DOI:10.3966/207321472017120904004

通訊作者黃旭立為國立臺北大學企管系教授，地址：23741 新北市三峽區大學路 151 號，電話：+886-2-86741111 分機 66680，

E-mail：slhuang@mail.ntpu.edu.tw。作者陳弘偉為國立臺北大學企管系研究生，地址：23741 新北市三峽區大學路 151 號，電話：

+886-2-86741111，E-mail：hayabusa7335@hotmail.com。

商 略 學 報

297

注意慣性與認知投入之網路侵擾式廣告研究

黃旭立 國立臺北大學

陳弘偉 國立臺北大學

論文編號：IJCS2017036

收稿 2016 年 7 月 20 日→第一次修正 2017 年 11 月 05 日→正式接受 2017 年 11 月 14 日

侵擾式廣告可吸引網路使用者的注意力，但是當使用者感受到侵擾則會覺得煩躁並迴避廣告。因此，

如何提升廣告的效果並降低廣告侵擾性是一項重要的議題。本篇研究基於注意慣性理論，探討影響注意慣

性的因素以及這些因素對使用者網站內容的認知投入和廣告侵擾性的影響。我們認為當使用者對網站內容

產生注意慣性則會高度投入網站內容，使得廣告侵擾性增加。我們以實驗室實驗法驗證研究模型並發現文

字內容較圖像內容、前後連貫的內容較前後不連貫的內容更易產生認知投入，進而讓使用者感知較高的廣

告侵擾性。本研究的發現可幫助廣告主與廣告服務供應商更有效地投遞網路廣告。

關鍵字：網路侵擾式廣告、認知投入、注意慣性、廣告侵擾性、廣告煩躁性。

DOI:10.3966/207321472017120904004

The Corresponding Author, Shiu-Li Huang, is a professor in the Department of Business Administration, National Taipei University,

Address: No. 151, University Rd., San Shia District, New Taipei City 23741, Taiwan (R.O.C.), Tel: +886-2-86741111 ext. 66680, E-mail:

slhuang@mail.ntpu.edu.tw Hung-Wei Chen is a graduate student in the Department of Business Administration, National Taipei

University, Address: No. 151, University Rd., San Shia District, New Taipei City 23741, Taiwan (R.O.C.), Tel: +886-2-86741111, E-mail:

hayabusa7335@hotmail.com

298

Understanding Online Intrusive Advertising:

A Perspective of Attentional Inertia and Cognitive

Engagement

Shiu-Li Huang National Taipei University

Hung-Wei Chen

National Taipei University

Paper No.：IJCS2017036

Received July 20, 2017→First Revised November 05, 2017→Accepted November 14, 2017

Intrusive advertising has been proposed as one solution to the problem of banner blindness. However, when

viewers perceive intrusiveness, they feel irritated and tend to avoid the ads. How to improve ad effectiveness while

reducing ad intrusiveness is an important issue. Using attentional inertia theory as a basis, this study investigates

the effects of browsing path phases, episode relatedness, and information type on a viewer’s cognitive engagement

with website content. This study also examines the relationship between cognitive engagement and ad intrusiveness.

As a website viewer generates attentional inertia and becomes highly engaged with the content of a webpage,

cognitive processing is intensified and an ad is perceived high intrusiveness. A laboratory experiment is conducted

to examine the proposed research model. We find that when the viewer is highly engaged in the content, the

interruption of the viewer’s browsing task increases the viewer’s perception of the intrusiveness of the ad. The

research findings can help advertisers and ad service providers deliver effective intrusive ads while minimizing the

level of ad intrusiveness.

Key Words: Online Intrusive Advertising, Cognitive Engagement, Attentional Inertia, Ad Intrusiveness, Ad Irritation.

2017

299 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

Introduction

Online advertising, also referred to as ―Internet

advertising‖ or ―digital advertising,‖ uses the Internet

as a medium to deliver information about products,

services and ideas to consumers. Revenues from

online advertising are growing rapidly because of the

low cost and ease with which such advertising allows

small firms to join international markets. Advertisers

can reach consumers and promote brand awareness on

a global scale. Taipei’s Digital Marketing Association

(DMA) reported that online advertising revenues in

Taiwan for the full year of 2016 reached NT$25.9

billion, an increase of 33.7% over 2015 (DMA, 2017).

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s

(IAB) Internet Advertising Revenue Report, online

advertising revenues in the U.S. hit a record-breaking

high of US$72.5 billion for 2016, 22% higher than

2015’s ad revenues (IAB, 2017).

Leong et al. (1998) identified the similarities

and differences between advertising on the Internet

and on other media. They considered the biggest

advantage of the Internet to be its ability to provide

detailed information to consumers and effectively

reach the target audience. However, they also

concluded that ―The Web site is a less-effective

medium for incorporating attention getting devices.‖

This conclusion indicates one shortcoming of online

advertising: online ads are not able to effectively grab

website visitors’ attention. Visitors to a website

consciously or unconsciously ignore banner-like

information, a phenomenon which has been called

―banner blindness.‖ Benway (1998) conducted

experiments and found that when subjects were asked

to find specific information, they often overlooked

distinctive banners, even if the information provided

by the banner might help them achieve their goal. The

experiments verified that, regardless of the format of

the banner ad, viewers tend to neglect the banners.

Intrusive advertising has been proposed as one

solution to the problem of banner blindness. The

perception of an advertisement as intrusive can be

considered a cognitive evaluation of the degree to

which the advertisement interrupts a person's goals (Li

et al., 2002). The concept of intrusiveness was first

noted in Ha’s (1996) study of magazine advertising.

Ha defined intrusiveness as the interruption of

editorial content. From this point of view, when an

online ad interrupts the viewer’s browsing of website

content, the viewer will perceive this interruption as

intrusive. Online advertising seeks to interrupt

webpage content in order to grab the viewer’s

attention. However, ad intrusiveness results in viewer

discomfort which has been described as ad irritation

(Li et al., 2002). When viewers perceive intrusiveness,

they tend to avoid the ads (Edwards et al., 2002;

Goodrich et al., 2015; Seyedghorban et al., 2016).

Therefore, how advertisers can decrease viewers’

perceptions of intrusiveness when delivering intrusive

ads is a critical issue. As has been argued,

intrusiveness can be thought of as a psychological

consequence that occurs when a website visitor’s

ongoing cognitive processes are interrupted by an ad

which is therefore recognized as disturbing (Ha, 1996;

Li et al., 2002). As long as the ads interfere with

cognitive processing, the perception of the ads as

being intrusive is possible (Edwards et al., 2002).

