Real Time Response Measurement in the Social Sciences : Methodological Perspectives and Applications

Do people like a movie? Are consumers attracted by a broadcast commercial? How do voters evaluate the performance of political candidates in a televised debate? Traditional study designs measure the effects of those media stimuli ‘after’ a recipient has been exposed to the ‘entire’ movie, commercial, or debate. This approach has its limitations. Although we can learn if people like a particular stimulus ‘as a whole’ we cannot tell which elements of the stimulus are responsible for the overall judgment. Real-time response (RTR) measurement provides this information. By recording individual spontaneous reactions to media messages on a second-by-second basis this technique offers unique insights into human information processing.