Information Processing Fluency Research Articles

Can AI fully replace human designers? Matching effects between declared creator types and advertising appeals on tourists’ visit intentions

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers digital tools that advertisers can use to create ads and automate various advertising processes. It has reorganized and upgraded traditional advertising and specifically improved advertising efficiency for tourist destinations. Adopting the computers-are-social-actors paradigm and spreading–activation theory, this study examined how the relationship between declared creator types (AI vs. human) and advertising appeals (rational vs. emotional) affects individuals' visit intentions. Three scenario-based experiments were conducted. They revealed that advertisements with rational appeals improved visit intention for AI-generated ads more effectively. In contrast, those with emotional appeals were more attractive when the declared creator was human. This effect was mediated by information processing fluency. The results also confirmed the moderating role of tourists’ involvement in these relationships. This research expands the range of applications of AI-generated content in advertising and can inform practical marketing strategies for tourist destinations.

Green consumption by design: interaction experiences and customization intentions

PurposeThis study investigated the impacts of the interaction experiential customization (IEC) mode on consumers' information processing fluency and green customization intention (GCI) as well as the moderating effect of consumers' self-construal.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted an online field experiment, questionnaire study and between-subjects laboratory experiment to test the hypotheses.FindingsIt was found that IEC had a significant positive effect on consumers' GCI. Moreover, consumer retrieval processing fluency played a partial mediating role in the relationship between IEC and GCI. In addition, consumers' self-construal moderated the “IEC? Three dimensions of processing fluency” relationships.Practical implicationsThe results emphasized the importance of IEC in influencing consumers' consumption intention in a green customization setting and have some practical implications, that is, companies have the opportunity to use appropriate digital choice architecture designs, which can enhance consumer processing fluency when promoting eco-friendly products in the customized consumption process, especially for independent consumers.Originality/valueThis study focused on the customization design on consumers' GCI and explained the mechanism of impact of IEC on improving consumers' processing fluency and GCI in a product customization setting based on the fluency theory. In addition, this study investigated the moderating effect of consumers' self-construal (independent vs interdependent) on their significant different information processing modes for low-carbon choices.

사회적 크라우딩과 전문가 생성 콘텐츠가 소비자 정보 채택에 미치는 영향

Social media marketing has become an integral part of integrated marketing communications, playing a significant role in establishing strong relationships between businesses and consumers. The study focuses on categorizing content generated by professional bloggers into experiential and promotional types, considering that consumers’ levels of product information and risk perception vary, influencing their intent to adopt information.
 Therefore, businesses should select appropriate environments based on the type of product content to enhance consumer’ willingness to adopt information. Consequently, the exploration of how to effectively increase consumers’ intent to adopt information by selecting environments is a relevant issue. In this study, the common social phenomenon of social crowding is explored visually, applying the heuristic-systematic model theory. The study investigates the impact of social crowding and professional blogger content types on consumers’ intent to adopt information. The research hypotheses were validated through three experiments, demonstrating that the interaction effect between professional user-generated content types and social crowding influences consumer information adoption. Furthermore, information processing fluency showed a mediating effect on the impact of professional generated content types and social crowding on consumer information adoption. The study also verified a moderating effect of consume knowledge levels on the interaction effect between professional generated content types and social crowding on consumer information adoption.
 Theoretically, this study enriches research in the fields of social crowding and content marketing, providing insights for businesses in formulating marketing strategies. It emphasizes the importance of selecting appropriate social crowding situations for various types of content marketing activities.

Does having more power make people more materialistic? The role of personal sense of power for gift preferences.

