Do multimedia enhancements affect how much individuals learn from online news websites? Do audio and video downloads generate positive impressions of the website in the minds of users? A five-condition, between-participants controlled experiment (N = 60) was designed to address these questions. Each study participant read three news stories from a news website created for the experiment; he or she was given either a text-only version of the news site; a version with text and pictures; one with text and audio; one with text, pictures, and audio; or one with text, pictures, and video. Following exposure, participants filled out a paper-and-pencil questionnaire assessing their memory and perceptions. Results suggest that pictures and audio are particularly powerful psychological cues. In general, multimedia tends to hinder memory for story content and leads to negative evaluations of the site and its content, but improves memory for advertisements. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are...

Multimedia Effects on Processing and Perception of Online News: A Study of Picture, Audio, and Video Downloads.

This article applies a limited-capacity information processing approach to the question of whether audio / video redundancy improves memory for television messages. Audio / video redundancy is defined as a continuum. Four different types of stimuli frequently used to operationalize redundancy are considered in terms of: (a) how much capacity they require to be fully processed; (b) how complex they are; and, (c) how much audio and video information they contain. Predictions based on these considerations are made about relative memory for each type of stimulus at three levels of processing (encoding, storage, and retrieval). The three major memory measures are conceptualized as providing information about different aspects of the information processing of a message. Specifically, recognition measures index how much information was encoded, cued recall indexes how much information has been stored, and free recall indexes the information available for retrieval. The predictions made using this theoretical app...

Defining Audio/Video Redundancy From a Limited- Capacity Information Processing Perspective

Three experiments investigated the processing costs of watching television messages. Processing costs were indexed with a secondary task reaction time measure in which subjects were asked to pay attention to commercial messages while responding with button presses to randomly occuring tones or flashes. Response time to the secondary tasks was used as a measure of attention to the primary task (watching the messages). Audio and video complexity of the messages were within-subject variables, and the channels presented to subjects (audio-only, video-only, or both) was a between-subjects variable. Results indicated that: (1) for a tone secondary task, multiple-channel presentations demanded more capacity than single-channel presentations (video or audio channel only); (2) more capacity was required to process simple video and auditory information than complex information; and (3) complexity of information in an absent channel (e.g., visual information in the audio-only condition) produced the same slowed reac...

Message complexity and attention to television

On Human Communication: A Review, a Survey, and a Criticism

Comprehending television is a complex process. Multiple resource theory proposes that the necessary resources are limited. Limitations, however, depend on four separate factors. First, resources are used by three different tasks—attention, meaning-level processing, and memory. Demands arise from individual tasks and combinations. The consequences of reaching limitations are different for each task. Second, television's auditory and visual modalities use different symbol systems. Audio information might be more difficult to process and requires more resources. Third, television stimuli might contain the meaningful information in either the auditory or visual modality. Meaningful information might require more processing and resources and should result in resource shifts. Fourth, television programs use varying levels of redundancy. Whereas processing two modalities generally requires additional resources, actual demands depend on the level and nature of the redundancy. As a result of these four factors, re...

Multiple Resource Theory I Application to Television Viewing

The Information Processing Capacity of Modality and Channel Performance.

INTERNATIONAL communication today is For this typified by the southern flow of Information, from the northern hemisphere to the south- ern hemisphere, dominated by the de- veloped nations in information gathering and dissemination, and intensified by tech- nological advances in communication in the last two decades. The incessant cries of "cultural Imperialism," "cultural domina- tion," and "cultural invasion" echoing from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America have precipitated a rigid control of communication in many developing coun- tries. The imbalance of communication flow, castigated, and denounced by every developing country, is considered to be the source of all evils, ranging from the failure of politico-economical policies and erosion of social norms and values to street crimes and prostitution; nevertheless, the verdict is still not yet in. This study attempts to illustrate the fundamental problems, to ex- plore the consequences of communication imbalance, and to examine communication dysfunctions in order to provide a set of solutions specifically addressed to the ell- mination or the reduction of the detrimental effects of communication dysfunctions. In the meantime, evidence is provided to sub- stantiate the contention that communica- tion imbalance can be eventually corrected, not by control but by allowing the free flow of all types of communications. Japan is a typical example: she absorbed the best and discarded the disharmonious features of Chinese and Western civilizations. Further attempts are also made to examine the in-herent, natural immunity of cultures against alien concepts and practices. The conclu- sion is aimed at the battle cries of "cultural imperialism": much ado about nothing.

H. J. Hsia

Papers

The Information Processing Capacity of Modality and Channel Performance.

On the imbalance of international communications