Integrating Ad Information: A Text-Processing Perspective

This article utilizes psycholinguistic models to examine text processing in advertising. In particular, the article theorizes that forming an accurate mental representation of the text content of ads is essential for comprehension and can influence evaluations. Two conditions must be met in order to form a mental representation: referential continuity and coherence. A text possesses referential continuity if each of its parts refers, implicitly or explicitly, to an entity introduced in the previous part. A text is coherent if individuals can readily integrate its parts. Four empirical studies suggest that the repetition of certain verbal and pictorial cues can help provide referential continuity and that an ad's structure, or presentation format, can facilitate coherence but only when referential continuity is established.