Gift-giving is a prevalent practice in daily life, with experiential gifts being identified in studies as having hedonic and interpersonal advantages, often yielding greater recipient satisfaction compared to material gifts. However, the reception of experiential gifts might not always align with expectations, as material gifts are valued for their enduring qualities. Thus, comprehending the contexts favoring material or experiential gift preferences becomes crucial. Existing research primarily delves into external influences like income and social proximity, while intrinsic factors such as personal sense of power in interpersonal interactions have received limited attention. Guided by the Agentic-communal Model of Power, we conducted three studies to investigate how personal sense of power impact gift preferences. Our findings demonstrated that gift preferences are contingent upon personal sense of power. Specifically, those possessing a high personal sense of power exhibited a preference for material gifts over experiential ones, whereas individuals with a low personal sense of power favored experiential gifts over material ones. Further analysis revealed that the relationship between personal sense of power and gift preference is mediated by information processing fluency. This study contributes to the field of gift preferences and sheds light on the role of personal sense of power. By incorporating the Agentic-communal Model of Power, we offer novel insights into the dynamics between personal sense of power and gift preferences. These findings hold valuable implications for managerial strategies concerning gift selection and interpersonal interactions.

Alignment of images and text in tourism logos: Influence on attitude toward tourist destinations

Three experiments were conducted in China based on the theory of optimal viewing position effect. We designed 12 tourism brand logos with either the image on the left and the text on the right or the text on the left and the image on the right as stimuli. Participants were students from a Chinese university ( = 120 per experiment), who completed the between-subjects design tests. Consumers had more positive attitudes toward tourist destinations when viewing a logo with the combined horizontal form of image left and text right. Information processing fluency mediated this process. Furthermore, personal need for structure moderated the influence of the horizontal alignment of images and text in tourism logos on people's attitude toward tourist destinations. Our findings can improve tourists' perception of tourist destinations and assist the industry in improving marketing strategies related to tourism logos.

The Interactive Effect of Emotion and Voice on Voice Endorsement

How emotion in voice expressions affects voice endorsements is less understood. In this paper, we followed two lines of reasoning and incorporated the arguments of promotive and prohibitive voice to explain when and how emotional voice expressions facilitate voice endorsements. Specifically, based on the display rule of emotion perspective, we proposed that expressing positive emotion would lead to more voice endorsements through perceived voicers' emotion management ability, especially for prohibitive voice. However, based on the information processing perspective, we proposed that positive voice expression of promotive voice and negative expression of prohibitive voice would increase information processing fluency by eliciting perceived emotional expression authenticity, leading to higher voice endorsements. Results from two studies consistently supported the display rule of emotion perspective explanation. The practical implication, as well as future research direction, is discussed.

How Does the Horizontal Position of Pictures and Text Affect Product Evaluation? Based on Left and Right Position Effect.

Due to the untouchability of online shopping environment, image and text description, as two main ways of product information display, are important indicators for consumers to evaluate products. However, few studies have discussed the synergistic effects of image and text information on consumers. In the present study, in conjunction with the left-right position effect, we examine the expectation that horizontal placement of visual stimuli in different directions has a strong influence on consumers’ product evaluation preferences. This implicit assumption is based on consumers’ unconscious psychological need for closure when processing information. The authors conducted three studies to investigate the relative effects of image information and text statements at different locations in online shopping pages on consumer product evaluations. The results show that: (1) when the evaluation object is a search product, compared with the display mode of left text-right image, the display mode of left image-right text plays a more significant role in consumer product evaluation. The results of experiential products were just the opposite. The way of presenting the text declaration on the left and image on the right has a stronger impact on consumers’ evaluation preference for experiential products (Study 1 and Study 3). (2) The difference in consumers’ evaluation mode of different presentation sequences based on product attributes is driven by their visual information processing fluency (Study 2). These preferences are robust, and it is worth noting that only the order of graphic presentation has no significant influence on consumer product evaluation preference.

A Matching Study on the Influence of Advertised Information Expression and Product Type on Consumer Purchase Intention.

