'What Is It?' Orienting to Structural Features of Radio Messages.

A study examined whether structural features of radio elicit orienting responses in attentive and inattentive listeners. Subjects (college students enrolled in one of three telecommunications courses at a major Midwest university who received course credit for participation) listened to a 12-minute radio stimulus. Results showed that inattentive and attentive listeners exhibited cardiac orienting responses to structural features of radio. The orienting responses of attentive listeners indicated verbal processing while those of inattentive listeners indicated features processing only. No effects of orienting on memory were found. (Contains four figures and 23 references.) (Author/NKA)