Edwards, Li, and Lee (2002) found that if website

visitors are mentally engaged with the webpage

content, or in some activity on the page, they perceive

a greater level of intrusiveness when an online ad

interferes with their cognitive process. However,

Edwards et al. (2002) did not mention how to measure

the degree of cognitive engagement, or what factors

cause viewers to experience high levels of cognitive

engagement. The present study fills this knowledge

gap.

The theory of attentional inertia postulates that

if a medium of information has held a person's

attention for a period of time, a generalized tendency

develops to sustain attention to that medium.

Cognitive engagement increases over time as the

viewer continues to look at content (e.g., television

programs) (Burns and Anderson, 1993). According to

300 International Journal of Commerce and Strategy December

the theory of attentional inertia, cognitive processing

is intensified and carried out with somewhat greater

depth and elaboration as viewing is sustained.

Cognitive engagement is the consequence of

attentional inertia. Thus, the present study posits that

when attentional inertia occurs, a website viewer is

highly engaged with the website content and is

therefore more likely to perceive ad intrusiveness.

From this point of view, if an online ad can be

delivered when cognitive engagement is at a low level,

the viewer might perceive a lower level of

intrusiveness. According to literature (Hawkins et al.,

1995; Hsieh and Chen, 2011; Wang and Day, 2007),

we consider three factors that may influence

attentional inertia, including browsing path phases,

episode relatedness, and information type.

To summarize, this study would like to answer

the following research questions:

RQ1: How does viewers’ cognitive engagement

with webpage content impact their

perceived ad intrusiveness?

RQ2: To what extent do the factors of attentional

inertia, i.e., browsing path phases, episode

relatedness, and information type, matter in

driving cognitive engagement?

Literature Review and

Hypothesis Development

Intrusive ads might be a solution for banner

blindness. Common types of intrusive ads include

video ads, pop-ups and interstitials. These ads

interrupt webpage viewers and force them to respond

cognitively or behaviorally. Prior studies have found

that intrusive ads may elicit a viewer’s involuntary

attention and result in positive effects such as better ad

recall and recognition (Chatterjee, 2008; McCoy et al.,

2008). However, viewers who perceive such ads as

being highly intrusive feel irritated and tend to avoid

them (Edwards et al., 2002). This study posits that

attentional inertia might drive cognitive engagement,

when viewers are highly engaged with webpage

content their perception of the ad’s intrusiveness will

be high if an ad interrupts the content.

Perceived Ad Intrusiveness

Morimoto and Chang (2006) defined perceived

ad intrusiveness as the degree to which an unwanted

marketing communication interferes with an

individual's cognitive process and tasks, as well as the

interference with media content. Ad intrusiveness

leads to ad irritation, ad avoidance (Edwards et al.,

2002), and lower purchase intention (van Doorn and

Hoekstra, 2013). Ad irritation that caused by

intrusiveness will harm viewers’ attitudes toward the

site (McCoy et al., 2008). Finding an ad to be

irritating has been qualified more negative than

merely disliking the ad (Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985).

Table 1 shows the factors that cause ad

intrusiveness. In summary, ad value (e.g., ad

informativeness, entertainment, and congruence),

interference with cognitive process (e.g., cognitive

intensity and obscuring of site content), user control,

ad placement (ad frequency and quantity), ad size, and

privacy (the use of personal information and viewers’

privacy concerns) have impacts on a viewer’s

perceived ad intrusiveness.

The present study focuses on the factors about

interference with cognitive process. Intrusiveness

occurs when an ad interferes with a website viewer's

cognitive process, e.g., reading website content.

Edwards et al. (2002) proposed that viewers' cognitive

intensity is likely to be higher when they are viewing a

content page than when taking a cognitive pause to

switch pages. They found that viewers perceive higher

ad intrusiveness when an ad displays on a content

page than that when an ad displays between breaks in

content pages. McCoy et al. (2008) reported that if an

ad blocks the site content that users are attempting to

read the ad disrupts their train of thought and thus this

interruption is considered intrusive. These findings

imply that the degree to which a viewer is cognitively

2017

301 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

engaged in webpage content has an impact on

perceived ad intrusiveness. However, extant studies

have not deal with the measure of cognitive

engagement with webpage content and investigated its

antecedents. The present study bridges the knowledge

gap.

Attentional Inertia and Cognitive

Engagement

Attention is regarded as a viewer’s most sparse

and valuable mental resource when surfing the

Internet (Davenport and Beck, 2001). A Web viewer

could be either an information-seeker or a Web-surfer

(Li and Bukovac, 1999). Information seekers have

goal-oriented reasons for browsing the Internet. Since

their desire is to quickly target the necessary

information, they do not waste their valuable attention

Table 1 Factors Causing Ad Intrusiveness

Factor Description Reference

Ad informativeness Ads that are perceived as more informative will be rated as

less intrusive than ads that are perceived as less

informative.

Edwards et al. (2002).

Ad entertainment Ads that are perceived as more entertaining will be rated as

less intrusive than ads that are perceived as less

entertaining.

Edwards et al. (2002);

Ying et al. (2009).

Editorial-ad congruence Ads that are congruent with the editorial content will be

perceived as less intrusive than ads that are not congruent.

Edwards et al. (2002);

Ying et al. (2009).

Cognitive intensity Ads that interrupt content pages will be perceived as more

intrusive than will ads displayed between breaks in content

pages.

Edwards et al. (2002).

Obscuring of site content Ads that obscure the site content will be perceived as more

intrusive than ads that do not obscure the site content.

McCoy et al. (2008);

Ying et al. (2009).

User control Control to remove an ad will lower perceived intrusiveness

if the ad obscures web page content but will raise

intrusiveness otherwise.

McCoy et al. (2008).

Ad frequency Ads that appear with low frequency will be perceived as

less intrusive than ads that appear with high frequency.

Ying et al. (2009).

Ad quantity Ads that appear on a website that seldom plays interstitials

will be perceived as less intrusive than ads that appear in a

website that plays many interstitials.

Ying et al. (2009).

Ad size Ads that are smaller in size will be perceived as less

intrusive than those bigger in size.

Ying et al. (2009).

Use of personal

information

The use of different types of information for personalizing

ads triggers feelings of intrusiveness.

van Doorn and Hoekstra

(2013).

Privacy concerns People with higher levels of privacy concerns perceive the

ad as more intrusive.

van Doorn and Hoekstra

(2013).

