以知覺負載理論探討遊戲內置廣告的注意力攫取效果

Abstract

玩遊戲是一種任務導向的行為，因此會比其他以隨意瀏覽方式來使用的娛樂媒體耗費更多認知資源，也會使人們在玩遊戲的時候將注意力集中在遊戲目標物上，而沒有剩餘的注意力可用來處理與任務無關的遊戲內置廣告。本文採用知覺負載理論的觀點來探討如何設計一項有效的遊戲內置廣告，認為在低知覺負載的遊戲環境中，玩家多餘的注意力會溢散到遊戲內置廣告上，進而增進對遊戲內置廣告的處理；而在高知覺負載的遊戲環境中，由於遊戲目標任務已經耗盡了玩家的知覺注意力，因此沒有多餘的注意力資源可用來處理遊戲內置廣告。

搭配特定的視覺操控手法：空間注意力和空間不確定性，即使是在高知覺負載的情況下，也可以增進玩家對遊戲內置廣告的訊息處理。空間注意力是指當遊戲內置廣告的位置至於目標物的群組中或是與目標物重疊在一起時，受測者會自然將注意力分散到遊戲內置廣告上。空間不確定性則是指當受測者越無法預期遊戲內置廣告出現的方向或位置時，遊戲內置廣告越容易捕捉到受測者的注意力。

本研究的實驗一、二分別探討在不同知覺負載（高╱低）情境下，空間注意力（目標物置入型態╱干擾物置入型態）和空間不確定性（干擾物出現方向多╱寡）所帶來的影響。實驗一結果顯示，將品牌商標置於目標物上的注意力捕捉效果確實比將品牌商標置入在與任務無關干擾物時更佳，無論是在再認記憶指標或是眼動指標上均有主要效果。實驗二以干擾物的出現方向多寡來操控空間不確定性高低，低空間不確定性組別中干擾物只有2種出現方向，高空間不確定性則有4種出現方向。統計結果顯示知覺負載與空間不確定性兩項因子之間有接近顯著的交互作用，雖未達顯著水準，但進一步以單因子變異數分析高空間不確定性組別，發現高知覺負載情境中對於遊戲內置廣告的再認記憶顯著比低知覺負載情境高，而在低空間不確定性組別方面，則在平均數上有相反的結果。因此高空間不確定性增進遊戲內置廣告處理的效果得到部分支持。

過去的遊戲內置廣告研究經常忽略遊戲任務佔用認知資源對遊戲內置廣告訊息處理所造成的影響。因此，希望透過本研究，釐清遊戲中的注意力分配機制並提出建議。未來在進行遊戲內置廣告的研究或設計時，都應考量到遊戲主要任務的複雜度。若遊戲任務複雜度高的時候，則可以搭配將廣告與目標物結合，或是增加廣告出現的位置變化等手法，提高遊戲內置廣告的注意力捕捉效果。

Playing digital games is a kind of goal-oriented behavior. Game player usually focus their attention on task-relevant objects and leave no cognitive resources for in-game advertisement processing. This paper applies the perceptual load theory to the problem of creating effective in-game advertisement. We claim that in the game condition involving low perceptual load, spare resources will involuntarily spill over to irrelevant in-game advertisement and increase advertisement processing. In contrast, high perceptual load condition will exhaust attentional resources and eliminate in-game advertisement processing. There are two factors can be used to modulate high perceptual load effect and enhance the in-game advertisement processing: spatial attention and spatial uncertainty. Spatial attention means, people cannot process target and in-game advertisement separately when they are co-localized. On the other hand, spatial uncertainty means the more unpredictable the appearance of in-game advertisement, the more easily the advertisement captures attention. Distractors with high spatial uncertainty feature can produce interference even under high perceptual load. Two experiments were used to explore different attentional capture effect of spatial attention (advetisement was combined with target/ distractor) and spatial uncertainty (2 or 4 possible positions of ads appearance) under high and low perceptual load condition. The results of experiment 1 show that when in-game advertisement was combined with target, it attracted more attention than advertisement was combined with task-irrelevant distractor. We found main effects of spatial attention on both fixation index and recognition performance. Analysis of experiment 2 yielded approaching significant interaction between perceptual load and spatial uncertainty. In addition, under the high spatial uncertainty condition, both recognition sensitivity (A’’) and error rate of high load are significantly better than low load. In contrast to the low spatial uncertainty condition, there are no significant differences between high load and low load. However, the means of A’’ and error rate in low perceptual load condition are still higher than high perceptual load. Overall, the effects of spatial uncertainty are partially supported by experiment 2 results. Reviewing the past studies about in-game advertisement effect, most researchers ignored the affections from task-relevant object. Though perceptual load theory, we clarify the attentional mechanism in digital game and hope to contribute to design an effective in-game advertisement.