Thanks to a vibrant group of lab members, many exciting research projects are ongoing in the lab. We are looking at:

* Emotional and physiological responding to brand identification
* The effects of interactivity in advertising
* Memory and media effects in social reality perception
* Modeling emotional responding to media
* The role of negative ads in demobilizing voters
* Startle probe methodology in response to media

All of these documents are protected by various copyright laws, but in each case I am allowed to distribute copies to individuals for personal, research use. Your click on any of the links below constitutes your request to me for a personal copy of the linked article for research use, and my delivery of a personal copy for research use. Any other use is prohibited.

Bradley, S. D., Maxian, W., Wise, W. T., & Freeman, J. D. (in press). Emotion trumps attention: Using prepulse startle probe methodology to assess cognitive processing of television. Communication Methods & Measures.

Bradley, S. D. (2007). Neural network simulations support heuristic processing model of cultivation effects. Media Psychology, 10, 449-469. PDF.

Bradley, S. D. (2007). Dynamic, embodied limited-capacity attention and memory: Modeling cognitive processing of mediated stimuli. Media Psychology, 9, 211-239. PDF.

Bradley, S. D. (2007). Examining the eyeblink startle reflex as a measure of emotion and motivation to television programming. Communication Methods & Measures, 1, 7-30. PDF.

Bradley, S. D., Angelini, J. R., Lee, S. (2007). Psychophysiological and memory effects of negative political ads: Aversive, arousing and well remembered. Journal of Advertising, 36(4), 115-127. PDF.

Bradley, S. D., Maxian, W., Laubacher, T. C., & Baker, M. (2007). In search of Lovemarks: The semantic structure of brands. In K. B. Sheehan (Ed.), Proceedings of the American Academy of Advertising (pp. 42-49). Eugene, OR: American Academy of Advertising. PDF.

Lang, A., Bradley, S. D., Sparks, J. V., & Lee, S. (2007). The motivation activation measure (MAM): How well does MAM predict individual differences in physiological indicators of appetitive and aversive activation? Communication Methods & Measures, 1, 113-136. PDF.

Meeds, R., & Bradley, S. D. (2007). The role of the sentence and its importance in marketing communications. In T. Lowrey (ed.), Psycholinguistic phenomena in marketing communications (pp. 103-120). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. PDF.

Lang, A., Bradley, S. D., Park, B., Shin, M., & Chung, Y. (2006). Parsing the resource pie: Using STRTs to measure attention to mediated messages. Media Psychology,8, 369-394. Abstract. PDF.

Gantz, W., Bradley, S. D., & Wang, Z. (2006). Televised NFL games, the family and domestic violence: A 15-city study. In A. Raney & J. Bryant (eds.), Handbook of sports and media (pp. 365-381). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. PDF.

Gantz, W., & Bradley, S. D. (2005). Bradley S. Greenberg: Advancing mass communication and making a difference. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media,49, 135-146. (Review and criticism). PDF.

Lang, A., Shin, M., Bradley, S. D., Lee, S., Wang, Z, & Potter, D. (2005). Wait! Don't turn that dial! More excitement to come! The effects of story length and production pacing in local television news on channel changing behavior and information processing in a free-choice environment. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media,49, 3-22. Abstract. PDF.

Bradley, S. D., & Meeds, R. (2004). The effects of sentence-level context, prior word knowledge, and need for cognition on information processing of technical language in print ads. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 14, 291-302. Abstract. PDF.

Bradley, S. D. & Shapiro, M. A. (2004). Parsing reality: The interactive effects of complex syntax and time pressure on cognitive processing of television scenarios. Media Psychology,6, 307-333. Abstract. PDF.

Bucy, E., & Bradley S. D. (2004). Presidential expression and viewer emotion: Counterempathic responses to televised leader displays. Social Science Information, 43, 59-94. Abstract. PDF.

Schneider, E. F., Lang, A., Shin, M., & Bradley, S. D. (2004). Death with a story: How story impacts emotional, motivational, and physiological responses to first-person shooter video games. Human Communication Research, 30, 361-375. Abstract. PDF.

Lang, A., Bradley, S. D., Chung, Y., & Lee, S. (2003). Where the mind meets the message: Reflections on ten years of measuring psychological responses to media. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 47, 650-655. (Review and criticism). Introduction. PDF.

Bradley, S. D. & Meeds, R. (2002). Surface-structure transformations and advertising slogans: The case for moderate syntactic complexity. Psychology & Marketing, 19, 595-619. Abstract. PDF.

Kirkley, S. E., Bradley, S. D., Borland, S. C., Waite, T., and Kirkley, J. (2003). Object recognition, distance estimation and size estimation using optical see-through head-worn displays. Technical Report. Orlando, FL: U. S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, Simulation, Training and Technology Center.

Lang, A., Wang, Z., & Bradley, S. D. (2004). Motivational Activation Measurement (MAM): Technical manual and normative ratings. Technical Report A1, Institute for Communication Research, Indiana University, Bloomington.

