Examining the Central and Peripheral Processes of Written Word Production Through Meta-Analysis

Producing written words requires “central” cognitive processes (such as orthographic long-term and working memory) as well as more peripheral processes responsible for generating the motor actions needed for producing written words in a variety of formats (handwriting, typing, etc.). In recent years, various functional neuroimaging studies have examined the neural substrates underlying the central and peripheral processes of written word production. This study provides the first quantitative meta-analysis of these studies by applying activation likelihood estimation (ALE) methods (Turkeltaub et al., 2002). For alphabet languages, we identified 11 studies (with a total of 17 experimental contrasts) that had been designed to isolate central and/or peripheral processes of word spelling (total number of participants = 146). Three ALE meta-analyses were carried out. One involved the complete set of 17 contrasts; two others were applied to subsets of contrasts to distinguish the neural substrates of central from peripheral processes. These analyses identified a network of brain regions reliably associated with the central and peripheral processes of word spelling. Among the many significant results, is the finding that the regions with the greatest correspondence across studies were in the left inferior temporal/fusiform gyri and left inferior frontal gyrus. Furthermore, although the angular gyrus (AG) has traditionally been identified as a key site within the written word production network, none of the meta-analyses found it to be a consistent site of activation, identifying instead a region just superior/medial to the left AG in the left posterior intraparietal sulcus. These meta-analyses and the discussion of results provide a valuable foundation upon which future studies that examine the neural basis of written word production can build

A Flexible Inventory of Survey Items for Environmental Concepts Generated via Special Attention to Content Validity and Item Response Theory

We demonstrate how many important measures of belief about the environmental suffer from poor content validity and inadequate conceptual breadth (dimensionality). We used scholarship in environmental science and philosophy to propose a list of 13 environmental concepts that can be held as beliefs. After precisely articulating the concepts, we developed 85 trial survey items that emphasized content validity for each concept. The concepts’ breadth and the items’ content validity were aided by scrutiny from 17 knowledgeable critics. We administered the trial items to 449 residents of the United States and used item response theory to reduce the 85 trial items to smaller sets of items for use when survey brevity is required. The reduced sets offered good predictive ability for two environmental attitudes (R2 = 0.42 and 0.46) and indices of pro-environmental behavior (PEB, R2 = 0.23) and behavioral intention (R2 = 0.25). The predictive results were highly interpretable, owing to their robust content validity. For example, PEB was predicted by the degree to which one believes nature to be sacred, but not by the degree of one’s non-anthropocentrism. Concepts with the greatest overall predictive ability were Sacredness and Hope. Belief in non-anthropocentrism had little predictive ability for all four response variables—a claim that previously could not have been made given the widespread poverty of content validity for items representing non-anthropocentrism in existing instruments. The approach described here is especially amenable to incremental improvement, as other researchers propose more informative survey items and potentially important concepts of environmental beliefs we overlooked

Quantifying Whole Transcriptome Size, a Prerequisite for Understanding Transcriptome Evolution Across Species: An Example from a Plant Allopolyploid

Evolutionary biologists are increasingly comparing gene expression patterns across species. Due to the way in which expression assays are normalized, such studies provide no direct information about expression per gene copy (dosage responses) or per cell and can give a misleading picture of genes that are differentially expressed. We describe an assay for estimating relative expression per cell. When used in conjunction with transcript profiling data, it is possible to compare the sizes of whole transcriptomes, which in turn makes it possible to compare expression per cell for each gene in the transcript profiling data set. We applied this approach, using quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and high throughput RNA sequencing, to a recently formed allopolyploid and showed that its leaf transcriptome was approximately 1.4-fold larger than either progenitor transcriptome (70% of the sum of the progenitor transcriptomes). In contrast, the allopolyploid genome is 94.3% as large as the sum of its progenitor genomes and retains ≥93.5% of the sum of its progenitor gene complements. Thus, “transcriptome downsizing” is greater than genome downsizing. Using this transcriptome size estimate, we inferred dosage responses for several thousand genes and showed that the majority exhibit partial dosage compensation. Homoeologue silencing is nonrandomly distributed across dosage responses, with genes showing extreme responses in either direction significantly more likely to have a silent homoeologue. This experimental approach will add value to transcript profiling experiments involving interspecies and interploidy comparisons by converting expression per transcriptome to expression per genome, eliminating the need for assumptions about transcriptome size

