Running Over Virtual Pedestrians Helps In-Game Ad Recall

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."

Comments

I'm just guessing here...

[Chris Burke]

But maybe the basic game sucks and is boring, and running down pedestrians and seeing the blood splatter is the only thing that spices it up and gets the player to actually pay attention.