| This study examines the acoustic startle probe's usefulness as a tool to better understand the cognitive processing of television and mediated messages. Television is an emotionally charged, variably redundant medium present in most American's lives. Better understanding how people respond to television will help craft mediated messages that better achieve their goals.;This study draws upon theories of emotion that conceive of behavior being driven by two motivational systems, one appetitive and one aversive. Two pre-attentive reflexes, the orienting reflex and the startle reflex, are examined in three affective foregrounds: positive, neutral, and negative. The orienting reflex has been theorized to offer protection for subsequent perceptual input, whereas the startle reflex has been described as a cognitive interrupt. Two experiments were conducted to test hypotheses about motivational activation, the protective function of the orienting reflex, and the interruptive function of the startle.;The first experiment collected continuous self-report ratings of emotional valence from 44 participants in order to select positive, neutral, and negative scenes for use in the second experiment. In addition, audio and video recognition were tested at multiple exposure durations to determine appropriate durations for testing recognition in experiment two.;In experiment two, 50 participants viewed the drama while physiological data were collected. A camera change was used to elicit an orienting reflex, and an acoustic startle probe elicited a startle reflex. The inter-reflex interval between the camera change and acoustic startle probe was varied. Recognition for scenes and clips at various time intervals following the camera change was tested.;Results showed evidence for a zone of protection only during positive contexts; there was no such evidence during neutral or negative contexts. On the other hand, solid evidence supported the contention that a startle interrupts ongoing processing and that the interruption is correlated to the magnitude of the startle response.;The visual recognition data were formally fit with a connectionist time-delay model. The model provided a good qualitative fit for the data, and the startle probe did appear to work as an interrupt for negative content---especially when the probe closely followed a camera change. |
