摘要：
Visual media have been the most prominent stimuli used in research on cognitive processing of media. However, a career as a radio announcer and commercial producer served as a springboard into my own scientific investigations exploring how the brain processes audio messages. Taking this “road less travelled” has resulted in a series of studies which provide the focus of the talk. I will begin by briefly arguing in favor of the presumption that the human cognitive system evolved in such a way as to produce a reflexive cognitive response to auditory changes in the immediate environment. This established, I will then present experimental data showing that this system—which evolved as a result of survival benefits in a concrete/physical world—has modern day consequences on how we processing auditory information in modern mediated environments. The first results are from experiments designed to identify the precise auditory structural features of media capable of eliciting this reflexive cognitive response. A second series of studies will be presented where the primary experimental variation consisted of changing the number of these structural features in audio messages. The talk will conclude with results from my most current scholarly audio adventure, one where hypotheses are tested concerning not merely the number of auditory changes that occur within a message, but also the relative cognitive load that these changes impose on the listener.
作者簡介：
Robert F. Potter, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Institute for Communication Research in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington, USA. He spent last academic year on sabbatical as a Visiting Research Scientist in the Interactive Television Research Institute at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia. His research focuses on cognitive processing of sound and how that impacts media audiences. His forthcoming book (with Paul Bolls) is Psychophysiological Measurement and Meaning: Cognitive and Emotional Processing of Media (Routledge). More details on Potter's research, teaching, and work experience in the American radio industry can be found at his website: http://www.theaudioprof.com.