Substitution and pooling in crowding

Unless we fixate directly on it, it is hard to see an object among other objects. This breakdown in object recognition, called crowding, severely limits peripheral vision. The effect is more severe when objects are more similar. When observers mistake the identity of a target among flanker objects, they often report a flanker. Many have taken these flanker reports as evidence of internal substitution of the target by a flanker. Here, we ask observers to identify a target letter presented in between one similar and one dissimilar flanker letter. Simple substitution takes in only one letter, which is often the target but, by unwitting mistake, is sometimes a flanker. The opposite of substitution is pooling, which takes in more than one letter. Having taken only one letter, the substitution process knows only its identity, not its similarity to the target. Thus, it must report similar and dissimilar flankers equally often. Contrary to this prediction, the similar flanker is reported much more often than the dissimilar flanker, showing that rampant flanker substitution cannot account for most flanker reports. Mixture modeling shows that simple substitution can account for, at most, about half the trials. Pooling and nonpooling (simple substitution) together include all possible models of crowding. When observers are asked to identify a crowded object, at least half of their reports are pooled, based on a combination of information from target and flankers, rather than being based on a single letter

Mitochondrial polymorphisms in rat genetic models of hypertension

Hypertension is a complex trait that has been studied extensively for genetic contributions of the nuclear genome. We examined mitochondrial genomes of the hypertensive strains: the Dahl Salt-Sensitive (S) rat, the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR), and the Albino Surgery (AS) rat, and the relatively normotensive strains: the Dahl Salt-Resistant (R) rat, the Milan Normotensive Strain (MNS), and the Lewis rat (LEW). These strains were used previously for linkage analysis for blood pressure (BP) in our laboratory. The results provide evidence to suggest that variations in the mitochondrial genome do not account for observed differences in blood pressure between the S and R rats. However, variants were detected among the mitochondrial genomes of the various hypertensive strains, S, SHR, and AS, and also among the normotensive strains R, MNS, and LEW. A total of 115, 114, 106, 106, and 16 variations in mtDNA were observed between the comparisons S versus LEW, S versus MNS, S versus SHR, S versus AS, and SHR versus AS, respectively. Among the 13 genes coding for proteins of the electron transport chain, 8 genes had nonsynonymous variations between S, LEW, MNS, SHR, and AS. The lack of any sequence variants between the mitochondrial genomes of S and R rats provides conclusive evidence that divergence in blood pressure between these two inbred strains is exclusively programmed through their nuclear genomes. The variations detected among the various hypertensive strains provides the basis to construct conplastic strains and further evaluate the effects of these variants on hypertension and associated phenotypes

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The impact of violence against women in advertisements.

