Huh? Study finds taboo billboards improve driving performance

By guest blogger Richard StephensThe 1994 Wonderbra© billboard campaign with its distinctive “Hello Boys!” catchphrase regularly gets a mention as one of most iconic advert series of all time. Its portrayal of super model Eva Herzigova clad only in black lacey pants and gravity-defying bra is said to have sent drivers veering off the roads. However a new study published in the esteemed journal Acta Psycologica suggests that attention grabbing billboard ads may actually have the opposite effect on driving performance.Michelle Chan and colleagues from the University of Alberta, Canada, were sufficiently concerned about the effects of driver inattention on road vehicle accident rates that they ran a study using a driving simulator in a bid to find out just what kinds of effects roadside advertising strategies might be having on drivers.A number of psychology students took a simulated drive along a road that was largely indistinctive apart from a succession of advertising billboards. The hoardings that they drove past each depicted a single word. Some words were deliberately positive (e.g. “liberty”) while others were negative (e.g. “gloom”) and still others were chosen for their neutrality (e.g. “errand”).Image of driving simulator taken from Chan et al 2016Eye-catchingly, a further selection of words including “asshole”, “f.” and “dildo” were chosen because they were taboo. As the students drove along the simulated route a computer measured and reco...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Source Type: blogs