| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
Thus, the extent to which banner advertisements are processed depends on two factors. The first factor is the extent to which a Web user allocates processing resources to the primary task. The greater the processing resources used by the primary task, the fewer the resources available to process banner ads. The second factor is the extent to which the banner ad is capable of eliciting automatic calls for processing resources. Some stimuli or attributes of stimuli attract processing resources automatically. Since this study is interested in examining the second factor, the first factor will be controlled by giving the same primary task to every participant. When the users are engaged in the primary task, it is assumed that they are allocating the majority of their resources to the primary task, which is to read online news articles. There should be little, if any, controlled allocation of processing resources to Web advertisements, although it may not be completely zero since the user may voluntarily shift his or her attention to the ads. However, the voluntary shift of attention to the banner ads should be occasional and random across participants and should not produce systematic changes in the dependent variables in this study.
On the other hand, if some aspects of structure and content in banner ads elicit automatic resource allocation (or engage the automatic allocation mechanism), then the appearance of those features will result in systematic changes in users’ cognitive and emotional states and ultimately in memory performance. This study intends to find evidence showing that animation and arousing pictures are able to elicit automatic resource allocation when they appear in users’ peripheral visual areas.
Methodological Importance of the Study
The question of this study is to what extent banner ads are processed when Web users are reading online newspapers. How can we know that the banner ads are processed by the Web users? The first and perhaps simplest way is to ask them whether they can remember the information contained in banner ads.