ArticleTobacco control2017
Effect of message congruency on attention and recall in pictorial health warning labels.
Article in Tobacco control, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04279483 (Geo Smoking Study and Neural and Geospatial Examination of Smokers' Exposure to Retail Environments), which is not on this map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Geo Smoking Study and Neural and Geospatial Examination of Smokers' Exposure to Retail Environments
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The effectiveness of graphic health warnings on tobacco products: a systematic review on perceived harm and quit intentions.BMC public health · 2021Pooled it
- The role of sympathy in motivating behaviour change: a discrete emotions approach to examining responses to cancer warning labels for alcohol.Health education research · 2025Trial
- Campaign messages to support pictorial health warning labels for little cigars and cigarillos: an online survey-based experiment.BMJ open · 2025Trial
- Effects of narrative versus non-narrative pictorial warning labels on visual attention and alcohol-related cancer risk perceptions: An eye-tracking study.Addictive behaviors · 2025Trial
- Effects of pictorial warning labels depicting lesser-known and well-known risks of smoking on viewing patterns, recall, and knowledge of smoking harms.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2023Trial
- Responses to pictorial versus text-only cigarillo warnings among a nationally representative sample of US young adults.Tobacco control · 2023Trial
- Effects of advertising features on smokers' and non-smokers' perceptions of a reduced nicotine cigarette modified risk tobacco product.Tobacco control · 2023Trial
- Mediational Effects on Motivation to Quit Smoking After Exposure to a Cigarette Pictorial Warning Label Among Young Adults.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2022Trial
- An Experimental Study of Nicotine Warning Statements in E-cigarette Tweets.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2020Trial
- Designing Effective Testimonial Pictorial Warning Labels for Tobacco Products.Health communication · 2019Trial
- Testing Cessation Messages for Cigarette Package Inserts: Findings from a Best/Worst Discrete Choice Experiment.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Trial
- The Role of Harm Visibility for Pictorial Health Warning Labels on Cigars.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2025Article
- Young Adults' Attention to Reduced Exposure Claims in IQOS Advertising and Associations With Product Perceptions and Use Intentions.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2025Article
- Effects of reduced nicotine content cigarette advertising with warning labels and social media features on product perceptions among young adults.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2023Article
- Examining Visual Attention to Tobacco Marketing Materials Among Young Adult Smokers: Protocol for a Remote Webcam-Based Eye-Tracking Experiment.JMIR research protocols · 2023Article
- Eye tracking applied to tobacco smoking: current directions and future perspectives.Journal of eye movement research · 2022Article
- Masculine men do not like feminine wording: The effectiveness of gendered wording in health promotion leaflets in the UK.PloS one · 2022Article
- Evaluating Cigarette Pack Insert Messages with Tips to Quit.Tobacco regulatory science · 2021Article
- Developing Pictorial Cigarillo Warnings: Insights From Focus Groups.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2021Article
- Examining risk and crisis communications of government agencies and stakeholders during early-stages of COVID-19 on Twitter.Computers in human behavior · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveThe nine pictorial health warning labels (PWLs) proposed by the US Food and Drug Administration vary in format and feature of visual and textual information. Congruency is the degree to which visual and textual features reflect a common theme. This characteristic can affect attention and recall of label content. This study investigates the effect of congruency in PWLs on smoker's attention and recall of label content.
methods120 daily smokers were randomly assigned to view either congruent or incongruent PWLs, while having their eye movements recorded. Participants were asked to recall label content immediately after exposure and 5 days later.
resultsOverall, the image was viewed more and recalled better than the text. Smokers in the incongruent condition spent more time focusing on the text than smokers in the congruent condition (p=0.03), but dwell time of the image did not differ. Despite lower dwell time on the text, smokers in the congruent condition were more likely to correctly recall it on day 1 (p=0.02) and the risk message of the PWLs on both day 1 (p=0.01) and day 5 (p=0.006) than smokers in the incongruent condition.
conclusionsThis study identifies an important design feature of PWLs and demonstrates objective differences in how smokers process PWLs. Our results suggest that message congruency between visual and textual information is beneficial to recall of label content. Moreover, images captured and held smokers' attention better than the text.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.