ABSTRACT Understanding the impact of portrayals of violence and abuse by advertising media, especially when directed at women, requires our going beyond concerns about effectiveness of such marketing communications. Previous research finds an unequivocal and harmful increased acceptance of cross-gender aggression and rape within society as a result of sexualized violence. However, none of these investigations examines the impact of violence as an advertising appeal. Thus, our research looks at the influence of sexualized violence in ads on rape myth beliefs and traditional consumer behavior variables. The findings from our study suggest that sexualized violence appeals may impact important advertising variables and appeal to specific market segments, but nevertheless have little value for marketing success. Key Words: Advertising appeals; violence against women; media violence; self-regulation. (Bronstein 2008, p. 418) This passage comes from a recent chronicling of an advocacy group"s work to stop a large media conglomerate from continuing an advertising campaign in the 1970s that glorified violence against women. Their fear was that such portrayals reinforce the inappropriate belief that women experience sexual pleasure from physical abuse. This mythic connection denies most standard definitions that violence occurs against the will of the victim rather than with their tacit agreement (See Andersson et al. 2004). Social science literature captures this mentality as "rape myths;" false stereotypes that females enjoy being sexually abused despite their protests to the contrary The term rape myth was coined by Unfortunately, the depiction of women in stereotypical contexts continues to exist in advertisements for several product categories, leading to the inaccurate conclusion that females may appropriately be viewed as sexual objects for the pleasure of male consumption. Research shows, "By viewing women as exclusively sexual beings whose purpose is to sexually arouse and gratify men, a power differential is created in which women generally are subordinate. This power hierarchy may support development of perceptions of women as appropriate targets for sexually aggressive behaviors" (Lanis and Covell 1995, p. 647). Continuation and propagation of this mentality throughout the media, from music videos to video games, imply to advertisers and marketers that these displays are appealing to broad audiences and innocuous. Indeed, one of the more egregious examples is the "RapeLay" video game from Japan which allows players to choose various methods to assault a teenage girl on the subway, including graphic, interactive scenes of rape (Lah 2010). As a result, distinguished scholars and other social observers have monitored the rise of serious objections, starting with the modern women"s liberation movement to the present time Much of the research on this topic has examined the broader media, with an emphasis on the longer-term impact of such portrayals, with relatively consistent results. For example, using 4 a triangulation strategy, researchers found a positive link between media violence and aggressive behavior regardless of the research method used by investigators In addition, Consistent with previous research, sexualized violence is an overarching term used to describe any violence, physical or psychological, carried out through sexual means or by targeting sexuality. In a broader sense, sexualized violence is about abusing power and encompasses a range of offenses that involve non-consenting victims (Basile and Saltzman 2009). Our focus is sexual violence perpetrated by men and directed toward women. Therefore, the goal of this study is to demonstrate that the prevalence of media violence poses a societal dilemma, with a specific emphasis on how much, if any, is attributable to the potential negative consequences of sexualized violence in advertising. Of particular interest are the effects such advertising depictions have on rape myth beliefs and consumer attitudes. Culpability of Advertising Scholarship involving magazine advertising has found that sexually oriented appeals are widespread, visible, and increasing (Soley and Kurzbard 1986). According to LaTour and Henthorne (1994), it is commonplace for readers of all ages to pick up any general-interest consumer magazine and find an ad featuring provocatively posed and attired models for many products. Indeed, the use of overt sexual appeals in print advertising has increased considerably in contemporary advertising practice. Recent advertising research suggests, "sex in advertising 5 is worthy of consideration because of its pervasiveness" (Reichert, LaTour, and Kim 2007, p 1). Furthermore, these authors state, "In magazine advertising, the proportion of sexualized women rose from less than one-third in 1964 to one-half in 2003." Research clearly shows that the sexual content in mainstream advertising has become more pervasive throughout the 1980s and beyond based on the premise that sex sells; but only if it is more shocking and more graphic than preceding campaigns (Reichert et al. 1999). Consequently, advertisers may feel compelled to "push the envelope" and employ more shocking appeals to "break through the clutter" in the future. The prevalence of violence against women in advertising is significant, with many examples of such sexualized violence as advertising themes in mainstream media outlets (Lukas 2009). Various scholars have found that it is increasingly common for advertising to connect sexuality with aggression or violence against women (e.g., Social Learning Theory Our previous discussion implies that societal acceptance of violence against women is acquired over time through exposure to violent messages and contexts. One potential frame for understanding how it occurs is social learning theory (SLT), which demonstrates that human behavior is obtained through modeling by observing other people and consequences of their actions Bandura (1977) notes that within these parameters learning occurs deliberately and inadvertently through the influence of examples. Most external influences affect behavior via intermediary cognitive processes that determine, in part, which external events are attended to, how they are interpreted, and whether they leave any lasting effects. SLT also recognizes the impact of selfregulatory functions on the control of behavior based on internal self-evaluative consequences as well as perceptions regarding possible external or environmental consequences. In other words, 8 people are affected not only by external influences on behavior but also by the punishments and rewards they provide to themselves. Another influential source of social learning is the symbolic modeling provided by visual media. Research shows that both children and adults acquire attitudes, emotional responses, and new styles of conduct through mass media, which play an important role in shaping behavior and social attitudes (Bandura 1973; Our Investigation Our review of relevant social science and advertising literature within the framework of SLT allows for research propositions that guided the selection of appropriate methodology and analytic protocol. For example, while advertisers often assume violence and sex sell goods and services, our discussion suggests that the opposite may occur. Relevant work shows that violent or sexual themes may have an adverse effect on memory, with sexually explicit ads leading to a decrease in brand-related information recall from print advertising H1a: Consumers will hold less positive attitudes toward the advertisement as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. H1b: Consumers will hold less positive attitudes toward the advertiser as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. 