Insidious Effects of Syntactic Complexity: Are Ads Targeting Older Adults Too Complex to Remember?
研究发现针对老年人的印刷广告包含句法复杂性，常用可读性指标无法检测，且这种复杂性会损害65岁以上老年人的信息记忆，即使在高动机下也如此。
This research examines the role of syntactic complexity—complexity induced by the sentence structure of the text—on memory for print ads. The authors find that ads aimed at older adults contain significant complexity, which commonly used readability indexes fail to detect. Further, syntactic complexity adversely affects message recall in older (age 65 and up), but not younger, adults. This adverse effect of syntactic complexity on memory continues even when motivation to process the message is high. The authors discuss the implications of these findings.