When you think back over the day’s events, what do you remember doing? Maybe you made some coffee, did the laundry, then went for a run. What you probably don’t remember is the transition between these events such as walking between rooms or going up the stairs. Why is that? 

As it turns out, our long-term memory is remembered in distinct events. This broken up recall of the past is called event segmentation. Event segmentation occurs in experiences with event boundaries, brief gaps in your memory between events such as walking between rooms, or going up the stairs. These event boundaries are not actually encoded in your brain, which is why it’s a gap in your memory. This lack of encoding is called conceptual closure. 

So why is this important to marketing and consumer behavior? 

In 2020, a group from Neuro-Insight Pty Ltd., Richard Silberstein of Swinburne University of Technology, Shaun Seixas, and Geoffrey Nield, conducted a study analyzing the effect of event boundaries on long-term memory encoding and how it can be applied to commercial effectiveness. 

In this edition of Consumer Behavior Insights, we explore long-term memory encoding and how commercials can make a long-term impression on a customer.

Methodology: Memory Encoding and Its Influence on TV Commercials

Study 1: The Effect of Event Boundaries on Long-Term Memory Encoding. To test the effect of event boundaries on long-term memory encoding, the researchers conducted a study where 50 male participants followed a journey through a ten-room virtual art gallery. Participants explored each room, which had three popular paintings in each one. 

They were in each room for 35 seconds and then virtually transitioned through a doorway. Doorways represented event boundaries and were hypothesized to cause conceptual closure. Doorways were chosen because of a study in 2006 by Radvansky and Copeland which found that participants in virtual reality had trouble recalling their experience when walking through doorways. 

As participants virtually walked through the exhibits, their brain waves were recorded using steady-state topography (SST). SST is a method used in neuroscience to measure brain electrical activity as participants perform a task or view audiovisual material. To measure the brain’s electrical activity in an SST, electrodes are placed around the participant’s scalp in various relevant regions. 

The data showed a decrease in activity at the FC5 electrode as the participants virtually walked through the museum door. The FC5 electrode is placed on the left front side of the brain. It is over the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), which has been associated with long-term memory encoding.

Study 2: A Case Study On The Real-World Impact of Conceptual Closure. The researchers wanted to expand their research to explore how conceptual closure applies to the real world, specifically with commercial effectiveness. In a case study, participants watched one of two TV ad campaigns targeting clients to seek retirement-related financial advice from a company. 

The first campaign took place in July 2014 with 50 participants. In September 2014, 50 more participants were exposed to a re-edited version of the campaign to reduce conceptual closure. In the re-edited version, the brand was introduced earlier and the main characters were stationary throughout the advertisement. Six participants participated in both the July and September studies. All participant’s brain waves were recorded using the same equipment and procedures as the first study. 

The researchers found drops in long-term memory encoding in the first advertisement. The drops were especially low when the brand was featured in the last 3.5 seconds of the video indicating that that was where conceptual closure occurred. In addition, brand linkage increased by 120% after the re-edited advertisement was broadcasted for a month. 

The Results and Implications of Long-Term Memory Encoding and Communication Effectiveness to Consumer Behavior

Overall, this research confirms that event boundaries can in fact decrease long-term memory encoding, as indicated by the drops in brain electrical waves. Although this research did not find conceptual closure as a direct imminent threat to commercials, it suggested commercials should not transition during key moments of presenting a product or brand. 

Remember that conceptual closure does not just occur in commercials and consumer behavior, but in our everyday life. Circle back to the beginning of this piece when you thought about the day’s events. How many moments of your life do you think have been forgotten because of conceptual closure? How many event boundaries are in your everyday life?

Your Pop Neuro Consumer Behavior Insights: 

• Our brains encode our long-term memory in a set of events (event segmentation). 

• Event boundaries can decrease long term memory encoding (conceptual closure). 

• Conceptual closure can be changed with small modifications that increase the effectiveness of advertisements.

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References

Blumenfeld, R. S., and Ranganath, C. (2007). Prefrontal cortex and long-term memory encoding: an integrative review of findings from neuropsychology and neuroimaging. Neuroscientist 13, 280–291. doi: 10.1177/1073858407299290 

Buckner, R. L., Kelley, W. M., and Petersen, S. E. (1999). Frontal cortex contributes to human memory formation. Nat. Neurosci. 2, 311–314. doi: 10.1038/7221 

Radvansky, G. A., and Copeland, D. E. (2006). Walking through doorways causes forgetting: situation models and experienced space. Mem. Cogn. 34, 1150–1156. doi: 10.3758/bf03193261

Silberstein, R., Seixas, S., & Nield, G. (2020). Conceptual Closure Elicited by Event Boundary Transitions Affects Commercial Communication Effectiveness. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14, 292. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00292