RU2779383C1 - Method for testing the effectiveness of advertising materials - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: psychology.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to psychology and can be used to test the effectiveness of advertising. Pairs of stimuli with either no semantic connections or weak connections are selected from the advertising material. A database of presentation blocks is formed electronically, the first one being an block of advertising materials, the second one - a mask block, the third one - a target stimuli block, and the fourth one - a block of valid and invalid primes. Test samples are formed from the resulting blocks to be presented to respondents in series in a pseudo-random order. Prior to the study, the respondents are presented with a training series of 10 samples. For subsequent analysis, the respondents are presented with a series of 10 to 20 samples. The reaction time is analysed. The results for neutral and target stimuli are divided into two groups, the first group being pressing the "yes" button when presented with a target stimulus after a valid prime, the second group being pressing the "yes" button for a target stimulus after an invalid prime. The advertising materials are then presented for 2 to 10 minutes. A series of 15 to 20 samples is repeated. The results are divided into two groups, the third group being pressing the "yes" button when presented with a target stimulus after a valid prime, the fourth group being pressing the "yes" button when presented with a target stimulus after an invalid prime. The average reaction time and the standard deviation are calculated for each group, and the results for the groups are compared. If the average reaction time for the third group is lower compared to the first, so as to be statistically significant, a conclusion is made that the advertising is effective; and if the difference between the average reaction times is insignificant, a conclusion is made that the advertising is ineffective. A coefficient is also determined for the first and third groups. If the coefficient is below 0.4, a conclusion is made that the advertising is ineffective; if the coefficient is above 0.8, a conclusion is made that the advertising is effective.

EFFECT: objective assessment of the effectiveness of the formation of a new association in the subject of study, occurring while viewing the advertising materials and required by the advertiser, excluding erroneous results caused by the human factor.

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Description

The method relates to psychology, namely to methods for testing the effectiveness of advertising, which consists in identifying the presence of associations between concepts, words or pictures, or sound stimuli. The method is based on the effect of implicit memory (subthreshold priming), which provides accelerated recognition of objects when they are presented in context.

Subthreshold priming reflects unconscious processes in the recognition of visual stimuli, including those that are presented at an unconscious level for the participants in the experiments. The importance of this effect lies in the fact that subthreshold priming excludes the use of conscious cognitive strategies and reveals precisely automatic connections between stimuli. This is a direct type of analysis that allows you to explore the processing that the brain produces in real time. Therefore, it is possible to use this effect to detect the presence of associations between words, concepts, images, brands and products, for example, before and after viewing promotional materials.

The following methods of testing using the subthreshold priming effect are known from the prior art.

A method is known for objectively measuring emotional attitudes, in which the test of implicit associations is used and the difference in the reaction speed of pressing one of the two keys of a computer keyboard is measured for various combinations of two subgroups of stimulus-objects exposed in the center of the display, symbolizing the objects of two emotional attitudes competing in meaning, with two emotionally polar subgroups of words-attributes. The first subgroup of stimulus-objects is formed from words and/or images symbolizing the first object of the emotional set under study, and the second subgroup of stimulus-objects is formed from words and/or images symbolizing alternative motivational tendencies in relation to the first one. Words with positive emotional valence are combined into the first subgroup of attribute words, words with negative emotional valence are combined into the second subgroup of attribute words. At the same time, the presentation of stimulus-objects alternates with the presentation of attribute words, the stimuli-objects are presented against a dark background in white or black-and-white images, the attribute words are presented against a dark background in green. In each main experimental series, the emotional attitude to only one object is investigated, and a group of two main experimental series is devoted to the study of the emotional attitude to one object. In one main experimental series of the group, the positive component of the attitude is studied, in the other main experimental series of the group, the negative component of the attitude towards this object is studied. In one main experimental series of the group, with the help of clarifying instructions and prompts at the top of the screen, the object of the emotional set is attached to the button to which the positive pole of the valence of attribute words is attached, and the subject must press it as if stimuli-objects appearing in the center of the screen, symbolizing this object of emotional settings, and words-attributes of positive valence, and when words-attributes of negative valence appear, he must press the opposite button. In the other main experimental series of the group, the same object of the emotional set is tied to a button associated with the negative valence pole of the attribute words, and the subject must press it both when stimuli-objects appear in the center of the screen, symbolizing the given object of the emotional set, and when words appear. -attributes of negative valence. When the words-attributes of positive valency appear, the subject must press the opposite button. Each main experimental series includes from 30 to 90 combinations of consecutive presentations "stimulus-object - word-attribute", equally for positive and negative attribute words, after the presentation of the word-attribute before the presentation of the next stimulus-object, a variable time interval of at least 100 ms is used , attribute words are presented after stimuli-objects with an interval of 0 to 300 ms (RU2594977C2, publ. 20.08.2016).