302 International Journal of Commerce and Strategy December

on useless information or interferences such as online

ads.

Since attention is a limited mental resource, the

extent to which a viewer pays attention to webpage

content might cause the different levels of cognitive

engagement and a difference in the degree of

perceived intrusiveness of the Internet advertisements.

The theory of attentional inertia postulates that if a

medium of information has held a person's attention

for a period of time, that person develops a general

tendency to sustain attention to that medium. This

general tendency functions as a kind of cognitive glue

to sustain attention to the medium, especially across

discontinuities in comprehension or cognitive

processes (Burns and Anderson, 1993).

A study by Anderson et al. (1987) required

young children to watch a 58-minute English TV

program called ―Sesame Street.‖ As the children

watched the program, color picture slides were

presented on the wall to the right side of the TV

monitor as distractions, accompanied by 0.5-second

beep. The experimental observer noted if and when

the children indicated that their attention had scattered

by turning their heads to look at the distractors. The

study found that the longer the participants had

watched the TV program, the less likely they were to

scatter their attention and turn their heads to look at a

distractor. This phenomenon, according to the findings,

was a product of attentional inertia. An analogous

phenomenon has also been noted in children who are

playing with toys (Choi and Anderson, 1991). A few

years later, Burns and Anderson (1993) examined

attentional inertia during adult television viewing.

They found that the longer the viewer’s gaze was

sustained before a content boundary, the longer the

viewer’s gaze would remain on the new content after

the content boundary. The study also demonstrated

that strong attentional inertia is associated with greater

recognition memory.

The principles of attentional inertia theory

assume that the tendency to sustain attention is weak

at the beginning of a look, but as the look is sustained

the tendency strengthens. As a viewer generates

attentional inertia on a look, cognitive processing is

intensified and carried out with somewhat greater

depth and elaboration (Burns and Anderson, 1993).

Thus, we can conclude that when attentional inertia

occurs the viewer’s cognitive engagement is

intensified.

Cognitive engagement is the determinant of

work performance (Ho et al., 2011) and learning

performance (Appleton et al., 2008). Cognitive

engagement refers to one’s psychological presence

and focus at work. Kahn (1990) demonstrated that in

the process of engagement people employ and express

themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally

during work performances. He also reported that

engagement varies according to the resources people

perceive themselves to have (their availability).

Psychological availability is associated with

individual distractions that preoccupy people to

various degrees and leave them more or fewer

resources with which to engage in work performances.

On the basis of Kahn's study, Rothbard (2001) defined

cognitive engagement as the intense focus of one's

attentions on the work tasks leading to through

absorption and resistance to disturbances. The

availability of cognitive resource is composed of both

the quantity and quality of cognitive efforts, and thus

cognitive engagement has two components: attention

and absorption (Rothbard, 2001). Attention refers to

cognitive availability and the duration of focus on

work. Absorption means being engrossed in work and

refers to the intensity of one's focus on work.

Attention and absorption are distinct yet related

constructs. Attention pertains to the amount of

cognitive resources expended and deals with the

quantity of such cognitive efforts, whereas absorption

entails a much more intense level of concentration and

immersion in one’s work and relates to the quality of

cognitive efforts and investment in work (Ho et al.,

2011; Rothbard, 2001). Cognitive engagement

seemingly comparable to the concept of flow

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), it has been conceptually

2017

303 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

distinguished from flow in prior studies (Rothbard,

2001; Webster and Ho, 1997). Flow is the mental state

of operation in which a person performing an activity

is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full

involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the

activity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). In contrast with

flow, cognitive engagement does not necessarily entail

enjoyment (Rothbard, 2001). Moreover, a flow state is

caused by the user’s sense of control over the

interaction. Webster and Ho (1997) proposed that

individual control is necessary for flow but not for

cognitive engagement. That is, cognitive engagement

that is passive, such as watching television, can exist

but passive flow cannot.

Relationship between Attentional Inertia

and Cognitive Engagement

A basic question about attentional inertia is

whether it leads to cognitive engagement. Prior studies

have confirmed this relationship. Burns and Anderson

(1993) tested the theory of attentional inertia in a

study of 41 undergraduate students' viewing of 2 hours

of videotaped dramatic television programs and

associated commercials. They found that recognition

memory was significantly more accurate for TV

content when the viewer had been looking at the

television for more than 15 sec. This result implies

that information processing is more intense and more

effective as the length of a look progresses through

time.

Lorch et al. (2004) examined story

comprehension in 7- to 11-year-old children diagnosed

with attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder

(ADHD) as well as typical comparison children. The

researchers asked children to view one program with

toys present in the room and the other program with

no toys present. When no toys are present during

viewing, children with ADHD and comparison

children do not differ in their visual attention to the

television. Both groups also show similar performance

on questions (cued recall) testing their understanding

of causal relations between story elements. In contrast,

when toys are present during viewing, the decrease of

visual attention is significantly greater for the children

with ADHD than for the comparison children. For

questions testing causal relations, children with

ADHD show a significant decrease in their

understanding, whereas the comparison children show

no decrement in performance. They found that ADHD

children in the toys condition produced fewer long

looks (> 15 sec) than did the comparison children.

When children with ADHD were engaged in long

looks, their performance on causal relations questions

was comparable to that of the comparison children.

These findings indicate that the length of look is

related to cognitive engagement. Lorch et al. (2004)

concluded that ―these findings are consistent with the

literature on attentional inertia and provide further

support for the interpretation that long looks lead to

deeper cognitive processing.‖

In the field of educational psychology, Jones et

al. (2015) conducted an experiment in which 291

college students read a refutation text about causes of

the common cold. The participants read the text

sentence-by-sentence on a computer. The reading time

was used as the measure of attention allocation. The

results show that when the participants spent more

time to read the text they generated deeper cognitive

engagement (that was measured by a Likert-scale item

that asked the participants to rate how engaged they

were during the reading task) and further resulted in

larger conceptual change (that was measured by scores

on the test of common cold knowledge). Attention

allocation serves as a trigger for cognitive engagement,

longer reading time leads to deeper cognitive

engagement.

Our study defines cognitive engagement as the

level of cognitive resource availability and the

intensity of one's focus on webpage content.

