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As social work doctoral programs are undergoing a substantive shift, in the United States, more institutions of higher education are trending towards a resurgence of a doctorate of social work degree (DSW). However, little attention has been given to the experiences of DSW students. The purpose of this cross-sectional study is to explore why students choose DSW education, professional aspirations, and intended contributions to the field of social work. Findings suggest that 85% of participants noted flexibility as a key selling point and that perceived value added includes professional satisfaction, scholarly leadership, and practice-informed research. The DSW offers the added value of producing seasoned clinical professionals who become highly trained in theory, policy, and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have typically employed cognitive and affective measures to study the effectiveness of brand placement in video games. A psychophysiological approach to measuring effectiveness has been sorely lacking and is necessary to help both academics and practitioners further their understanding of how brand placements work. The current study measures individuals' orienting responses in terms of increased skin conductance and decreased heart rate upon exposure to brand in video games. Results indicate that game players register background advertisements subconsciously even though they may not be able to explicitly recall them later. There were no differences between gamers and nongamers in the recall and recognition of brands from the video game. Furthermore, brands with preexisting favorable attitudes automatically received further processing, suggesting orienting response is an indicator if initial perception rather than further elaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether negative political advertisements elicit automatic activation in the aversive motivational system among viewers. A measure is introduced--the eyeblink startle reflex--that provides evidence that negative ads do activate the aversive motivational system. As these participants watched negative political ads, physiological responses indicated that their body was reflexively preparing to move away. Negative ads also elicited more physiological and self-reported arousal than moderate ads. Recognition data show that detailed information from negative ads is better recognized; however, participants were also more likely to incorrectly report that they recognized information from negative ads they did not see. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Advertising executive Kevin Roberts proposed that premium profits lie in strong emotional connections with brands that engender 'loyalty beyond reason.' This study uses psychophysiological measures to empirically investigate the basic premises asserted by Roberts (2005): consumers' connections with brands are rooted in emotion, and that consumers connect with their own idiosyncratic set of brands. Data support this conceptualization of brand love. Individuals' unique set of more-loved brands elicited characteristically positive emotional responses. This was not the case for category preferences. The notion of brand love, which varies at an individual level, is compatible with the current trend toward targeted advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the reliability and validity of the eyeblink startle reflex as a measure of emotional and motivational responding to television content. A pretest uses continuous response measurement to identify pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant scenes from a television drama. Acoustic startle probe methodology and facial electromyography are used to measure responding to these scenes during an experiment. Although past research has suggested that the startle reflex is a reliable measure of emotional responding to television and film content, there is reason to expect that this effect may be obfuscated if the probe falls close to a camera change or scene change. The startle reflex data offer convergent validity with the continuous response data and concurrent validity with the facial electromyographic data. However, the presence of a camera change or scene change within 500 ms of the startle probe did disrupt the emotional modulation of the reflex. These data show that the startle reflex can be a valid and reliable temporally precise measure of emotional responding to television programming if proximity to scene changes and camera changes is controlled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human sensory processing does not occur in a vacuum. Instead it unfolds over time and reflects the motivational goals of the person. The perceptual system identifies emotionally relevant stimuli from the world, and these stimuli are processed differently than unemotional stimuli. As the nervous system prepares the body for action, motivated attention is directed to relevant objects in the world. These processes are not separable but rather reflect a unified embodied cognition. When visual information is mediated, the body still responds, and cognition of emotionally charged mediated topics reflects the body's responses. This article outlines a dynamic, embodied approach to the cognitive processing of mediated stimuli, presents a connectionist model to account for the cognitive processing, and compares model predictions with past results. The model is driven by data and theoretical work in communication showing that arousal fundamentally affects processing of and memory for mediated messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study directly tests the hypothesis that secondary task reaction time (STRTs) measured during television viewing index available resources rather than resources allocated by the viewer, resources required by the message, or resources remaining in the system. An initial test of the hypothesis did not support the theoretical interpretation of STRTs as either available or remaining resources. A subsequent secondary analysis introduced a new measure of television message complexity called information introduced. The stimuli were recoded using this measure and reanalyzed to test the same hypothesis. Results of the secondary analysis yielded a pattern of STRT responses supporting the prediction that STRTs are indexing available resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a variety of domains, complexity has been shown to be an important factor affecting cognitive processing. Complexes syntax is 1 of the ways in which complexity has been shown to burden cognitive processing. Research has also shown that the determination of a message's truth, or reality, is affected by message complexity. Cognitive burden has been shown to cause unrealistic events to be judged as more real. Two experiments investigate the effects of syntactic complexity on the typically assessment of previously rated typical and atypical television scenarios. Complex syntax exhibited a curvilinear effect on reality assessment, such that highly typical events became more unreal and highly atypical events became more real, whereas moderately typical scenarios were unaffected. The cognitive load added by complex syntax appeared to limit the processing of both reality and unreality cues. Adding time pressure was expected to increase cognitive load; however, it appeared to reverse the effects of complex syntax. Participants' syntax recognition results suggested that the complex syntax did burden processing as predicted. Tests with response latencies indicated that atypical scenarios and scenarios described which complex syntax were more slowly recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how game playing experience changes when a story is added to a first-person shooter game. Dependent variables include identification, presence, emotional experiences and motivations. When story was present, game players felt greater identification, sense of presence, and physiological arousal. The presence of story did not affect self-reported arousal or dominance. This study clearly demonstrates that story is something that video game players enjoy; it helps involve them in the game play, makes them feel more immersed in the virtual environment, and keeps them aroused. The greater character identification may be especially worrisome, as past research has shown that justified media violence disinhibits actual aggression on the part of the audience [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its introduction in 1957, Noam Chomsky's theory of transformational grammar has been the subject of much psycholinguistic research. Through several metamorphoses, the theory has remained controversial as to whether it represents how the mind actually processes language. Psycholinguists have studied this area over several decades. Syntactic structure has been studied in terms of recall and effects on reaction time to secondary tasks, but little is known about syntactic structure and attitude formation. Advertising researchers have looked at the effects of many types of complexity (e.g., semantic and visual), but few have investigated the effects of syntactic complexity on attitude formation. This study used a within-subjects experiment to examine how surface-structure transformations affected readers' comprehension, recognition, recall, and attitudes toward slogans. As expected, syntactic complexity did not affect the comprehension of advertising slogans, but simple-syntax versions—especially the active voice—showed an advantage in recognition. Slogans with moderate syntactic complexity showed a significant positive effect on free morphemic recall and attitude toward the advertisement, but a high degree of syntactic manipulations resulted in significantly lower free morphemic recall and attitudes toward the ad, suggesting a possible curvilinear relationship. These findings and implications for advertising professionals and educators are discussed. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]