Due to extensive product differentiation and the personalized aesthetic needs of consumers, modern enterprises need different expressions of information to attract consumers’ interest and improve their purchase intention. This study draws from the elaboration likelihood model, anchoring theory, and media richness theory to explore how the expression of advertised information can be effectively matched to the product type to enhance consumers’ purchase intention. The mediating effect of information-processing fluency and moderating effect of consumers’ personal involvement on this relationship is also explored. Data from experiments and questionnaires involving 1,292 participants were analyzed. The results show that direct expression of advertised information is more suitable for advertising search products, while metaphorical expressions of advertised information are more suitable for advertising experience products. These combinations of product type and expression of advertised information can effectively improve consumers’ purchase intention. Meanwhile, the main combined effect of the product type and expression of advertised information is mediated by consumers’ information-processing fluency, and moderated by consumers’ personal involvement positively.

Are People Able to Disentangle Perceptual and Conceptual Fluency? Evidence from Artificial Grammar Learning Experiment

The heuristic of information processing fluency plays an important role in making judgments. Some sources of processing fluency can be relevant or irrelevant to the content of a judgment. In this study, we aim to check whether individuals can distinguish different sources of fluency or fluency has a general effect on judgments. We used an artificial grammar learning paradigm (AGL) and tested the effects of different fluency sources (grammaticality and perceptual noise) on the judgment of grammaticality or of subjective ease of reading. It was found that both grammaticality and perceptual noise affected grammaticality judgements: the grammatical and the less noisy strings were evaluated more often as grammatical. However, only the perceptual noise affected judgments of subjective ease of reading. The results obtained provide evidence that fluency may contribute to the effects of implicit learning. It is possible that the processing fluency heuristic is the additional factor of judgement in the lack of explicit knowledge. Perhaps, perceptual noise provided almost complete explicit information for judgment of ease of reading; hence there was no need for additional heuristics. Another possible explanation is that perceptual fluency sources affect the early stages of information processing in a mandatory manner, unlike the conceptual ones. Overall, results are better explained by the non-specificity fluency hypothesis supporting the impossibility to distinguish between different fluency sources.

Bad after bad is good: previous trial disfluency reduces interference promoted by incongruence.

Conflict and perceptual disfluency have been shown to lead to adaptive, sequential, control adjustments. Here, we propose that these effects can be additive, suggesting their integration into a general feeling of disfluent information processing. This hypothesis was tested using an interference task that dynamically mixed trials varying in legibility and/or congruence. Moreover, the manipulation of the proportion of congruent trials within the task allowed differentiating conditions in which these experiences of fluency may vary. Results showed that progressive increases in processing disfluency elicited a matching decrease in the interference of incongruent fluent trials. This linear effect was significant for all proportion of congruence conditions, although lower when incongruent trials were more frequent. These results highlight the role of feelings in the initiation of control and suggest that the monitoring system could be using changes in information processing fluency as a need-for-control signal.

ОТ ИНСАЙТА К АГА!-ПЕРЕЖИВАНИЮ: НОВАЯ ПАРАДИГМА В ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯХ РЕШЕНИЯ ЗАДАЧ

The article is dedicated to the insight phenomenon, namely the explanations of the rela-tionship between cognitive and affective components of insight that different theories suggest. The affective component of insight includes the subjective suddenness, certainty, and pleasure with which the solution comes to mind (Aha! experience). The cognitive component of insight is the assumed mechanisms contributing to the generation of the solution. In the first part of the article, we review classical approaches to explain the insight phenomenon's nature: special processes account and business-as-usual account. In the first approach, two mecha-nisms can be suggested: unconscious associative processing and representational change (restructuring). According to the business-as-usual account, insight solutions do not differ from routine ones and are implemented as a step-by-step movement to the goal state. In the second part of the article, we show that all classical theories of insight problem solving suggest the direct relation between Aha! experience and cognitive mechanisms of insight. Then, we analyze accumulated empirical data that stand for or against this notion. Based on this analysis, we conclude that there is no unequivocal evidence for the direct rela-tion between Aha! experience and the unconscious processing or restructuring. We propose that Aha! experience is an anomaly for the studies of insight problem-solving. The third part of the article aims to review possible ways to resolve the problem of Aha! experience. One way is to consider that the relation between affective and cognitive compo-nents of insight is indirect. We review studies of metacognition where the non-specificity of metacognitive experiences was proposed. According to this idea, metacognitive experiences reflect changes in cognitive processes dynamics (such as the information processing fluency) but do not carry specific information about their source. In the fourth part of the article, the attempts to apply the idea of non-specificity to the Aha! experience are reviewed. We analyze the empirical data supporting the hypothesis of indirect relation between Aha! experience and cognitive mechanisms of insight problem-solving. Based on it, we predict an increase in the number of studies developing this idea.