Attentional inertia is defined as a general tendency to

sustain attention to webpage content. Traditionally,

attentional inertia is measured by the length of time a

subject’s eyes are fixated on an object (Wang and Day,

2007). Eye trackers are useful tools to collect this

304 International Journal of Commerce and Strategy December

measurement data, however, it is costly to gather data

from large samples. Prior studies have shown that the

viewer’s cognitive engagement is intensified when

attentional inertia occurs (Burns and Anderson, 1993;

Hawkins et al., 2002; Lorch et al., 2004). Thus,

cognitive engagement is the consequence of

attentional inertia and this study uses the construct

cognitive engagement to be the proxy of attentional

inertia. Cognitive engagement can be measured by the

performance of recall (Burns and Anderson, 1993;

Lorch et al., 2004). A scale will be convenient for

measuring cognitive engagement in various contexts.

We adapted Rothbard’s (2001) work engagement scale

for measuring a viewer’s cognitive engagement with

webpage content.

The extant literature on attentional inertia shows

that phases of a browsing path, episode relatedness,

and information type may influence attentional inertia.

The effects of these factors on cognitive engagement

are examined in this study. We introduce them and

develop our hypotheses in the following subsections.

Phases of a Browsing Path

Wang and Day (2007) investigated the effect of

website structure (i.e., the meaningful path) on the

allocation of attention. Hyperlinks on the current

webpage allow Web surfers to easily visit the next

page or browse to other unrelated information such as

ads. With this in mind, Wang and Day (2007) defined

a meaningful path as a sequence of interlinked pages

with a high level of semantic dependence on each

other. They designed a laboratory experiment that

tracked eye movement behavior along a meaningful

path. Considering browsing paths allowed the

researchers to examine how the continuous flow of

web pages affected banner advertisements. They

hypothesized that the amount of attention allocated to

the main content area varies at different levels of

depth in a meaningful path. Their results showed that

viewers allocate less attention in the early and later

phases of a meaningful path and pay more attention

during the middle phase. In accordance with

attentional inertia theory, the amount of attention a

viewer devotes to the webpage content differs as time

passes, and the allocation of attention will form a

lognormal distribution which can be represented as an

inverted-U shape. For this reason, Wang and Day

suggested that Web ads should be placed in the early

and later phases of a path because webpage viewers

pay less attention to the main content at those points

and are more sensitive to the peripheral advertising.

Hsieh and Chen (2011) created a simulated

website that contained 10 webpages and each page

had a banner ad at the top of the page. They found that

the subjects’ attention to advertisement declined

sharply right after the first page no matter what

information types the website belonged to. Hsieh et al.

(2012) conducted another experiment to alternate two

different information types, e.g., text-video alternate

and text-picture alternate, in a browsing path, the

similar attention changes occur. The results imply that

no matter what information types a website belongs to,

viewers allocate less attention in the early phase of a

browsing path and thus pay more attention to ads in

this phase.

According to the theory of attentional inertia, an

individual’s attention at the beginning of a mental

process is not as strong as it would be later. When an

individual’s mental process has operated for a period

of time, his mental process becomes more engaged

and would be less susceptible to interruptions by a

distractor. However, when an individual sustains

attention for a long time the mental fatigue might

decrease his attention (Boksem et al., 2005). Thus, we

posit that a viewer’s cognitive engagement is lower in

the early and later phases than in the middle phase,

and that cognitive processing is most intense in the

middle phase of a browsing path. The following

hypothesis is proposed:

H1. Website viewers generate higher levels of

cognitive engagement in the middle phase of a

browsing path than in the early and later

phases.

2017

305 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

Episode Relatedness

Hawkins et al. (1995) noted that two main types of

processes induce attentional inertia: strategic and

nonstrategic. A nonstrategic process is an automatic,

biological process that operates similarly to the

attentional inertia proposed by Burns and Anderson

(1993), and is a nonstrategic tendency to continue

attention to an object. In contrast, a strategic process

involves cognitive expectations based on knowledge of a

plot or formal features used to direct attention. As

viewers initiate a gaze, they begin to make decisions

about whether to stop or continue watching. These

decisions are based on the viewer’s expectations

regarding the content. If the viewer expects to watch the

content and decides to continue watching, the processing

will become deeper and richer, thus inducing greater

cognitive engagement. As successive decisions to

continue are made, the viewer becomes more and more

thoroughly engaged with the content.

Hawkins et al. (1995) proposed three types of

relationships between connect episodes (content units).

The first type is the outcome-embedding connection,

which is a causal linkage between two episodes. The

outcome-embedding connection is generated when the

protagonist in the story fails to achieve a goal within the

span of an episode so a sub-goal is formulated at the

beginning of the next episode in order for the protagonist

to accomplish the original goal. The second type is the

ending-embedded connection. It is also causal in nature

but less complex than the outcome-embedding

connection because only the ending of the first episode

remains relevant in the second episode. The third

connection type is the then/meanwhile connection, which

is the simplest connection between episodes. Each

episode is independent, standing on its own as a

complete unit, but all episodes are part of the overall

story. Hawkins et al. (1995) also found that the

relationship between the length of time the viewer’s gaze

remained on the first episode and the length of the

viewer’s gaze on the second episode was strongest for

outcome-embedded boundaries, followed by

ending-embedded and then/meanwhile boundaries. They

also noted that the inertia at the within-program

boundaries defined by story-grammar units draws on

both strategic and nonstrategic processes, thus generating

deeper inertia than that found between boundaries, which

draws only on nonstrategic processes.

Hawkins et al. (2002) further compared and

integrated the viewpoints as interpreted by Burns and

Anderson (1993) and Hawkins et al. (1995). They

concluded that attentional inertia between episodes

containing unrelated content was generated by

nonstrategic processes because the strategic processes

which operate based on the related content are useless in

that context. In contrast, attentional inertia between

episodes containing related content is more intensified

because it requires both strategic and nonstrategic

processes. They further demonstrated the existence of

strategic processes which cause attentional inertia based

on viewers’ expectations and cognitive demands for

subsequent content (Hawkins et al., 2002).

Based on the above, we posit that when viewers

browse webpages with related content, i.e., the content

on one webpage continues from the content on the

previous webpage, they expect to see the webpages that

follow, and both nonstrategic and strategic engagement

contribute to sustain their gaze across webpages,

inducing greater cognitive engagement. Thus, we

hypothesize the following:

H2. Website viewers generate higher levels of

cognitive engagement when browsing

webpages with related content than when

browsing webpages with unrelated content.

Information Type

Generally, webpage content can be roughly

categorized into two types: text-based and

image-based. For example, news and forum websites

contain mainly text-based content, while photo and

video sharing websites consist of image-based content.