The closest analogue of the patented solution is a method for automated research of the semantic sphere of a person, in which a base of the following presentation blocks is formed in electronic form: optimization (OPT), containing verbal stimuli, the use of which is aimed at reducing the level of psycho-emotional stress of the test person; semantic (SM), consisting of semantic stimuli in the form of questions, the use of which is aimed at identifying the level of subjective significance for the testee of these stimuli, grouped into semantic groups according to a given attribute; meaningless (BS), consisting of alternating numbers, the use of which is aimed at identifying the neutral level of the test subject's response; reference (RP), containing verbal stimuli, the use of which is aimed at identifying the negative level of response of the tested person; operator (OG), containing incentives in the form of geometric shapes - a square, a circle and a triangle, the use of which is aimed at increasing the level of concentration of the tested person. In this case, SM, RP or OPT blocks are always located between two BS blocks. The stimulus is presented in the center of the monitor screen, and 2-4 verbal phrases in the past tense in the first person are used as questions of the SM block. After the question of the SM block is presented, it is masked with a stimulus from the BS block, for which, at the place of the presented question, a masker in the form of a random set of numbers is presented for 500-700 ms, a pause of 150-250 ms is maintained. When the masker is presented, the response limits are set from 100 ms to 700 ms. The time of presentation of the selected type of stimulus on the monitor screen is 16-34 ms with a strictly fixed time of presentation of the same stimuli and different times of presentation of different types of stimuli. The level of operator readiness is supported by the presentation of unconscious stimuli of the OG block (square, circle, triangle), alternating with SM at a frequency of 1-2 times per minute. Methods of non-parametric statistical processing are used, determining the significance of each motor response of the tested person to a stimulus, the subjective significance of the stimulus is the difference between the average resulting speed of motor reactions of the tested person to the same SM stimulus and the average resulting speed of his motor reactions to BS stimuli (patent RU2627593C2, publ. 2017.08.09).

The above patent documents do not provide blocks of incentives for conducting comparative experiments to assess the impact on human perception of a particular material.

The technical problem solved by the proposed method is that when viewing advertising material, the advertiser needs to modulate the associative links between emotions, words, product and brand names among the respondents. Depending on the nature and type of advertising materials, it is possible to pre-extract words that describe the emotions or associations that the client hopes to evoke with this material, and test respondents with these stimuli before and after viewing the advertisement.

The task is solved by comparing the reaction of the subject to the name of the brand, product / service or their attributes before watching the video and after, depending on the context in which the above-mentioned stimuli are presented.

The proposed method for testing the effectiveness of advertising materials is based on the technique of masked priming (Forster, Davis, 1984) with the task of lexical decision. This technique is used in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics to study unconscious automatic processes of recognition of visually presented stimuli (Kinoshita and Lupker, 2003; Grainger and Holcomb, 2009). The priming effect is defined as the difference in the average response time to target stimuli preceded by a valid prime (the one associated with it in meaning) and target stimuli preceded by an invalid prime (which is not associated with it). For an overview of the mechanisms of masked priming, see the works of K. Forster (Forster, 1998) and S. Kinoshita and S. Lupker (Kinoshita and Lupker, 2003).

The technical result of the patented solution is the automatic objective determination of the effectiveness of the formation of a new associative link in the subject, which occurs when viewing advertising materials, which is necessary for the advertiser, with the exception of erroneous readings associated with the human factor.

