The story against smoking:An exploratory study into the processing and perceived effectiveness of narrative visual smoking warnings

Objectives: This study compared the effects of two types of health warnings on cigarette packages: 'narrative visual warnings', showing an image portraying people plus a corresponding slogan that could evoke a story-like interpretation, and 'non-narrative visual warnings' with non-narrative content (i.e. body parts). Moreover, the mechanisms underlying the effects of these health warnings were explored. Design: A within-participants experiment was conducted comparing narrative and non-narrative visual warnings. Path analyses were performed to investigate the relationship between the narrative concepts transportation and identification, the emotions evoked by the health warning and the perceived effectiveness of the message. Method: Participants (N = 200) were presented with one narrative warning and one non-narrative warning. After each warning, they answered questions on narrative perception, transportation, identification, emotions and perceived effectiveness. Results: The narrative warnings were seen as more story-like than the non-narrative warnings. There was a statistical trend for narrative warnings to be perceived as more effective than the non-narratives. The narrative warnings caused more transportation, fear, sadness, compassion and anger; the non-narrative warnings evoked more disgust and surprise. For the narrative warnings, both narrative concepts of transportation and identification were directly related to perceived effectiveness, and also indirectly via sadness. For the non-narrative warnings, transportation was related to perceived effectiveness, both directly and indirectly via disgust. Conclusion: Seeing a story in a still picture with a slogan helps to increase the effectiveness of the antismoking message. Both narrative and non-narrative visual warnings may persuade receivers directly, but also by the evoking of emotions, although the specific emotions responsible for the persuasive effects may differ

A Neurocomputational Model of the N400 and the P600 in Language Processing

Ten years ago, researchers using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to study language comprehension were puzzled by what looked like a Semantic Illusion: Semantically anomalous, but structurally well-formed sentences did not affect the N400 component—traditionally taken to reflect semantic integration—but instead produced a P600 effect, which is generally linked to syntactic processing. This finding led to a considerable amount of debate, and a number of complex processing models have been proposed as an explanation. What these models have in common is that they postulate two or more separate processing streams, in order to reconcile the Semantic Illusion and other semantically induced P600 effects with the traditional interpretations of the N400 and the P600. Recently, however, these multi-stream models have been called into question, and a simpler single-stream model has been proposed. According to this alternative model, the N400 component reflects the retrieval of word meaning from semantic memory, and the P600 component indexes the integration of this meaning into the unfolding utterance interpretation. In the present paper, we provide support for this “Retrieval–Integration (RI)” account by instantiating it as a neurocomputational model. This neurocomputational model is the first to successfully simulate the N400 and P600 amplitude in language comprehension, and simulations with this model provide a proof of concept of the single-stream RI account of semantically induced patterns of N400 and P600 modulations

‘Wat de boer niet kent’:Een onderzoek naar het effect van formulering (technisch versus niet-technisch) op de acceptatie van kweekvlees

Cultured meat looks, feels and tastes like conventional meat, but is much less destructive for humans, animals and the environment. However, consumer acceptance of cultured meat is still not very high, which may have to do with the perceived unnaturalness of the way it is produced. Previous research has suggested that part of this unease can be taken away if the textual description of the production process makes use of non-technical terms, instead of the rather technical terms that are often used in information brochures. The current study failed to replicate these earlier findings: there were no significant differences between the technical text, the non-technical text, and a control condition in which no description of the production process was included. Furthermore, from our results it appears that the feeling of ‘disgust’ that is evoked when participants read about cultured meat is central in the acceptance process, and not ‘perceived naturalness’ as has been hypothesized earlier. Thus, it seems to be important to focus on reducing the feeling of disgust in further communications about cultured meat, for instance by creating associations with pleasant and tasty sensations, and leave out descriptions of the production process altogether

Reflexive choice in Dutch and German

Standard Dutch and German have two reflexive forms: a weak form ('zich' in Dutch and 'sich' in German) and a strong form ('zichzelf' in Dutch and 'sich selbst' in German). The choice between the two reflexive forms in Dutch has been explained by the selectional restrictions of the verb, distinguishing between three verb classes: inherently reflexive verbs, accidentally reflexive verbs and transitive verbs. The same three verb classes can be distinguished in German, suggesting that the factors governing reflexive choice in Dutch and German are similar. However, several studies have pointed out that Dutch 'zich' is more restricted in its use than German 'sich'. We used a forced-choice task to test adult Dutch and German participants on their preference for the weak versus strong reflexive form with various verb classes and sentence types. Comparing similar sentences across the two languages, we observe an overall preference for the strong reflexive in Dutch but an overall preference for the weak reflexive in German. Looking at the participants’ reflexive choices within each language, we found effects of verb class, syntactic structure (transitive versus ECM constructions) and semantic features. Whereas the semantic feature habituality affected reflexive choice in neither language, intentionality did so in Dutch only, and tense and possibly focus affected reflexive choice in both languages. These observations seem problematic for the syntactically motivated dual-entry account of reflexive choice, but are consistent with the likelihood account

The story against smoking : an exploratory study into the processing and perceived effectiveness of narrative visual smoking warnings

