The influence of advertisements on the conspicuity of routing information

Abstract

An experiment is described in which the influence of advertisements on the conspicuity of routing information was investigated. Stimulus material consisted of colour slides of 12 railway station scenes. In two of these scenes, number and size of advertisements were systematically varied. Subjects were instructed to locate routing signs in the scenes. Performance on the location task was used as a measure of the routing sign conspicuity. The results show that inserting an advertisement lessens the conspicuity of the routing information. This effect becomes stronger if more or larger advertisements are added.