The technical result is achieved by implementing a method for testing the effectiveness of advertising materials, which consists in measuring and comparing the response time of the respondent pressing one of the keys of the multi-button interface when the respondent is presented with stimuli associated with the advertising material before and after viewing it, including the stage at which the advertising material pairs of stimuli are selected that, prior to viewing this material, either do not have semantic links between themselves, or have relatively weak links, and form in electronic form a database of the following presentation blocks: the first is a block of advertising materials, which is a video or other advertising image that emotionally connects target stimulus with prime, the second is a block of a mask, which is an unreadable set of characters, the third is a block of target stimuli, in which 50% of the target stimuli are real words and represent either one of a pair of words semantically related to the advertising material, or a word not associated with advertising material, and the other 50% of the target characters are pseudowords, which are sets of letters that are pronounced according to the rules of reading the native language, but have no lexical meaning, the fourth is a block of valid and invalid primes, where valid primes are the second word from a pair of words that have a weak semantic connection with its content before viewing the advertising material, and invalid primes are not related in meaning to the target stimulus, test samples are formed from the blocks obtained, presented to respondents in series, with each sample consisting of the following stages: for 300-500 ms, a mask is presented, for 50 ms a prime consisting of lower-case characters is presented, for 300-500 ms a target stimulus is presented, consisting of upper-case characters, upon presentation of which the respondents press the button of the multi-button device corresponding to answer "yes" if the respondent managed to recognize the real word, or o to the button corresponding to the answer “no”, if it failed, and if the button is not pressed during the presentation of the target stimulus, then the next test begins in 2-3 seconds, before the study, the respondents are presented with a training series of 10 trials, where they use the words and pseudowords that are not used later during the experiment, and the data obtained during the training are excluded from the subsequent analysis, also in the subsequent analysis the data of respondents with more than 20% errors are not taken into account, while pressing the "yes" button as a reaction is an error to the presentation of a pseudo word and pressing the “no” button - to the presentation of a real word, in addition, for each respondent, reaction times that deviate from the individual average by more than two standard deviations are excluded from subsequent analysis, for subsequent analysis, respondents are presented with a series of 10-20 samples, analyze the reaction time, which is the time interval between the onset stimulus presentation and pressing the button, while the reaction time is analyzed only for correct answers and only for the reaction time with a latency of 300 to 1500 ms after the start of the target stimulus presentation, in addition, for each respondent, the reaction time values deviating from the individual average by more than by two standard deviations are excluded from the subsequent analysis, the results obtained for neutral and target stimuli are grouped into two groups: the first group - pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after a valid prime, the second group - pressing the "yes" button on the target stimulus after an invalid one, then within 2-10 minutes advertising materials are presented from the block of advertising materials, and a series of 15-20 samples is repeated, the results obtained after the presentation of advertising materials are grouped into two groups: the third group is pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after a valid prime, the fourth group - pressing the "yes" button when presentation of the target stimulus after an invalid prime, the average reaction time and standard deviation for each group are calculated and the results obtained for the first and second groups, the third and fourth groups, the first and third groups are compared, with a statistically significant lower average reaction time for the third group compared to the first (using Student's t -test for paired comparisons, with p -significance less than 0.01%), they make a conclusion about the effectiveness of advertising, and with an insignificant difference between the average values of the reaction time (using Student's t -test for paired comparisons, when p -criterion of significance is equal to or greater than 0.01%), they conclude that advertising is ineffective.

In a particular case, each target stimulus is presented to one respondent once during testing, for which two lists of trials are created, while the target stimuli that are presented with valid primes in one list are presented with invalid primes in the other, then half of the subjects are tested according to the list 1, the second half - according to list 2, the samples are presented in a pseudo-random order so that on each sample the respondent has a 50% probability of answering “yes”.

In a particular case, primes to target stimuli that are pseudowords are pseudowords.

Further, the solution is explained by reference to the figures, which show the following.

Fig. 1 - An approximate illustration of the equipment and landing of respondents in experiments with subthreshold priming.

Fig. 2 - An example of a stimulus sequence of an experiment with subthreshold priming using the example of words.

When viewing effective advertising material, the respondent modulates associative links between emotions, words, product and brand names. Depending on the nature and type of advertising material, it may be possible to pre-extract words that describe the emotions that the advertiser hopes to evoke with this material and test respondents with these stimuli before and after viewing the advertisement. When testing, the method of subthreshold priming is used, in particular, semantic, where the prime word is not identical to the target stimulus, but refers to it in meaning. For example, prime: Coca-Cola; and target stimulus: happiness.