According to Navon and Miller (2002), as the

difficulty of a task increases, the mental resources

allocated to the task also increase, decreasing the

mental resources that can be allocated to other tasks

306 International Journal of Commerce and Strategy December

being performed simultaneously. People exercise

different cognitive skills to complete text-reading and

image-viewing tasks because of the nature of each

task. Viewers depend especially on a library of visual

information when viewing images, a task which is

more directly connected to instinctive processing and

decreases cognitive processing (Hsieh and Chen,

2011). Image recognition is rapid, effective and

natural, requiring no learning procedure. In contrast, a

text-based reading task generates a much heavier

workload that requires more human mental resources

than does an image-viewing task.

Hsieh and Chen (2011) investigated variations in

the attention paid to banner ads by comparing four

types of webpage content (text-based, text-image

mixed, image-based, and video-based) on not only

single webpages, but also on a structured series of

similarly themed pages, which is more similar to the

actual website browsing experience. Their results

showed that the different information types of the

content being browsed influence the degree of the

viewer’s attention to banner ads. Information types of

webpage content which drew more attention to banner

ads were, from strongest to weakest: video-based,

image-based, text-image mixed, and text-based

content. Both the image-based and the video-based

website pages were shown to draw significantly more

attention to the banner ads than did either the

text-based or the text–picture mixed website pages.

The explanation for this result may be found in

classical mental process and visual perception

research, which has noted that the human brain

executes two types of perception management for

different information: simultaneous perception and

successive perception (Luria, 1966). Simultaneous

perception is the obtainment of a large quantity of

information at once, (e.g., viewing a painting or

sculpture). Successive perception is the obtainment of

sequential information (e.g., listening to music or

reading an article) (Sipe, 1998). The information types

involved in simultaneous perception are more

common within a human’s real living environment

than are those involved in successive perception.

Image-based webpage content is easier to be

processed than text-based content and therefore

viewers pay less attention to image-based than

text-based webpage content. That is the reason why

ads can draw more attention when viewers are

browsing image-based webpage content.

Text-reading tasks require more cognitive

processing than do image-viewing tasks and

consequently the mental resources allocated to

text-reading tasks are larger. Based on the above,

viewing content with different information types

requires different degrees of mental resources and

cognitive skills. Viewers are more cognitively engaged

when reading text-based content than they are when

viewing image-based content. Therefore, the

following hypothesis is proposed:

H3. Website viewers’ level of cognitive engagement is

higher when they are browsing text-based

content than when browsing image-based

content.

Cognitive Engagement and Ad

Intrusiveness

As noted earlier, the perception of intrusiveness

is a psychological consequence when the cognitive

processes viewers have devoted to a medium are

interrupted. Viewer’s cognitive engagement with

website content varies in intensity according to shifts

in their attention. Therefore, not all ads that interrupt

the viewers’ tasks will be perceived as equally

intrusive (Ha, 1996; Li et al., 2002). Edwards et al.

(2002) demonstrated a positive relationship between

cognitive intensity and ad intrusiveness. They

manipulated the ad display under different cognitive

load levels for viewers and found that an interruption

in the middle of a content page will be perceived as

more intrusive than an interruption at the break

between two content pages. Viewers browsing a

webpage are actively processing information to

complete their tasks. In contrast, they will take a

"cognitive pause" when closing one webpage and

2017

307 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

moving to another. Therefore, an ad displayed at a

time when it interrupts the active processing of

content will result in a higher level of ad intrusiveness

than will an ad displayed during the cognitive pause

between content pages. Morimoto and Chang (2006)

compared the perceived ad intrusiveness of email

spam with that of direct advertising mail delivered by

the postal service. They reported that the amount of

email spam has risen fast and become uncontrollable,

filling people’s inboxes and requiring more time for

deletion, thus interrupting the tasks or cognitive

processes of the recipients. Although a postal address

could still be obtained by the advertiser who could

then send direct mail communications, recipients can

immediately recognize the direct mail as unnecessary

and discard it without incurring additional costs. The

results showed that the perceived ad intrusiveness

generated by the spam is higher than that generated by

the direct mail because the arrival of spam requires the

recipient to divert attention to it (notice the email,

recognize it as spam, and then close and/or delete it)

and then regain control—a significant interruption of

their cognitive tasks. In contrast, managing direct mail

does not require much work, nor does it interrupt

cognitive processes. Ritter and Cho (2009) found that

consumers who encounter an advertisement in the

middle of a podcast perceive more intrusiveness than

those encountering the ad at the beginning. The

explanation is that individuals are more highly

engaged in the middle of show than at the beginning

of the show.

Since intrusiveness is a perception that occurs

when an individual’s cognitive processes are

interrupted and the degree to which an individual is

mentally engaged with webpage content may vary, we

can infer that when people are highly engaged with

the current content or task, they will perceive a greater

level of intrusiveness if an ad interrupts the content or

task. This study posits that ads displayed in the midst

of a highly cognitive engagement process will be

perceived as more intrusive than those displayed in a

process involving a lower level of cognitive

engagement. Thus, the following hypothesis is

proposed:

H4. Website viewers’ cognitive engagement with

website content is positively related to

perceived ad intrusiveness.

Research Methodology

Research Model

Figure 1 shows an illustration of the research

model. We manipulated the following exogenous

variables: browsing path phases, episode relatedness,

and information type. We measured the following

endogenous variables: cognitive engagement and ad

intrusiveness.

We further considered four control variables

regarding the ad and the website content: editorial-ad

Figure 1 Conceptual Model of Cognitive Engagement

308 International Journal of Commerce and Strategy December

congruence, ad entertainment, ad informativeness, and

website content interestingness. Edwards et al. (2002)

showed that increasing ad entertainment and ad

informativeness can provide ad value and further

reduce ad intrusiveness. They also found a negative

relationship between editorial-ad congruence and ad

intrusiveness. Kankanhalli et al. (2006) proposed that

interestingness is the power of attracting viewers’

attention, therefore, the interestingness of the webpage

content might impact the viewer’s level of cognitive

engagement. This study conducted an experiment to

test the relationship between these constructs and

determine whether or not the proposed hypotheses are

supported.

Experimental Design

1. Phases of a Browsing Path

The level of depth in a browsing path was

operationalized according to its place in a sequence of

Web pages vs. the total number of pages. Each website

in this experiment contained 8 Web pages. A Web

page in the second position of that sequence was

described as having a depth of 2/8 or 0.25. The results

of the study by Wang and Day (2007) showed a low

attention rate in the early phase (page depth of 0.1 to

0.3), the highest rate of attention in the middle phase

(page depth around 0.5 to 0.7), and another low rate of

attention in the late phase (page depth around 0.9).

