Publications
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. Any other use is prohibited. Your clicking on a link constitutes your request to me for a copy. I welcome your communication with questions or suggestions for research and collaboration.
Potter, R.F. (in press). Double the Units: How Increasing the Number of Advertisements while Keeping the Overall Duration of Commercial Breaks Constant Affects Radio Listeners. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media.
This is an experiment focusing on my interest in the concept of commercial clutter. What are the factors that make us say 'wow, they play a lot of commercials'? Recently, Clear Channel Communications announced that they were going to try to migrate the radio industry from reliance on 60-second commercials to using 30-second commercials. This made me wonder what would happen if a radio station decided to keep the overall length of their commercial breaks the same but fill them with 30s rather than 60s. This experiment was the result. Download
Potter, R.F., Lang, A., & Bolls, P.D. (2008). Identifying Structural Features of Audio: Orienting Responses during Radio Messages and Their Impact on Recognition. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications (20), p. 168-177.
In this article we use physiological measures (heart rate and skin conductance) to show that certain featues of audio make listeners automatically pay attention to the messages in which they occur. In other words, by simply using things like sound effects and multiple voices in your production you can increase the attention paid to it. Voice changes and sound effects...those are two of the eight we identified. Find out the others by reading the research. Download
Potter, R.F, Callison, C., Chambers, T., Edison, A. (2008). Radio’s Clutter Conundrum: Better Memory for Ads, Worse Attitudes Toward Stations. International Journal of Media Management (10), p. 139-147.
In this experiment we made two versions of a simulated music radio broadcast. Both versions had 9 commercial units. But, for one version all nine units occurred in one long commercial break. In the other, these 9 units were split into three breaks. We called the latter the "cluttered" condition because the music was stopped more frequently to play ads. Results show, in part, that listeners were more irritated when the music was stopped more often. But, the memory for ads was better in this cluttered condition. A double-edged sword. Find out more by reading the article. Download
Dillman Carpentier, F. & Potter, R.F (2007). Effects of Music on Physiological Arousal: Explorations into Tempo & Genre. Media Psychology, 10 (3), 339-363.
Can you think of the onset of musical notes in the same way you think of other structural features? In other words, do they automatically capture attention? (Find the original studies about audio features here and here). We conducted two experiments playing fast-tempo and slow-tempo music for people while measuring the skin conductance on their palms. Results show that you can think of musical notes as audio structural features...but that this depended on the genre of music (i.e., whether it was rock music or classical or swing). Download
Potter, R.F. & Choi, J. (2006). The Effects of Auditory Structural Complexity on Attitudes, Attention, Arousal & Memory. Media Psychology, 8 (4), 395-419.
In this experiment I used skin conductance as a psychophysiological measure of arousal to see if greater arousal could explain why radio messages that contain lots of audio structural features are better remembered than those that don't. It can. Read more here. Download
Potter, R.F, LaTour, M., Braun-LaTour, K. & Reichert, T. (2006). Program Context Effects on an Appeal to Fear. Journal of Advertising, 35 (3), 69-82.
Three different experiments are reported. One using an implicit attitudes test, another self-report measures of arousal, and the final using skin conductance responses and level to show that sad television programming activates the 'avoid' motivation system and comic programming activates the 'approach' system. Plus, the fact that programming activates these motivational system carries over and influences how commercials are processed after the show goes to a break. Download
Gantz, W., Wang, Z., Paul, B., Potter, R.F. (2006). Sports Versus All Comers: Comparing TV Sports Fans With Fans of Other Programming Genres. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50, 95-118.
We asked close to 400 undergraduate students how much they enjoyed watching 8 types of television programming (sports, sitcoms, reality shows, etc.). Then we asked them how much time they spent watching these genres. Finally, we asked them to make a comparison how they watched their favorite sports program on TV with their other most-favorite genre of programming. We found that sports fans were unlike other types of television fans. They were more likely to prepare for watching and were more emotionally connected to the outcomes. Download
Potter, R.F. (2006). Made you listen: The Effects of Production Effects on Attention to Short Radio Promotional Announcements. Journal of Promotion Management, 12, 35-48.