A stimulus sequence test is performed before and after viewing a relevant advertisement and detects a change in the rate of response to the target stimulus. The testing process is carried out using a computer, on the monitor (1) of which the user is presented with verbal stimuli and advertising materials, as well as a multi-button interface (2) connected to it, connected to the multicontroller and real-time clock with an accuracy of 1 ms and containing a button (3 ), clicking on which means the reaction "yes" (that is, the user recognized the word), or (4) "no" (that is, the user did not recognize the lexical meaning of the shown stimulus).

Before the start of testing, the following preparation is carried out from the promotional material. Pairs of stimuli are selected from the advertising material, which, prior to viewing this material, either do not have semantic links between themselves, or have relatively weak links, and form in electronic form a database of the following presentation blocks:

- a block of advertising materials, which is a video or other advertising image that emotionally connects the target stimulus with the prime,

- a mask block, which is a series of characters in the form of, for example, punctuation marks, lattices or a random set of consonants,

- block of valid and invalid primes,

- a block of targeted stimuli to which respondents must give a binary answer (“yes” or “no”).

In the lexical decision task, respondents are instructed to determine as quickly as possible whether the target stimulus is a real word of the Russian language or not, by pressing one of two buttons on a special remote control. To pass the test, fifty percent of the target stimuli must be real words, that is, they have a lexical meaning, and the rest must be pseudo-words - they are a set of letters that are pronounced according to the rules of reading the native language, but have no lexical meaning. Target stimuli that are words are either one of a pair of words semantically associated with the promotional material or a word not associated with the promotional material. And finally, valid primes are the second word from a pair of words semantically related to the advertising material (at the same time, the advertiser has the task of strengthening this connection), while invalid primes are not semantically related to the target stimulus. Primes to target stimuli that are pseudowords are also pseudowords. In this case, the valid primes are identical to the target stimulus. Words are also chosen in such a way that their frequency of use by an average native speaker of the language being tested is high enough for the words to be known to the respondents.

All stimuli are presented to respondents with the same presentation parameters, for example, on a white background in the center of the monitor screen in black, Arial font, font size 12 (the angular size of the target stimuli is approximately 0.43° × 2.86°). To ensure the accuracy of the duration of stimulus presentation, the monitor screen scan rate must be at least 60 Hz and a multiple of 10 (for example, 80, 100, 120, 240 Hz). To ensure that each respondent is presented with all the target stimuli only once, two lists of trials are created. Target stimuli that are presented with valid primes in one list are presented with invalid primes in another. Half of the subjects are tested according to list 1, the second half - according to list 2. Samples are presented in a pseudo-random order, so that on each sample the respondent has a 50% chance of answering "yes".

Each probe is built as follows: first, for example, a mask (5) was presented for 500 ms, then, for example, prime (6) appeared in capital letters for 50 ms, and immediately after it, for the same duration as the mask was presented, the target was presented. stimulus (7), consisting of capital letters, which can be a word related in meaning to the prime, a word not related to the prime (8) or a pseudo-word (10), to which the respondent is required to respond by pressing a button (“yes” or "No"). Next, either another mask (5) or a target stimulus (7) is presented for a time interval T. The target stimulus remains on the screen for time T, and if no button is pressed, the program waits for another 3 seconds, for example, before starting to show the next stimulus sequence. If the button is pressed, the program shows the next stimulus after a pause (9) pre-set in the program. Stimulus sequences are presented to the participant of the experiment in a pseudo-random order.

Thus, the mask shown on the screen for a time interval T is alternated with the prime shown on the screen, for example, for 50 ms, and the block of target stimuli for T ms. Upon presentation of the target stimulus, one of the two buttons of the multi-button interface is pressed, corresponding to the answer "yes" (3) or "no" (4) when the respondent detects or does not distinguish the lexical meaning of the presented stimulus.