Thus, we displayed an interstitial ad when a

participant proceeded to the second page (i.e., the

early phase of the browsing path), another when the

participant proceeded to the fifth page (middle phase),

and another when the participant proceeded to the last

page (late phase).

2. Episode Relatedness and Information Type

To manipulate episode relatedness, we designed

two sets of content pages for each information type.

For the related condition, webpage contents were

directly related and described a continuing story. For

this experiment, we used an 8-panel comic named

―Old Master Q‖ separated into 8 pictures, each on a

single page. The episode on each page was causally

connected with those on the adjacent pages. Both the

image-based and text-based content had the same

theme in order to control the theme effect. We used a

script of the same ―Old Master Q‖ comic as our

experiment’s text-based content. This script was cut

into 8 episodes, one on each of the eight pages. Each

page contained about 400 words, and the episode on

each page was connected with the episodes on the

adjacent pages. In contrast, for the unrelatedness

condition, the webpage content was unrelated. This

study used 8 cover images of the ―Old Master Q‖

comic as our unrelated image-based content, each on a

single page. These cover images did not have any

causal linkage between each other. Eight reviews of

the comic, each containing about 400 words, were

used as our unrelated text-based content. Each review

started and concluded on a single page and did not

causally connect with other reviews.

3. Development of the Experimental Websites

and Interstitial Ad

Four Web sites were developed for the lab

experiment, one for each type of condition, as follows: (1)

Text-based, content-related pages (script): The content

was in text format with no images. Each page contained

part of the novel’s entire story, and the content on each

page was related to the adjacent pages. (2) Text-based,

content-unrelated webpages (review): The content was in

text format with no images. Each page contained a

complete comic review, and the review on each page was

independent of those on other pages. (3) Image-based

and content-related pages (comic): Each page contained a

drawing of the comic strip, and the content on each page

was directly related to the content on adjacent pages. (4)

Image-based and content-unrelated pages (cover): Each

page contained a complete cover image of the comic,

without text. The cover image on each page was

independent of those on other pages.

In the experiment, an interstitial video ad

appeared at one of the three levels of depth in the

browsing path. The participant was required to click

2017

309 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

the ―Next‖ link to continue to the next page. If, after

20 seconds, the participant had failed to click the

―Next‖ link, the ad automatically closed itself. To aid

in the design of the ads, a pretest was conducted to

select the products to be advertised. We selected ads

from four different categories (one from each different

category): medical, treadmills, electric motorcycles,

and toiletries. Each ad had a low level of congruency

with the webpage content because congruent ads have

been shown to induce better ad memory (Hervet et al.,

2011). We also excluded famous brands or products

since ad awareness has been shown to influence ad

effectiveness (Macdonald and Sharp, 2003).

Measures

We first conducted a pretest to select the

experiment ad. Ad familiarity, informativeness,

entertainment, and editorial-ad congruence were

measured in the pretest. Ad familiarity was measured

via three seven-point scales: familiar, experienced,

and knowledgeable (Kent and Allen, 1994). The

variables of ad informativeness and ad entertainment

were measured by scales developed by Edwards et al.

(2002). Editorial-ad congruence was measured by a

seven-point single-item scale anchored by ―extremely

incongruent‖ and ―extremely congruent‖ (Cho, 2003).

Since no scale for measuring viewer

engagement with webpage content existed in previous

literature, we adapted Rothbard’s (2001) work

engagement scale for measuring a viewer’s cognitive

engagement with webpage content. Cognitive

engagement is composed of two dimensions: attention

and absorption. Attention was measured with four

items, and absorption was measured with five items,

all of which employed seven-point Likert scales

anchored by ―strongly disagree‖ and ―strongly agree.‖

Interestingness of the Website Content was measured

using a scale from Olney et al. (1991). The

intrusiveness of the ad was measured by the seven

seven-point scales: distracting, disturbing, forced,

interfering, intrusive, invasive, and obtrusive from

Edwards et al. (2002). The measurement was

administered in Chinese. Two professors co-translate

the measurement to ensure consistency between the

Chinese and the original English version of the

measurement.

Pretest

In addition to basing our selection of the

experimental ad on ad familiarity and editorial-ad

congruence, we used a pretest to examine the

effectiveness of the cognitive engagement scale and

checked the influence of the control variables (i.e., ad

entertainment, ad informativeness, and website

content interestingness). Website content recall was

adopted in order to check the effectiveness of the

cognitive engagement scale. It was assessed via cued

recall: 16 questions with cues were designed to test

the participants’ ability to recall the content on the

website. Cued recall is easy to score: one point is

awarded for a correct answer and zero points are

awarded for incorrect answers. The point total

represents the cued recall score.

A total of 32 participants were randomly and

equally assigned to four groups, one group for each of

the four different content types. Participants were

unaware of the real purpose of the test. They were

instructed to browse the website content, after which

they were asked to fill out an online questionnaire.

The pretest procedure involved three steps. First,

participants were asked to browse the website content

at their own pace. Each webpage contained a ―Next‖

link which, once clicked, would not allow the

participant to return to the previous page. Second,

after the participant viewed the final page of the

website, a link appeared and the participant was asked

to complete the online questionnaire to which it led.

The questionnaire contained the items measuring

cognitive engagement and website content

interestingness, as well as the questions for measuring

cued recall. Third, after the questionnaire was

completed, participants were instructed to watch the

four video ads in sequence (the length of each ad is

about twenty seconds). After watching each ad,

310 International Journal of Commerce and Strategy December

participants were asked to fill out the part of the online

questionnaire that measured ad familiarity, ad

informativeness, ad entertainment, and editorial-ad

congruence. After completing all the questionnaires,

participants were informed of the real purpose of the

test and received NT$50 as a reward.

The pretest results showed both the validity and

reliability of our cognitive engagement scales. The

Cronbach’s alpha was 0.871, indicating a high level of

internal consistency and reliability. The KMO was

0.815 and the Chi-square value of Bartlett’s test was

174.347 (Sig. < 0.001), which indicated that the data

was suitable for factor analysis. All items’ factor

loading scores greater than 0.7, with the exception of

two items whose scores were close to 0.7, and far

exceeded the minimum acceptable value of 0.4

(Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Thus, the convergent

validity of our items was ensured. A website viewer’s

level of cognitive engagement is based on his or her

attention. Prior studies which measured attention have

usually adopted recall as their main measurement

(Hsieh and Chen, 2011). For that reason, we examined

the correlation between recall and cognitive

engagement, and found a significant correlation

between cued recall and cognitive engagement

(p<0.05). The usefulness of the scale was thus

confirmed by the results of the pretest, so we adopted

it for measuring cognitive engagement in the main

experiment.

