In this age of screens, smartphones, virtual assistants and voice-enabled speakers, we constantly receive visual and auditory (听觉的) suggestions of things to do, products to buy, and media to consume. Yet are all these messages created equal? According to a research, the answer is no.
In the spring of 2018, Mariadassou and Bechler, both graduate students of Business, were sitting in a seminar (研讨会), in which they were studying how different types of messages affect decision-making. They learned that people generally perceive someone as more intelligent when they convey spoken information rather than delivering the same message in writing.
As they chatted after class, Mariadassou recalls, “We wondered, ‘What would happen if you apply this to recommendations?’” They believed there is “a general perception that people act on auditory and visual information the same way” and wanted to explore this assumption.
Mariadassou, who is pursuing her PhD in marketing, with Bechler, now a professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, ran a series of studies where the same information was presented to participants in different forms, including computer-generated audio that sounded like a smart speaker.
The researchers were surprised that auditory recommendations for products like beer were more influential than textual ones. “In theory, this shouldn’t produce any difference in behavior,” Mariadassou writes in an email. “Hearing that you should drink the pale beer or reading that you should drink the pale beer is really one and the same. The fact that it leads to psychologically different experiences that are significant enough to lead to a change in behavior is not something you would expect.”
The effect was small but strong enough to demonstrate a “consistent effect of auditory power”, Mariadassou says. She believes the power of auditory information has to do with its ephemeral nature —“it seems like there’s this sort of fundamental need to act on information that’s going away,” she says. Bechler agrees: “When something disappears, it creates a kind of urgency to respond.”
【小题1】Why did Mariadassou and Bechler conduct the studies?| A．To apply what they learned into real life. |
| B．To find out what people are more intelligent. |
| C．To explore the reasons behind people’s different behaviors. |
| D．To test if different types of messages affect recommendations. |
| A．The findings of the research. |
| B．The theory behind the research. |
| C．The application of the research results. |
| D．The explanation of the research process. |
| A．Uncertain. | B．Temporary. | C．Selective. | D．Random. |
| A．Effect of Auditory Power Has Been Long Neglected |
| B．People Act on Auditory and Visual Information Equally |
| C．Effective Recommendations Are Better Heard Than Seen |
| D．Decision-making Has Little to Do With Types of Messages |