10 H1c: Consumers will have lower purchase intentions for the advertised product as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. H2a: Females will hold less positive attitudes toward the advertisement than their male counterparts as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. H2b: Females will hold less positive attitudes toward the advertiser as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. H2c: Females will have lower purchase intentions for the advertised product than their male counterparts as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. H3a : Older consumers will hold less positive attitudes toward the advertisement than their younger counterparts as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. H3b : Older consumers will hold less positive attitudes toward the advertiser than their younger counterparts as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. H3c : Older consumers will have lower purchase intentions for the advertised product than their younger counterparts as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. SLT argues that people use stimuli around them to learn about their surroundings; specifically, mass media images "teach" about the world beyond the personal and create the possibility of contributing to an understanding of social interaction patterns. Furthermore, the review of SLT suggests a positive correlation between exposure to sexualized violence toward women in advertising and rape myth acceptance for males since such material shows successful outcomes of these actions 11 Considerable previous research also indicates males are more accepting of interpersonal violence, rape myths, and adversarial sexual relations than females (e.g., Malamuth and Check 1981). H4: Consumers will show greater acceptance of violence against women and rape myths as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. H5: Males will show a greater acceptance of violence against women than their female counterparts as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. H6: Younger consumers will show a greater acceptance of violence against women than their older counterparts as advertisements exhibit increased levels of sexualized violence. METHOD AND RESULTS As mentioned, this study extends the diverse body of research across disciplines on mass media into the narrower field of advertising. To this end, several advertisements were amassed from current and previous campaigns using sexualized violence toward women as an advertising appeal. A subset of three ads that varied significantly from one another in perceived violence was selected as stimuli for the full investigation after pretesting. Consumers were exposed to one of these promotions and subsequently asked to respond to questions from well-known measures of attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the advertiser (firm), and behavioral intentions. They also completed scales that measure perceptions of violence toward women, emphasizing rape-myth acceptance. The final set of questions involves some demographic data deemed relevant by previous research outside the advertising domain (e.g., Harris 1996). Our first step involved an extensive and systematic review of current and past print magazine advertisements for relevant portrayals of sexualized violence against women. The search process included online resources and archived ads collected by universities, advocacy 12 groups, and media using Internet search terms like "sexualized violence in advertisements." Multiple sites were examined in their entirety and a subset of ads was selected for additional consideration. The review was limited to actual advertisements for branded products and excluded public service announcements because the intended responses are (obviously) drastically different from ads for consumer goods and services. In a limited number of cases, violent acts by men against men or women against women were found but ultimately not included because they were deemed lacking in sexualized violence relevant to our study. Consideration was given to altering the facial expressions of the recipients of violent acts in order to manipulate viewers" perceived levels of ad violence. Since all of the victims portrayed showed expressions of serenity or pleasure, our belief was adding distress or disgust might represent a third dimension. Of course, use of this caricature is common among public service announcements. Nonetheless, after much deliberation the decision was reached to use advertisements as they existed in the marketplace in order to maintain external validity and to allow for managerial recommendations on current practice. As a consequence, stimuli used in our investigation are made up of examples of sexualized violence against women in magazine advertising that consumers may be exposed to depending upon media and shopping habits. To meet research needs, the ads containing sexualized violence against women by men were reviewed and tested for their perceived levels of violence. From the publically available advertisements, a subset of one-hundred was chosen for additional review. Three of the four authors individually examined them and selected exemplars for pretesting. They then came together and discussed the merits of each ad, with several receiving consensus as potentially appropriate for study. After pretesting, a 3 (ad: low, moderate, high violence) by 2 (gender: 13 male, female) by 3 (age: tercile split 1 ) factorial design was used to explore the impact of sexualized violence in print advertising. Study participants were exposed to full-color ads of existing goods and services while completing scales associated with dependent variables. A more complete description of pretest and main study procedures follows. Pilot Studies The pretest was employed to select ads for our primary investigation. The principal goal was to find advertisements that varied in perceived violence without much variation on other related affective/emotional dimensions; thus, it served as a manipulation check so that the main study would be as internally valid as possible. As noted, initial evaluation involved culling through one-hundred ads deemed sufficiently violent to warrant additional review. Specifically, ads that demonstrated sexualized violence against women and depicted both the victim and assailant were appropriate for our research purposes. Criteria for inclusion in the pilot study were that ads must show people (e.g., no cartoons or animation) and preference was given to ads identifying male perpetrators of the violent acts. After an exhaustive search from current and past magazine campaigns that portrayed violence against women, eight ads were selected for pilot study that seemed to vary in sexualized violence based on the authors" unanimous agreement. A within-subjects experimental design was used in the analysis. With existing literature as a guide 1 The means for the three age conditions are as follows: young = 32, middle = 49, and old = 62. 