer sheet. Because the running memory task also involved Hebb lists, 48 children were asked whether they were aware of any regular pattern in the digit tasks after they completed both Hebb digit task and running memory task. Only 5 participants noticed the repetition in the running memory and Hebb digit tasks. Running memory task. Children were made to listen to some digits, different from those in the Hebb digit task; they were required to repeat the last three digits rather than all digits in the list. Two conditions were set to counterbalance the order effect: half of the children were administered the fast rate condition first and the other half were administered the slow rate condition first. Scoring Counting span task. Counting errors and counting speed were recorded and the scoring method used is the partial-credit unit scoring prescribed by Conway et al. (2005). Firstly, the correct items in each sequence were counted. If all items were correct in a sequence, this sequence was given one point. Otherwise, the score of a sequence was based on the proportion of correct items. Finally, the counting span of a participant was calculated as the sum the scores for all sequences. Free recall task. The scoring method used was the one prescribed by Tulving and Colotla (1970), which involved the calculation of intratrial retention interval (ITRI). The ITRI value was the number of items between the presentation and the reported items. For instance, if the sequence is A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, and a participant reported G, F, and A. The ITRISs for the items were 0, 2, and 8, respectively. Before calculating the ITRI, the digit span of the Hebb non-repeating lists was calculated for every child. If the digit span of a child was 5, the item would be classified as a word from primary memory when the ITRI was 5 or less, whereas the item would be classified as a word from the secondary memory when the ITRI was 6 or more. Hebb digit task. Every digit recalled correctly at the correct position was scored one point. The score of the non-repeating lists was the mean score of each non-repeating list, and the score of the repeating lists was the mean score of each repeating list. Running memory task. The score for the running memory span was calculated using the mean number of digits in the right positions. If 3 digits were recalled in correct sequence, the score was 3; if the sequence of 2 digits (for example the first and second digit, the second and the third digit, or the first and third digit) was in the correct serial order the score was 2; if there was a single digit in the correct position, the score was 1. Similar to the Hebb digit task, the scores for non-repeating and repeating lists were separated.
Participants Fifty-seven Chinese primary school students (23 female, 34 male), aged between 7 and 13 years (Mean = 9 years 6 months; SD = 1.754) took part in the present study. The children were recruited from Grade one to Grade six at Tianyi School in Xuancheng City. Chinese was the first language of all children. All the children completed a 45-minute testing session, which involved four memory tasks. At the end of the test, children received a notebook as a small gift of appreciation for taking part in the present study. Materials The experiment was presented using SuperLab 4.0 on a Sony Laptop with a 14-inch colour screen. The responses of participants were recorded by the tester on answer sheets. Every child completed a counting span task, a free recall task, a Hebb digit task, and a running memory task. Counting span task. The counting span arrays were developed from Towse and Hitch (1995) and consisted of equal number of target triangles and non-target squares. The target triangles were red, approximately 30 mm in length, and the non-target squares were blue, approximately 28 mm in length. The number of both target triangles and non-target squares varied from 3 to 9 (mean = 6). The counting span arrays were presented on the centre of the computer screen with a white background. The triangles and squares were randomly displayed at different positions in every display. Free recall task. For this task, 144 Chinese high-frequent two-syllable nouns (see Appendix A) were recorded by in a male’s voice at rate of 1 word per second. The words were recorded using Adobe Audition 3.0. Two practice lists and ten test lists were presented, and every list included 12 words at the rate of 1 word per second. The words were played by a computer. Hebb digit task. All digit lists were created had the digits 1 to 9 in random order, avoiding any repetition of digits (see Appendix B). The voice of digits was recorded by Adobe Audition 3.0 at the rate of 1 digit per second. There were 2 practice lists and 24 test lists, and each list contained nine digits. Among the test lists, 16 lists were different, and the other 8 were the same – termed as Hebb list – presented on every third trial beginning on Trial 3. The 24 test lists were divided into 8 blocks, which involved 2 different lists and a Hebb list. Running memory task. The lists included 12, 14, 16, 18, or 20 random digits from 1 to 9 (see Appendix C), which were recorded by voice. Two presentation rates were used in this task: 0.5 s per digit as the fast rate and 2.5 s per digit as the slow rate. In both conditions, there were 2 practice lists and 24 test lists. In order to test the Hebb effect in running memory task, the 24 