An experiment (N=123) examined how individuals cognitively process online news stories depicting African-American characters with stereotype-consistent and -inconsistent attributes and whether distracting online ads interfere with story processing. Two cognitive control functions, updating and inhibition, were predicted to moderate the effects of distracting ads. Recall of characters' attributes and overall characters' description were included in the study as dependent measures. Findings indicated that distracting online ads hinder recall of information about and descriptions of story characters. Inhibition and updating affect dependent measures and moderate the effects of distracting online ads on characters' descriptions.
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