CITATION: Ooms, J. A., Jansen, C. J. & Hoeks, J. C. 2020. The story against smoking: An exploratory study into the processing and perceived effectiveness of narrative visual smoking warnings. Health Education Journal, 79(2):166–179. doi:10.1177/0017896919867436.The original publication is available at https://journals.sagepub.com/home/hejObjectives: This study compared the effects of two types of health warnings on cigarette packages: ‘narrative visual warnings’, showing an image portraying people plus a corresponding slogan that could evoke a story-like interpretation, and ‘non-narrative visual warnings’ with non-narrative content (i.e. body parts). Moreover, the mechanisms underlying the effects of these health warnings were explored. Design: A within-participants experiment was conducted comparing narrative and non-narrative visual warnings. Path analyses were performed to investigate the relationship between the narrative concepts transportation and identification, the emotions evoked by the health warning and the perceived effectiveness of the message. Method: Participants (N = 200) were presented with one narrative warning and one non-narrative warning. After each warning, they answered questions on narrative perception, transportation, identification, emotions and perceived effectiveness. Results: The narrative warnings were seen as more story-like than the non-narrative warnings. There was a statistical trend for narrative warnings to be perceived as more effective than the non-narratives. The narrative warnings caused more transportation, fear, sadness, compassion and anger; the non-narrative warnings evoked more disgust and surprise. For the narrative warnings, both narrative concepts of transportation and identification were directly related to perceived effectiveness, and also indirectly via sadness. For the non-narrative warnings, transportation was related to perceived effectiveness, both directly and indirectly via disgust. Conclusion: Seeing a story in a still picture with a slogan helps to increase the effectiveness of the antismoking message. Both narrative and non-narrative visual warnings may persuade receivers directly, but also by the evoking of emotions, although the specific emotions responsible for the persuasive effects may differ.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0017896919867436Publishers versio

"Don't Make My Mistake":On the Processing of Narrative Fear Appeals

In this study, we examined the mechanism underlying the processing of narrative fear appeals. Participants (N = 564) read a story about a protagonist dealing with the consequences of cancer (Study 1: testicular cancer; Study 2: breast cancer; Study 3: skin cancer). Path analysis revealed that (1) attitude and behavioral intention toward performing self-exams were directly and positively associated with a form of transportation we identified as attention-focused transportation; (2) this form of transportation was positively associated with four emotions (fear, sadness, surprise, and compassion), whereas identification positively correlated with only one emotion (compassion); and (3) only the emotion of fear was a predictor of intention to perform self-exams. Taken together, these findings suggest that attention-focused transportation is a very important factor in the processing of narrative fear appeals, and that it can even, under some circumstances, replace the persuasive power of fear

Improving Health Literacy Responsiveness:A Randomized Study on the Uptake of Brochures on Doctor-Patient Communication in Primary Health Care Waiting Rooms

Presenting attractive and useful health education materials in waiting rooms can help improve an organization's health literacy responsiveness. However, it is unclear to what extent patients may be interested in health education materials, such as brochures. We conducted a three-week field study in waiting rooms of three primary care centers in Groningen. Three versions of a brochure on doctor-patient communication were randomly distributed, 2250 in total. One version contained six short photo stories, another version was non-narrative but contained comparable photos, and the third version was a traditional brochure. Each day we counted how many brochures were taken. We also asked patients (N = 471) to participate in a brief interview. Patients who consented (N = 390) were asked if they had noticed the brochure. If yes (N = 135), they were asked why they had or had not browsed the brochure, and why they had or had not taken it. Interview responses were categorized by two authors. Only 2.9% of the brochures were taken; no significant association with brochure version was found. Analysis of the interview data showed that the version with the photo narrative was noticed significantly more often than the non-narrative version or the traditional version. These results suggest that designing attractive and comprehensible health materials is not enough. Healthcare organizations should also create effective strategies to reach their target population

Sweet Temptations:How Does Reading a Fotonovela About Diabetes Affect Dutch Adults with Different Levels of Literacy?

Recent studies suggest that health-related fotonovelas-booklets that portray a dramatic story using photographs and captions-may be effective health communication tools, especially for readers with a low level of literacy. In this experiment, effects on knowledge and behavioral intentions were assessed of a fotonovela originally developed for a Latin-American audience. Dutch readers from a low literacy group (N = 89) and a high literacy group (N = 113) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a fotonovela condition (all captions translated into Dutch), a traditional brochure condition (also in Dutch), and a control condition. On knowledge about diabetes, participants in the fotonovela condition outperformed participants in both other conditions. This finding was consistent across literacy levels. On behavioral intentions, however, readers of the fotonovela did not score significantly higher than participants in the other conditions. We also evaluated hypotheses proposed in the Entertainment Overcoming Resistance Model (EORM; Moyer-Guse, 2008) on the possible mechanisms underlying persuasion through narratives. No support was found for the mechanisms proposed in the EORM. The outcomes of this study suggest that a fotonovela may be a valuable health education format for adults with varying levels of literacy, even if it was developed for a target group with a different cultural background.</p

When Correction Turns Positive:Processing Corrective Prosody in Dutch

Current research on spoken language does not provide a consistent picture as to whether prosody, the melody and rhythm of speech, conveys a specific meaning. Perception studies show that English listeners assign meaning to prosodic patterns, and, for instance, associate some accents with contrast, whereas Dutch listeners behave more controversially. In two ERP studies we tested how Dutch listeners process words carrying two types of accents, which either provided new information (new information accents) or corrected information (corrective accents), both in single sentences (experiment 1) and after corrective and new information questions (experiment 2). In both experiments corrective accents elicited a sustained positivity as compared to new information accents, which started earlier in context than in single sentences. The positivity was not modulated by the nature of the preceding question, suggesting that the underlying neural mechanism likely reflects the construction of an interpretation to the accented word, either by identifying an alternative in context or by inferring it when no context is present. Our experimental results provide strong evidence for inferential processes related to prosodic contours in Dutch