This evening's bad news: Effects of compelling negative television news images on memory

This study is an experiment investigating the relationship between compelling negative images in television news, and memory for information in the stories. The independent variable for the study is the presence or absence of compelling negative images in television news stories. The dependent variables are verbal and nonverbal memory for the stories.;Undergraduate subjects were shown a stimulus tape containing eight news stories, four with 20 to 30 seconds of negative compelling images, and four without the compelling images. After a brief pause, they were shown a second video tape made up of one-second segments of video material and two-second segments of audio material from the stimuli and other foil material they had not seen. Memory was measured by latency to response and accuracy data, collected through a computer-video interface. After viewing the second tape, subjects filled out a brief questionnaire, testing for learning of material in the narrative.;Memory differences were found before, during, and after the presence of negative compelling images.;First, as predicted, compelling negative images produced retroactive interference for material preceding them. This result was detected by two measures: Latency to recognition times for visual material were slower for material that was preceded by negative compelling images than were recognition times for material that was not preceded by the compelling images. Cued recognition for factual material contained in the story narrative was lower for material that was preceded by negative compelling images than for material that was not.;Second, also as predicted, during the presence of negative compelling images memory for audio material was worse for semantically intact audio information than for audio material with no semantic meaning.;Third, memory for material after compelling images was better than for material that was not preceded by the images. This was reflected in faster scores for recognition of visual material, and better cued recognition scores for factual material in the narrative.;The results fit well into a model of the television viewer as a limited-resource information processor, from whom negative compelling images require so much effort that they interfere with the encoding of material preceding them. After the images have been integrated into existing knowledge representations, however, increased capacity resulting from arousal leads to improved memory and learning for subsequent material.