Effects of Interactive and Noninteractive Imagery on Recall of Advertisements

Abstract

To replicate and clarify an experiment conducted by Lutz and Lutz in 1977, 100 subjects viewed actual advertisements of product (service) — brand (company) name pairs under one of five conditions: Picture Interaction1, in which the words were accompanied by a picture containing line drawings of each member of the pair interacting, Picture Separate 1, in which the same words were accompanied by separated line-drawings of each member, Verbal Control 1, in which the words only were shown, Picture Separate 2 and Verbal Control 2, in which a new set of verbal items were presented with separate line drawings or alone, respectively. Contrary to expectation, recall of names was not superior in Picture Interaction 1; instead, over-all recall was generally higher in the three pictorial than in the two verbal conditions. In addition, the second set of different items proved to be more difficult to remember than the first. It is suggested that Lutz and Lutz's finding of superior recall in Picture Interaction was a function of extraneous variables. It is also surmised that the present failure to replicate other research showing an advantage of pictorial interaction may be attributed to different exposure times.