Spoken and Typed Expressions of Repeated Attitudes: Matching Response Modes Leads to Attitude Retrieval versus Construction

Abstract

Speaking and typing recruit different cognitive, motor, and perceptual systems that result in the encoding of differentiated memory traces. These factors did not affect the expression of stimulus-based attitudes. However, matching response modes resulted in more consistent repeated attitudes in experiment 1 and more predictable choice behaviors in experiment 2 than mismatching response modes. Judgment-confidence and recall data in experiment 3 indicate that matching (mismatching) response modes leads to attitude retrieval (construction). These findings are of growing relevance to marketers and opinion pollsters who assess attitudes expressed orally and, increasingly, in typed form over the Internet.