Question

"Do we retain more or less information from advertisements in which the narrator is speaking more quickly?" A group of researchers set out to address this question. Some of the researchers theorized that faster speech results in a viewer paying more attention to the commercial, and thus that the information retained will be higher. Others theorized that faster speech will be harder to process, resulting in less retained information. They conducted their experiment as follows: They defined three different speech speeds: Slow (160 words per minute), Medium (180 words per minute) and Fast (200 words per minute). They also believed that there might be an effect of commercial repetition: whether a commercial is played only once, or twice; we will call this variable the "play count". Each subject was assigned to listen to a hamburger commercial at one of the speech speeds and one of the play counts. a. What is/are the explanatory variable(s) in the study? What are the treatments? b. Suggest a response variable that the researchers can use for this study. Make sure to give a specific example, and explain how it can be quantified. c. The reason that the researchers chose to consider both speech speed and play count is that they believe there might be a possible interaction between the two variables. Give a specific example of a way in which interaction could occur in the results. Use one to two sentences.

Answer 1

a. Explanatory variables: Speech speed (Slow, Medium, Fast) and play count (once or twice).

b. Response variable: Information Retention Score, measured by participants' correct answers to questions about the commercial content.

c. Interaction example: Information retention could be similar for Slow speech played once and Fast speech played twice, suggesting an interaction where speech speed's effect depends on play count, challenging the assumption of independent effects.