In comparison with the other three ads, the

medical ad garnered significantly lower scores for

brand familiarity (mean=2.5) and the lowest scores for

editorial-ad congruence (mean=1.84). Moreover,

viewers perceived similar levels in the

informativeness and entertainment values of the ad.

Based on these pretest results, we chose the medical

ad as our experimental ad. We also found a marginally

significant difference in the interestingness values of

each of the four types of website content

(p=0.053<0.1). Since these differences could likely

affect viewers’ cognitive engagement with the content,

we took these differences into consideration in the

main experiment.

Experiment

A total of 302 participants were recruited from

the business college of Taiwan’s National Taipei

University. Participants in the pretest were prohibited

from participating in the main experiment. Students

constituted 92% of the sample; 61% of the participants

were female, and 94% of the participants were less

than 30 years old.

The participants first read a webpage regarding

the purpose of the study and were given instructions

on how to perform the experiment. To hide the true

intention of the experiment, participants were told that

a new website was soon to go live, and that the

researcher would like the participants to comment on

the website content. This experiment considered only

goal-oriented surfing since the participants had a

goal-oriented reason for browsing the experimental

website. The instructions also indicated that this site

had joined an ad network, so ads might appear on the

website. The ads were not integrated into the website

content. The participants were asked to browse the

website as they normally would do when surfing the

Internet. Next, the participants were randomly

assigned to one of the four websites. As the

participants browsed, the interstitial ad randomly

appeared at one of the three levels of path depth,

depending on the prearranged condition. Participants

were able to close the interstitial ad at will and

continue browsing. Once they pressed the ―Next‖

button and proceeded to the next page, they could not

return to the previous page. After the browsing session

was over, the participant was asked to complete a

questionnaire in order to collect data for our variables

(i.e., cognitive engagement, ad intrusiveness, and

website content interestingness). Each participant

received a gift certificate in the amount of NT$50 as a

reward for participating in the experiment. On average

participants spent 10.857, 11.498, 6.638, and 6.971

minutes to finish the experiment when they were

2017

311 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

assigned to the script, review, comic, and cover

websites, respectively.

Data Analysis and Findings

The reliability of the scale was examined by

Cronbach’s Alpha, composite reliability (CR), and

average variance extracted (AVE). The results in Table

2 indicate that the scales have good reliability since

the Cronbach’s Alpha is greater than 0.7, CR is greater

than 0.7, and AVE is greater than 0.5 (Bagozzi and Yi,

1988; Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Convergent validity

should be tested when multiple indicators are used to

measure one construct; this can be examined by

item-total correlation (ITC), factor loading and AVE.

Table 2 indicates that the scales have good convergent

validity since the ITC, factor loading, and AVE are

greater than 0.3, 0.7 and 0.5, respectively (Fornell and

Larcker, 1981). Although the factor loadings of items

AIN1 and ABS1 are less than 0.7, they exceed the

minimum acceptable value of 0.4 (Nunnally and

Bernstein, 1994).

Table 2 Measurement Model Analysis Results

Construct Item Loading ITC

Ad Intrusiveness (AIN)

Alpha = 0.928

CR = 0.943

AVE = 0.707

AIN1: The ad is distracting. 0.565 0.54

AIN2: The ad is disturbing. 0.864 0.818

AIN3: The ad is forced. 0.869 0.809

AIN4: The ad is interfering. 0.920 0.868

AIN5: The ad is intrusive. 0.929 0.882

AIN6: The ad is invasive. 0.832 0.748

AIN7: The ad is obtrusive. 0.852 0.783

Cognitive Engagement:

Attention (ATT)

Alpha = 0.915

CR = 0.940

AVE = 0.799

ATT1: I spend a lot of time thinking about the website

content.

0.731 0.668

ATT2: I focus a great deal of attention on the website

content.

0.813 0.782

ATT3: I concentrate a lot on the website content. 0.83 0.797

ATT4: I pay a lot of attention to the website content. 0.858 0.833

Cognitive Engagement:

Absorption (ABS)

Alpha = 0.877

CR = 0.911

AVE = 0.676

ABS1: When I am browsing the website content, I

often lose track of time.

0.636 0.552

ABS2: I often get carried away by what I am browsing. 0.787 0.696

ABS3: When I am browsing the website content, I am

completely engrossed by the content.

0.878 0.813

ABS4: When I am browsing the website content, I am

totally absorbed by the content.

0.873 0.816

ABS5: Nothing can distract me when I am browsing

the website content.

0.721 0.636

Interestingness of the

Website Content (IWC)

Alpha = 0.896

CR = 0.936

AVE = 0.829

IWC1: I am curious about the website content. 0.868 0.719

IWC2: The website content is not boring. 0.93 0.836

IWC3: The website content is interesting. 0.932 0.832

312 International Journal of Commerce and Strategy December

To achieve adequate discriminant validity, the

correlation coefficients among variables should be less

than 0.9, and the square root of AVE should be greater

than the inter-construct correlation coefficients

(Fornell and Larcker, 1981). The correlation matrix of

the latent variables shown in Table 3 suggests that the

discriminant validity is satisfactory.

We examined the proposed model via analysis

of variance (ANOVA) and Partial Least Squares (PLS).

Both Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests

show that the dependent variable, i.e., cognitive

engagement, is normally distributed for each category

of the independent variables, i.e., browsing path

phases, episode relatedness, and information types.

Furthermore, Levene’s test confirms the homogeneity

of variances between the groups. Thus, the

assumptions of ANOVA are met. The results of

ANOVA show that the effect of the browsing path

phases on cognitive engagement is not significant

(p=0.455), therefore, H1 is not supported. The

ANOVA results also show a significant difference

between the levels of cognitive engagement with

related content and with unrelated content (F=7.584,

p=0.006<0.01). Cognitive engagement is higher when

browsing related content (mean=3.973, sd.=1.107)

than unrelated content (mean=3.614, sd.=1.160), thus

supporting H2. H3 is also supported (F=5.349,

p=0.021<0.05). Cognitive engagement is higher when

browsing text-based content (mean=3.942, sd.=1.181)

than image-based content (mean=3.639, sd.=1.094).

We further checked the interaction effects of the three

exogenous variables and found no significant

interaction effects between them (see Table 4).

