Simultaneous exposure to a program and advertising content in an interactive context: Perceptual and semantic interference and reinforcement

New media, such as the Internet or interactive digital television (a merger of television and Internet technology), often combine different sensory inputs and different types of media content simultaneously. These combined information cues may interfere with each other or reinforce the processing of each other. Two experiments explore perceptual and semantic interference and reinforcement mechanisms and their impact on self-reported attention and clicking behavior. Experiment 1 shows that in the case of an interactive ad containing text and pictures, a simultaneous audiovisual program context leads to less attention and clicking than an auditory context. Experiment 2 indicates that in the case of goal-directed browsing, a congruent program context leads to more attention and clicking than an incongruent context.