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The Almighty Buck

Running Over Virtual Pedestrians Helps In-Game Ad Recall 144

neuroworld writes to point out a study which found a correlation between in-game violence and a player's ability to recall advertisements seen while playing. The test subjects were given two versions of a driving game, which included "unobtrusive" billboard ads, and their eye movements were recorded by a camera. One version had players hitting targets for points, and the other version had them running down pedestrians. "[The researchers] found ads displayed along with violent scenes to be more memorable to players than those shown with nonviolent content, even though players spent less time looking at them. The results are contrary to expectations stemming from research on television, where violence has been shown to decrease attention to advertisements."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Runemdown!: violence improves recall of in-game ad (trueslant.com)

neuroworld writes: OddFile: Running Over Pedestrians Good... for ad recall in video games, that is.

A recent study tested recall of in-game advertisements (billboards inside a car-racing game) in a violent and non-violent version of an experimental system called AdRacer.

In the non-violent version, you drive around a course scoring points by hitting targets. In the violent version, you score points by running down pedestrians — which then spatters your windshield with blood (see picture above, right).

Despite all that gore in your line of sight, it turns out you remember the ads better when you're acting as a killing machine.

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