14 arousing, disturbing, engaging, entertaining, enjoyable, exciting, happy, violent, interesting, and involving. As depicted in [Place Most importantly, three different levels of violence manifested, leading to selection of least violent and most violent ads for the main study. To capture the middle ground, a third advertisement with moderate levels of violence also was chosen that respondents perceived as equally enjoyable as the least violent ad but significantly different in violence from both test advertisements (see the Appendix for visual representations). The overall univariate F-test (F = 100.4, p < .01) demonstrates that differences in perceived violence across the three ads are significant. Comparisons indicate that the "high violence" ad (M = 8.67) was seen as more violent than the "moderate violence" ad (M = 5.93; t = 67.34, p < .01), which was viewed as more violent than the "low violence" ad (M = 4.90; t = 9.56, p < .01). Given that real ads (versus mock ups) were used in the main study, there was some concern that these advertisements might differ across other dimensions besides perceived violence. To address this issue, a separate study was conducted to examine the extent to which the three test ads differed across potentially confounding variables. Forty-six nonstudent participants were exposed to one of the three ads used in the main study and asked to F = 0.77, p=.47). These findings support our use of these ads. Main Study Four hundred and eighty-four non-student U.S. adults drawn from a large marketing research firm participated in our study online. The sample was equally split between males and females and the average age of participants was 48 (sd = 13.5). Median household income of participants was between $40,000 and$50,000 and 75 percent had graduated from high school. Respondents were provided information about the purpose of the investigation as well as their right to decline participation. Upon agreement, they then were randomly assigned to one of the three advertising conditions and exposed to the test ad continuously as they answered questions on violence against women, attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the firm, as well as purchase intentions. Respondents next completed measures of demographic variables. These copy-testing methods are supported in the literature A common (Lee 2000) five-item scale measured attitude toward the ad, exhibiting robust levels of reliability (Alpha = .97). Items were: "I dislike the ad (r)," "The ad is appealing to me," "The ad is attractive to me," "The ad is interesting to me," and "I think the ad is bad (r)." Attitude toward the firm used: "Unpleasant/Pleasant," "Unfavorable/Favorable," "Bad/Good," "Negative/Positive," and "Not Reputable/Reputable," with reliability (Alpha = .87) consistent with previous research (e.g., Finally, purchase intentions included: "I am eager to check out the product because of this ad," "I intend to try this product," "I plan on buying this product," "It is likely that I will buy this product when it becomes available," and "I would consider purchasing this product" (Alpha = .96). All items utilized seven-point scales with anchors of "strongly disagree"/"strongly agree." 16 Also consistent with previous research, acceptance of interpersonal violence was used as a proxy for violence against women, with an emphasis on rape-myth agreement. For example, the Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence against Women Scale (AIV) measures the relative acceptability of using violence toward women as it pertains to satisfaction of male sexual desires [Place Major Findings To test our original research propositions, a MANCOVA with income and education levels as covariates was run. As shown in Findings demonstrate that the manipulation was successful and our dependent variables were impacted accordingly. In order to examine specific propositions, several individual univariate tests also were run and reviewed as described below. [Place Results show a number of interesting interactions. First, findings reveal that gender moderates the effects predicted in our hypotheses for attitude toward the ad (F = 2.83, p < .05). As portrayed in Also, results demonstrate that age moderates effects for attitude toward the ad (F = 3.16, p < .05), attitude toward the firm (F = 2.89, p < .05), and purchase intentions (F = 2.09, p < .05). Figure 2 displays the pattern of results, which reveals that younger consumers report higher overall levels of attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the firm, and purchase intentions versus middle and older age groups. Again, the moderate violence ad appealed to younger consumers. Planned comparisons show that younger respondents reported significantly higher attitude toward the ad for the moderate violence ad condition versus the low (t = 3.26, p < .05) and high violence ads (t = 3.54, p < .05). A similar pattern of results was found for attitude toward the firm such that the moderate violence ad condition resulted in higher values than the low (t = 18 2.13, p < .05) and high (t = 2.81, p < .05) violence ad conditions. These results suggest that, while young adults may be positively aroused by a moderate level of sexualized violence in ads, middle-aged and older adults seem to display little appreciation for such ad themes. Univariate tests indicate a significant main effect for violence on attitude toward the ad (H1a: F = 6.01, p < .01), but not on attitude toward the firm sponsoring the ad or on purchase intentions (H1b/c). Therefore, partial support is found for H1; specifically, only H1a is found to be significant. In addition, planned comparisons (modified Bonferroni procedure) were used to examine differences in each of the three ad conditions. Participants exposed to the moderate violence ad reported significantly higher attitude toward the ad (M = 2.83) than those exposed to either the high violence ad (M = 2.56; p < .01) or the low violence ad (M = 2.48; p < .01). Univariate tests also reveal a gender main effect on dependent variables of attitude toward the ad DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Summary of Findings As previously mentioned, the purpose of this research is to examine the influence o