Arousal and Attention (Persuasion) (SubtleCommunication)

The ability to attend to a task seems to be closely related to the physiological arousal of the organism. With increase in arousal, performance on any task increases up to some point, beyond which further arousal leads to a decrease in performance. This relation between arousal and performance can be characterized by an inverted U-shaped function and is called the Yerkes-Dodson Law.

Physiological variables such as heart rate and skin conductance seem to be associated with alterations in the allocations of attention.

From this conceptualisation, it can be deduced that a subject’s attention can be brought up to a certain desired level, prior to providing the stimulus or a message so as to achieve the desired result. The cues used can be visual or auditory, with an aim of attuning the heart rate to a certain desired level. This needs to be done prior to the introduction of the main message to assure the subjects attention is drawn. Makes the audience alert to receive a message.

One’s overall level of “preparedness” can be increased. An individual has some finite amount of processing capacity and at any given moment not all of this capacity may be “activated”; if it is not activated it cannot be used.