Cognitive Mechanisms
Several cognitive mechanisms that explain cultivation effects have been put forth by Shrum (1995; 1996; 1997). Shrum's availability heuristic explanation suggests that heavy viewers tend to have more frequent, recent, and vivid instances of television reality on the "top of the head" (i.e., available and accessible) when surveyors ask them questions, resulting in more responses that relate to television viewing and also speedier responses. Another mechanism that might explain the cultivation phenomenon is a cognitive-narrative mechanism. Previous research suggests that the realism of television narratives in combination with individual-level "transportability," or the ability to adopt a less critical stance toward a narrative, might facilitate cultivation effects (e.g., Bilandzic & Busselle, 2008).
Read more about this topic: Cultivation Theory
Famous quotes containing the word cognitive:
“Realism holds that things known may continue to exist unaltered when they are not known, or that things may pass in and out of the cognitive relation without prejudice to their reality, or that the existence of a thing is not correlated with or dependent upon the fact that anybody experiences it, perceives it, conceives it, or is in any way aware of it.”
—William Pepperell Montague (1842–1910)