Radio stations rely upon on-air promotional announcements to get listeners involved in station activities and develop parasocial relationships. In order to have the promos be most effective, though, listeners need to pay attention to them. This study showed that using laser effects and echo effects in the promos caused listeners to automatically pay more attention to them. Download
Potter, R.F., Williams, G.C., & Newton, G.D. (2003). Juggling Brands: The pressures and perks of radio promotions directors in the age of acquisition. Journal of the Northwest Communication Association, 32, 78-95.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 led to a fury of market consolidation in the radio industry. This national survey of promotion directors and general managers showed that those in charge of promotions were having to do more with less following station mergers.Request a copy
Potter, R.F., Yu, H-S., Callison, C. (2002) Structural Features and Interactivity on the Most-Visited Web Sites Compared to the Web in General. Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, 18, 48-57.
In an earlier study we did a random sample of websites and conducted a content analysis of the types of structural features they contained. In this study we wondered whether the most popular sites were the same in their use of structure, interactive capabilities, etc. Request a copy
Potter, R.F. (2002). Give the people what they want: A content analysis of FM radio station home pages. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 46, 369-384.
A content analysis was conducted to quantify what radio station web sites were like. Taking the variables of interest from an earlier study of web structural features, along with some content specific to the radio industry (concert information, DJ bios, etc.), we were able to find out what sites were like, and then show that they were significantly different from what listeners said they wanted on their favorite station's website. Download
Bolls, Paul D., Lang, A., & Potter, R.F. (2001). The effects of message valence and listener arousal on attention, memory, and facial muscular responses to radio advertisements. Communication Research, 28, 627-651.
This is the first study done in the ICR using facial EMG as a measure of emotional response. Among psychophysiologists, the activation of smile and frown muscles is a common indicator of how positive or negative a person is. This study was one of the first to show that facial EMG measures also respond during the processing of media message. Plus, findings suggest it is the arousingness of the media message--rather than whether it is positive or negative--which affects subsequent memory. Download
Potter, R. F.& Callison, C. (2000). Sounds exciting!: The effects of audio complexity on listeners’ attitudes and memory for radio promotional announcements. Journal of Radio Studies, 7, 29-51.
We know from earlier work that people can't help but pay attention to audio structural features like voice changes. Download
Potter,
R.F. (2000). The effects of voice changes on orienting and immediate cognitive
overload in radio listeners. Media Psychology, 2, 147-178.
My first published exploration into the question: Do structural features of radio messages cause people to automatically pay attention to them? Turns out they do. Plus, interestingly people didn't habituate to them. In other words, if you use them often they still work! It's a published part of my dissertation, so rather dear to me. Download
Lang, A., Zhou, S., Schwartz, N., Bolls, P.D., & Potter, R.F. (2000). The effects of edits on arousal, attention, and memory for television messages. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 44, 94-109.
Lang, A., Bolls, P., Potter, R.F. & Kawahara, K (1999). The effects of production pacing and arousing content on the information processing of television messages. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 43, 451-475.
These two studies need to be talked about together. They explored the impact of two things: cuts and edits. A cut was defined as a change from one TV scene to another. An edit was a change of shots within the same scene. We predicted that cuts required more cognitive resources to make sense of than edits (since the scene changed in a cut). But we also thought that if you increase the frequency with which either one of them occur, viewers would eventually reach cognitive overload. Find out if that was correct.
Bucy, E.P., Lang, A., Potter, R.F., & Grabe, M.E. (1999). Formal features of cyberspace: Relationships between web page complexity and site traffic. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50 (13), 1246-1256.
As an experimental researcher I'm interested in the effects of certain variables on cognitive processing of mediated messages. A particular interest is the way structural features affect attention and cognitive processing. But, sometimes you first have to find out what structural features are out there. Such was the case in this study...where we conducted a content analysis ofthe different types of structural features on the web. Download
Lang, A., Potter, R.F., & Bolls, P.D. (1999). Something for nothing: Is visual encoding automatic? Media Psychology, 1, 145-163.
There are, essentially, two types of attention. The first is automatic attention--the type that you can't control and doesn't require much effort--and controlled--the effortful type of "paying attention." May cognitive scholars have suggested that visual cognition is more automatic than auditory processing. This study used television messages of varying complexity to test this suggestion. Download