Park, B. H., & Bradley, S. D. (revision requested). Aliens and advertisements: This galactic war brought to you by these fine sponsors: Cognitive message processing in an interactive video game environment.

Bradley, S. D. (2004). Visual expectancy and orienting behavior in an artificial neural network [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 41(Suppl. 1), S62.

Bradley, S. D., Angelini, J. R., Lee, S., & Lang, A. (2004). Dynamic prepulse: Proximity to scene changes alters startle magnitude in emotional TV content [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 41(Suppl. 1), S62.

Lang, A., Sparks, J. V., Bradley, S. D., Lee. S., & Wang, Z. (2004). Processing arousing information: Psychophysiological predictors of motivated attention [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 41(Suppl. 1), S61.

Bradley, S. D., Shin, M., Wang, Z., Lee, S. J., & Lang, A. (2003, October). Processing the nightly news: How shot and story length affect effort, arousal, and encoding [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 40(Suppl. 1), S27.

Bucy, E., & Bradley, S. D. (2003, October). Facing crisis: Attentional and EMG responses to inappropriate leader displays [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 40(Suppl. 1), S30.

Shin, M., Bradley, S. D., Lee, S. J., Wang, Z., & Lang, A. (2003, October). Why people change: Does physiology predict channel changing behavior? [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 40(Suppl. 1), S78.

Fox, J. R., Lang, A., Chung, Y., Lee, S., Schwartz, N., Haverhals, L., Wang, Z., Bradley, S. D., & Potter, D. (2002). Effects of text and animated graphics in television news stories on viewer attention, arousal, and memory [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 39(Suppl. 1), S36.

Lang, A., Chock, T. M., Shin, M., Chung, Y., Lee, S., & Bradley, S. D. (2002). The role of self-relevance in arousal elicited by anti-drug PSAs in adolescents and college students [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 39(Suppl. 1), S49.

Bradley, S. D., & Meeds, R. (2002). Learning from advertisements: A comparison of prior word knowledge and explanatory context on meaning acquisition for technical terms [Abstract]. In A. M. Abernathy (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2002 conference of the American Academy of Advertising (pp. 32). Auburn, AL: American Academy of Advertising.

Bradley, S. D., Meeds, R., & Gupta, M. (2001). The effects of syntactic complexity on readers' comprehension, memory, and attitudes toward slogans: A transformational grammar approach [Abstract]. In C. R. Taylor (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2001 conference of the American Academy of Advertising (pp. 160-161). Villanova, PA: American Academy of Advertising.

My primary focus of late has been validating and establishing the reliability of the acoustic startle probe as a measure of attention and emotion to ongoing processing of mediated messages. The startle reflex (SR) is a preattentive reflex that is elicited by suddenly occurring stimuli. In the lab, we commonly elicit the SR with a burst of white noise (like static on the television) that goes from 0 decibels to 95 decibels instantly.

This sudden noise elicits the reflex, which results in an involuntary eyeblink for most participants. The magnitde of that eyeblink is altered by the overall emotional state. When things are negative, the eye blinks harder than when things are neutral. Conversely, the eye blinks softer when things are positive. At least this has been true for simple stimuli, such as a still photograph or a digitized sound. We replicated this finding while participants watched political advertisements.

However, we also learned that when a less intense stimulus precedes the startle probe, the magnitude of the eyeblink reflects how much attention the participant is paying. Awesome, I thought. We can measure attention and emotion with extreme temporal precision with a single measure! This means that I hope to be explore ongoing cognition at precise points within an advertisement or television program. For example, many marketers are now "placing" their products into content. For example, the American Idol judges always have a Coca-Cola glass. When the validation work is done, we will be able to look at attention at the exact moment of product placement. I believe this will allow us to better understand how people cognitively process these placements.

Hence, this was the topic of my dissertation. Officially, the title was, "Exploring the Validity and Reliability of the Acoustic Startle Probe As a Measure of Attention and Motivation to Television Programming." The successful defense was on June 17, 2005. You can read the announcement here. The dissertation won the 2006 Indiana University program in cognitive science outstanding dissertation award.

The results are quite interesting. They show that the magnitude of the startle reflex is indeed altered when preceded by a less intense stimulus. However, the nature of this relationship is far more complex for a complicated stimulus, such as television. My lab is currently working on a second study to further clarify the nature of this relationship.

Furthermore, I have been attempting to formally model the theory using a recurrent artificial neural network. Tentatively, the model is named "Dynamic, Embodied Limited Capacity Attention and Memory" or DELCAM for short. Although it probably will not make much sense without context, you can see an approximation of the model here. An abstract of the underlying theory also is available.

PDFs of any of the conference papers outlining the various connectionist models can be obtained by e-mailing me at: samuel <at> commcognition <dot> com.

Last modified June 24, 2008