Writing prime and target stimulus in different registers provides sufficient physical difference between stimuli (see Forster et al., 2003). A short presentation of prime, as well as its disguise, makes it unconscious for the respondent, as shown by many tests in foreign literature, and post-experimental interviews. On the contrary, respondents express surprise when they are informed that another stimulus “flickers” in front of the target stimuli. Subjectively, the respondent sees mask symbols as a sign of readiness to analyze a new target stimulus. Then this mask changes to a target stimulus, according to which the respondent makes a lexical decision and presses one of the given buttons. The target stimulus is presented for a short time, sufficient to recognize the stimulus, classify it as meaningful or not, make a decision to press the appropriate button, and perform an immediate motor response (eg, for 500 ms). In subthreshold priming, the effect of accelerated recognition of the target stimulus is unconscious, when the masked prime preceding it has a semantic connection with it.

To exclude erroneous readings related to the human factor (bad faith, illiteracy, poor eyesight of the respondent, etc.), before the main experiment, the respondents are offered a training series of 10 samples. In training trials, words and pseudowords are used that are not used later in the course of the experiment, and the data obtained during the training are excluded from subsequent analysis.

According to the standard of research using masked priming, data from respondents with an error rate of more than 20% are excluded from further analysis (Nakayama et al., 2008). Analysis of the reaction time (hereinafter - RT) was performed only for correct answers and only for reactions with a latency of at least 300 ms and no more than 1500 ms after the start of the target stimulus presentation. For each respondent, HR values that deviate from the individual mean by more than two standard deviations (σ) are excluded from further analysis and replaced by the values “individual mean HR ± 2σ”. Statistical analysis of data is carried out for the entire sample of respondents as a whole, and not individually, so individual differences between the basic reactions of respondents are leveled.

The results obtained for neutral and target stimuli are grouped into two groups: the first group - pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after a valid prime, the second group - pressing the "yes" button on the target stimulus after an invalid one. After the first passing of the test, the respondent is given the opportunity to familiarize himself with the promotional materials by watching a video or other promotional materials, then the testing is repeated. The results obtained after the advertising block are again grouped into the other two groups: the third group - pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after a valid prime, the fourth group - pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after an invalid prime.

The recorded time of pressing the buttons for different stimuli is grouped into two groups: the first group - pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after a valid prime, the second group - pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after an invalid prime.

After the first passing of the test, the respondent is given the opportunity to familiarize himself with the promotional materials by watching a video or other promotional materials, then the testing is repeated. The results obtained after the advertising block are again grouped into the other two groups: the third group - pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after a valid prime, the fourth group - pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after an invalid prime.

Next, the average VR and standard deviation are calculated for each group and a statistical comparison is made of the results obtained for the first and second groups, the third and fourth groups, the first and third groups, with a statistically significant lower average VR for the third group compared to the first, a conclusion is made about the effectiveness of advertising , and with no significant difference between the average VR, they conclude that advertising is ineffective in the formation of new associative links.

At the same time, the difference between the average values of the reaction time in the third and first groups is determined using Student's t-test for paired comparisons, with a p-criterion of significance less than 0.01%, a conclusion is made about the effectiveness of advertising, and with an insignificant difference between the average values of the reaction time , determined by the p-criterion of significance equal to or greater than 0.01%, conclude that advertising is ineffective.

At the same time, it is obvious that the concept of statistical significance, or the reliability of results, is not always a sufficiently strict criterion for assessing the difference in results obtained under different experimental conditions. Therefore, when comparing reaction times between groups, the effect size (effect size) is additionally calculated as Cohen's d coefficient (Lakens, 2013), which is defined as the difference between the two average reaction times divided by the total standard deviation, with a coefficient value of less than 0.4 do conclusion about the inefficiency of advertising, with a value of more than 0.8 - make a conclusion about the effectiveness of advertising. On the other hand, a generally accepted alternative to certainty has not yet been proposed, and articles in the scientific literature in the field of cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics continue to be published with p-values (for example, Hendrix, P. and Ching Chu Sun, 2021; and A.A. Gorbunova , V. A. Dubynin and N. V. Galkina, 2019). Therefore, the use of these validity criteria for this method is acceptable.