The Influence of Product Diversity on Consumers’ Impulsive Purchase in Online Shopping Environment

This paper explores the impact of product diversity on consumers’ online impulse purchase intentions in the context of e-commerce development, and finds that product diversity has a significant negative impact on consumers’ online impulse buying intentions. Compared with the great product diversity, consumers have higher online impulse buying willingness when they do not have many choices. Further, we found that this effect is regulated by different shopping objects (oneself vs. intimate others). At the same time, information processing fluency plays a mediating role in this effect.

The Effects of Product Innovation Locus on Consumers Adoption of New Products—Based on Regulatory Focus and Information Processing Fluency

With increasingly fierce market competition, enterprise’s products are also constantly upgrading in order to get the favor of consumers. However, different enterprises have different innovative products’ design ways. Some companies apply innovative technology in the products’ built-in system, while other enterprises will make innovative technology as plug-in peripheral products. Then, will the different locus of products eventually affect consumers purchasing behavior? What is the influence mechanism? This study researches on that product innovation locus matching with regulatory focus of consumers can affect the final purchase intention and explore the mediator role of information processing fluency. The conclusion of study is that product innovation locus matching with regulatory focus of consumers will influence purchase intention, and information processing fluency plays a partial mediator role.

The Effect of Inconsistent Product Attribute Reviews on Consumers’ Purchase Intention

This paper studies how the inconsistent product attributes reviews affect the consumer purchase intention, and discusses the mediating role of information processing fluency and the moderating role of the relationship norm and the ambiguity tolerance. In this study, 3 experiments were conducted to examine the significant effect of inconsistent product attribute reviews on the purchase intention, and the mediating effect of information processing fluency. The relationship between the relationship norm and ambiguity tolerance was also examined. The experimental results validate the research hypothesis, and the research also discusses the theoretical contribution, the management inspiration and the future research direction.

Should I Win or Should I not Lose? : A Research Framework Exploring the Role of Motivation in Processing Brand Related Information in Advergames

Extant research dealing with information processing in advergames focuses mostly on players' limited capacity aspect of attention and persuasion knowledge, persuasive potency of advergames, information-processing fluency, and the development of flow and arousal among players. One primary facet of advergames that remains under-investigated is the effect of game outcomes, that is, wins and losses, on players' motivation and the influence of outcome-induced motivation on information processing. Furthermore, earlier studies predominantly considered players' explicit memory like brand recall and recognition while ignoring a salient unconscious measure, namely implicit memory. This paper provides a conceptual framework that explored the influence of advergame outcomes and messages on players' motivation and its subsequent impact on processing embedded brand elements. Conceptual fabric of the proposed model was derived from a motivational principle, regulatory focus theory, and implicit memory literature to explain how outcome-induced motivation influences players' nature of information processing, implicit memory, emotions, and brand and game attitudes. Academic and managerial implications were also discussed.

Meaning or Sound? The Effects of Brand Name Fluency on Brand Recall and Willingness to Buy

This research argues that both meaning fluency (conceptual fluency) and sound fluency (perceptual fluency) of a brand name affect brand evaluations. Specifically, this research investigates the effects of brand name meaning and sound fluency through an application of information processing fluency theory. The results provide insight into previously unexplained findings in the brand management literature. Two experiments demonstrate that perceptually more fluent brand names lead to higher brand recall, for perceptually less fluent brands names, high conceptual fluency leads to higher brand recall and in cases of low consumer involvement, high perceptual fluency leads to higher willingness to buy.