test trials comprised 16 completely different lists, and 8 lists with the same last 3 digits which were the same and presented on every third trial. Procedure The experiment lasted 45 min, and every child completed 4 tasks. Each participant was seated on a chair in front of the computer screen, at a distance of 65 cm. All tasks included two practice trials for helping children be familiar with the procedure. Once children completed the practice trials and understood the procedure, they could proceed to the test trials. When children were performing the tasks, the experimenter gave no feedback about the accuracy of the words or digits. The order effect was counterbalanced as shown in the Table 1, which is a Latin Square design. Because there were two conditions in the running memory task, the fast speed and slow speed running, the tasks were counterbalanced. Therefore, in all, there were eight orders in the present study, and all children were equally divided into eight groups based on the eight orders. When participants completed each task, they were given sufficient time to rest. Counting span task. The children were informed to the counting and recall tasks. Before every trial, a fixation symbol was displayed on the centre of screen for 0.5 s. When the target triangles and non-target squares were presented, participants were required to count the red triangles aloud, and repeat the final number. Once the children repeated the last number, the experimenter pressed the keyboard to show the next display, and the counting speeds were recorded by the computer automatically. There were three trials in every level and every trial included the n + 1 displays in level n. For example, participants counted 2 displays in level 1 and 3 displays in level 2. The final level was level 4, which contained 5 displays. After 2 to 5 displays, children were asked to report all the final numbers of red target triangles in the previous displays. If a child failed to recall correctly for at least two of the three trials, the counting span task was ended at that level; otherwise, they could progress to the next level. Free recall task. Children were required to listen to some words, and repeat them as many as possible in any order, after the 12th word. The experimenter wrote down the responses of participants on answer sheets. If the children could not report a new word within 30 s, the experimenter would proceed to the next trial. Hebb digit task. The procedure for the Hebb digit task was developed by Hebb (1961). Children were asked to listen to every list, and report all digits in the right order. Children reported the digits orally, and the experimenter recorded the response on an answer sheet. Because the running memory task also involved Hebb lists, 48 children were asked whether they were aware of any regular pattern in the digit tasks after they completed both Hebb digit task and running memory task. Only 5 participants noticed the repetition in the running memory and Hebb digit tasks. Running memory task. Children were made to listen to some digits, different from those in the Hebb digit task; they were required to repeat the last three digits rather than all digits in the list. Two conditions were set to counterbalance the order effect: half of the children were administered the fast rate condition first and the other half were administered the slow rate condition first. Scoring Counting span task. Counting errors and counting speed were recorded and the scoring method used is the partial-credit unit scoring prescribed by Conway et al. (2005). Firstly, the correct items in each sequence were counted. If all items were correct in a sequence, this sequence was given one point. Otherwise, the score of a sequence was based on the proportion of correct items. Finally, the counting span of a participant was calculated as the sum the scores for all sequences. Free recall task. The scoring method used was the one prescribed by Tulving and Colotla (1970), which involved the calculation of intratrial retention interval (ITRI). The ITRI value was the number of items between the presentation and the reported items. For instance, if the sequence is A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, and a participant reported G, F, and A. The ITRISs for the items were 0, 2, and 8, respectively. Before calculating the ITRI, the digit span of the Hebb non-repeating lists was calculated for every child. If the digit span of a child was 5, the item would be classified as a word from primary memory when the ITRI was 5 or less, whereas the item would be classified as a word from the secondary memory when the ITRI was 6 or more. Hebb digit task. Every digit recalled correctly at the correct position was scored one point. The score of the non-repeating lists was the mean score of each non-repeating list, and the score of the repeating lists was the mean score of each repeating list. Running memory task. The score for the running memory span was calculated using the mean number of digits in the right positions. If 3 digits were recalled in correct sequence, the score was 3; if the sequence of 2 digits (for example the first and second digit, the second and the third digit, or the first and third digit) was in the correct serial order the score was 2; if there was a single digit in the correct position, the score was 1. Similar to the Hebb digit task, the scores for non-repeating and repeating lists were separated.