On FIG. Figure 2 shows an example of a stimulus sequence in an experiment with subthreshold priming using the words “beauty” and “telephone” as an example. On the left is a positive emotional stimulus (7) "beauty" preceded by a valid identical prime (6). On the right, stimulus (8) is a “phone” with an invalid, unrelated prime (6). It is expected that the time of determining the left target stimulus "beauty" (second group) as a real word will be shorter than the time of determining the right stimulus "phone" (first group), and after watching an advertisement that emphasizes the beautiful design of the phone, the time of determining the word "phone “beauty” should be reduced after the prime, if this did not happen, then the advertising material is ineffective.

An example of the implementation of the method.

1. Pairs of stimuli are selected from the advertising material, which, prior to viewing this material, either do not have associative links among themselves, or have relatively weak links. An example of a strongly associative pair of stimuli are the words cat - dog, since both denote animals, mammals and domestic animals; a medium associative pair - a snake - a dog, since both denote animals, but one word denotes a reptile, the other denotes a mammal, and the snake is very rarely a domestic animal. Finally, the words vitamins - dog are not associated associatively. In this case, the primes will be the words “cat”, “snake” and “vitamins”, and the target stimulus will be “dog”.

2. You can check these connections using priming (including subthreshold, when the prime is masked and presented too quickly for conscious recognition by the respondent). In priming experiments, the respondent is asked to determine as quickly as possible whether the stimulus is a real word or a pseudoword (a set of letters that is pronounced according to the rules of reading the respondent's native language, but does not have a lexical meaning, for example, "prast"). Here, the words presented before the target words are primes, since they can set the context for the subsequent target word. In the case of subthreshold priming, primes are masked with meaningless symbols presented immediately before and after the prime, and in combination with a short presentation of the prime itself, make it functionally invisible to the respondent, providing only the opportunity to influence the respondent without his conscious attention. Thus, the mask (#######) presented on the screen for 500 ms is alternated with the prime presented on the screen for 50 ms, after which the target stimulus is presented for 500 ms, which also serves as a reverse mask for the prime. Upon presentation of a pseudoword (“prast”), a semantic association (“snake” or “cat”), or a word that is not related in meaning to the prime word (“vitamins”), a press of one of the two buttons of the multi-button interface corresponding to the answer “yes” or “no” is recorded. »when the respondent encounters or does not distinguish the lexical meaning of the presented stimulus.

For example, if the target stimulus “dog” follows the “cat” prime, then the respondent recognizes it faster than when the same target stimulus follows the “snake” prime and slower when it follows the “vitamins” prime.

3. Next, the respondent is asked to watch a block of commercials, among which there is a video about dog food, which is full of vitamins and has a beneficial effect on the health and mood of pets. If the video is effective, then as a result of viewing this advertising content, the respondent will associate the word “vitamins” with the word “dog”.

4. After viewing the advertisement, the respondent again undergoes priming testing, as in paragraph 2. Now, if the associative connection was formed as a result of viewing the advertisement, then the reaction time to the target stimulus will become faster when a valid prime "vitamins" is presented before it than when it is before it another unrelated word appears (an invalid prime). Also, the reaction time to the target stimulus after the word "vitamins" is compared with the reaction time to the same target stimulus, but when it follows the prime "snake". It is in this comparison that it is possible to determine how much advertising content influenced the formation of a new associative relationship between the concepts of "dog" and "vitamins".

Literature

A.A. Gorbunova, V.A. Dubynin and N.V. Galkin. (2019). Disguised priming with emotionally colored nouns of the Russian language. Russian Journal of Cognitive Science, Volume 6, No. 2, pp. 33-43.

Forster, K. I. (1998). The pros and cons of masked priming. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 27(2), 203–233. doi:10.1023/a:1023202116609.

Forster, K. I., & Davis, C. (1984). Repetition priming and frequency attenuation in lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10(4), 680–698. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.10.4.680.

Forster, K. I., Mohan, K., Hector, J., Kinoshita, S., & Lupker, S. J. (2003). The mechanics of masked priming. Masked priming: The state of the art, 3-37.

Grainger, J., & Holcomb, P. J. (2009). Watching the word go by: On the time-course of component processes in visual word recognition. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3(1), 128–156. doi:10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00121.x.

Hendrix, P. and Ching Chu Sun. (2021). A word or two about nonwords: Frequency, semantic neighborhood density, and orthography-to-semantics consistency effects for nonwords in the lexical decision task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 47(1): 15.

Kinoshita, S., & Lupker, S. J. (Eds.). (2004). masked priming. New York: Psychology Press. doi:10.4324/9780203502846.

Lakens, D. (2013). Calculating and reporting effect sizes to facilitate cumulative science: a practical primer for t-tests and ANOVAs. Frontiers in psychology, 4: 863. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00863.

Nakayama, M., Sears, C. R., & Lupker, S. J. (2008). Masked priming with orthographic neighbors: A test of the lexical competition assumption. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34(5), 1236–1260. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.34.5.1236.

Claims (2)

1. A method for testing the effectiveness of advertising materials, which consists in measuring and comparing the reaction time of a respondent pressing one of the keys of a multi-button device when the respondent is presented with stimuli associated with the advertising material before and after viewing it, including the stage at which pairs of stimuli are selected from the advertising material, which, prior to viewing this material, either do not have semantic links between themselves, or have weak links, and form in electronic form the database of the following presentation blocks: the first is a block of advertising materials, which is a video that emotionally connects the target stimulus with the prime, the second is a mask block, representing an unreadable set of characters, the third is a block of target stimuli, in which 50% of the target stimuli are words and represent either one of a pair of words semantically related to the advertising material, or a word not associated with the advertising material, and the other 50% of the target characters are pseudo-words which are sets of letters that are pronounced according to the rules of reading the native language, but do not have a lexical meaning, the fourth is a block of valid and invalid primes, where valid primes are the second word from a pair of words that have a weak semantic connection with its content before viewing the advertising material, and invalid primes are not related in meaning to the target stimulus, test samples are formed from the blocks obtained, presented to respondents in series, with each sample consisting of the following stages: a mask is presented for 300-500 ms, a prime consisting of symbols is presented for 50 ms in lower case, within 300-500 ms, a target stimulus is presented, consisting of characters in upper case, upon presentation of which the respondents press the button of the multi-button device corresponding to the answer “yes”, if the respondent managed to recognize the word, or the button corresponding to the answer “ no" if failed, if the button is not pressed during the presentation of the target stim ula, then the next test starts in 2-3 seconds, before the study, the respondents are presented with a training series of 10 trials, for subsequent analysis, the respondents are presented with a series of 10-20 trials, while each target stimulus is presented to one respondent during testing once per series of trials , for which two lists of samples are created, while the target stimuli that are presented with valid primes in one list are presented with invalid primes in the other, then half of the subjects are tested according to list 1, the second half - according to list 2, the samples are presented in a pseudo-random order so that on each test the respondent has a 50% probability of answering “yes”, the reaction time is analyzed, which is the time interval between the start of the stimulus presentation and the button is pressed, while the reaction time is analyzed only for correct answers and only for reaction time with latency from 300 to 1500 ms after the start of presentation of the target stimulus Thus, the results obtained for neutral and target stimuli are grouped into two groups: the first group is pressing the “yes” button upon presentation of the target stimulus after a valid prime, the second group is pressing the “yes” button on the target stimulus after an invalid prime, then for 2 - 10 minutes are presented with advertising materials from the block of advertising materials, and repeat a series of 15-20 samples, the results obtained after the presentation of advertising materials are grouped into two groups: the third group - pressing the "yes" button upon presentation of the target stimulus after a valid prime, the fourth group - pressing the “yes” button upon presentation of the target stimulus after an invalid prime, calculate the average reaction time and standard deviation for each group and compare the results obtained for the first and second groups, the third and fourth groups, the first and third groups, with a statistically significant lower average reaction time for the third group compared to the first using Student's t-test for paired comparisons th, with a p-criterion of significance less than 0.01%, they conclude that advertising is effective, and with an insignificant difference between the average values of the reaction time, determined by a p-criterion of significance equal to or greater than 0.01%, they conclude that advertising is ineffective, also when comparing the results between the first third groups, the strength is determined as a coefficient, which is defined as the difference between the two average values of the reaction time, divided by the total standard deviation, with a coefficient value of less than 0.4, they conclude that advertising is ineffective, with a value of more than 0.8, they conclude about the effectiveness of advertising. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the primes to the target stimuli, which are pseudowords, are pseudowords.

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