SmartPLS 2.0 was used to evaluate the structure

of the rest of the model. The reason why we chose

PLS rather than covariance-based SEM is that PLS is

more suitable for measuring a construct with

formative scales (Gefen et al., 2011). Cognitive

engagement was conceptualized as a second-order

formative, first-order reflective, multidimensional

construct in order to reduce model complexity and

keep theoretical parsimony (Becker et al., 2012; Petter

et al., 2007). The dimensions of cognitive engagement

are attention and absorption. These dimensions

together cause the construct, are not interchangeable,

will not necessary co-vary, and do not necessarily

have the same predictors; therefore, the relationships

between the construct and sub-constructs are

formative according to the decision rules proposed by

Jarvis et al. (2003). Prior studies also confirmed that

cognitive engagement is a higher order formative

Table 3 The Correlation Matrix of the Latent

Variables

AIN ATT ABS IWC

AIN 0.84

ATT 0.06 0.89

ABS 0.12 0.74 0.82

IWC 0.08 0.47 0.63 0.91

Note: The diagonal line of correlation matrix represents

the square root of AVE.

Table 4 The Interaction Effects on Cognitive Engagement

Browsing

path phases

Episode relatedness Information type

Related Unrelated Text-based Image-based

Early 3.846 (1.143) / 49 3.508 (1.138) / 51 3.810 (1.213) / 51 3.531 (1.068) / 49 3.673 (1.147) / 100

Middle 4.096 (1.135) / 52 3.586 (1.279) / 51 4.024 (1.246) / 51 3.667 (1.200) / 52 3.844 (1.230) / 103

Later 3.970 (1.046) / 48 3.747 (1.062) / 51 3.991 (1.088) / 50 3.717 (1.012) / 49 3.855 (1.055) / 99

3.973 (1.107) / 149 3.614 (1.160) / 153 3.942 (1.181) / 152 3.639 (1.094) / 150

F = 0.409, p = 0.665,

Sum of squares = 1.059

F = 0.042, p = 0.959,

Sum of squares = 0.109

Note: Mean (SD.) of cognitive engagement / Number of subjects.

2017

313 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

construct (Ho et al., 2011; Rothbard, 2001). Two

approaches are generally suggested to estimate the

parameters in hierarchical latent variable models using

PLS-SEM: the repeated indicator approach and the

two-stage approach. The two-stage approach has the

advantage of estimating a more parsimonious model

on the higher level analysis without needing the

lower-order constructs (Becker et al., 2012). We used

the two-stage approach to estimate the hierarchical

latent variable model because this study focuses on the

relationships between higher-order constructs. The

second-order construct, i.e., cognitive engagement,

was represented by the latent variable scores of the

first-order constructs, i.e., attention and absorption.

Figure 2 depicts the combination of ANOVA

and PLS results including path loadings and t-statistics

for the hypothesized relationships. The left half is

examined using ANOVA (dotted line) and the right

half is examined using PLS-SEM (solid line). The

PLS results confirmed that H4 is supported (β=0.111,

p<0.1). Viewers’ cognitive engagement with website

content is positively related to perceived ad

intrusiveness. The interestingness of the website

content has a positive influence on cognitive

engagement (β=0.592, p<0.01).

Although we failed to demonstrate that the

phases of a browsing path have an influence on

cognitive engagement, the model still successfully

demonstrates the following: episode relatedness has a

positive influence on cognitive engagement (H2:

p<0.01), information type has an influence on

cognitive engagement (H3: p<0.05), and cognitive

engagement is positively related with ad intrusiveness

(H4: p<0.1). Cognitive engagement is a second-order

construct, and Figure 3 represents the path coefficients

from the dimensions (attention and absorption) to the

aggregated second-order construct. The path

Figure 2 Model Testing Results

Figure 3 Path Coefficients between First- and

Second-Order Constructs

314 International Journal of Commerce and Strategy December

coefficients from the dimensions to the aggregate

second-order construct are weights. These weights are

analogous to a multiple regression analysis, and thus

indicative of each dimension’s relative importance.

The result shows that both attention and absorption

have weights over 0.5 and therefore both of them are

important to the formation of cognitive engagement.

Discussion and Conclusion

This study conducted an experiment and

adopted ANOVA and structural equation modeling

analysis to test the hypotheses. According to our

experimental results, H1 is not supported. One

possible reason for this is that participants might not

have been able to accurately remember and recognize

their levels of cognitive engagement during a specific

phase in a path while answering the cognitive

engagement scale. We further examined the

relationships between the phases of a browsing path

and cognitive engagement for text-based and

picture-based contents, separately. Figure 4 depicts

that viewers’ cognitive engagement did increase in the

middle phases and then level off in the latter phases.

Another reason why the fluctuation is not significant

might be that the viewing time was not long enough.

The successful confirmation that viewers

generate cognitive expectations regarding the related

content and that cognitive engagement subsequently

becomes deeper and richer gives support to H2. The

related content aroused the subjects’ curiosity

regarding subsequent developments, and they

expected to see the end of the content. Browsing

related content can draw more attention because both

strategic and nonstrategic processes are in operation

when viewers cross episode boundaries. In contrast,

browsing unrelated content (in which the episodes are

independent) does not give viewers the expectation

that they will read subsequent content once they detect

the content arrangement. When browsing unrelated

content without expectations, viewers process in a

nonstrategic manner, tending to continue browsing

while driven by only nonstrategic attentional inertia.

Therefore, higher levels of cognitive engagement are

generated when website viewers browse pages with

related content than when they browse pages with

unrelated content.

As for H3, the experimental results show that

the cognitive engagement generated by the text-based

content is higher than that generated by the

image-based content. Our results are consistent with

the findings of Hsieh and Chen (2011). The more

difficult the task, e.g., reading text-based content, the

more mental resources the viewer must allocate in

Figure 4 Cognitive Engagement in Phases

2017

315 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

order to deal with the complexity. In contrast, visual

information processing is more directly connected to

human’s instinctive processes, so cognitive processing

decreases when viewers perform an image-viewing

task. Browsing image-based content is rapid, and

happens naturally without any learning procedure.

Therefore, managing image-based content requires

less cognitive engagement; conversely, text-based

content requires more cognitive engagement.

Testing H4 revealed a positive relationship

between cognitive engagement and ad intrusiveness.

The viewer’s cognitive engagement with the website

content may vary according to variations in the level

of attention. When browsing website content with a

task-oriented objective such as searching for

information or sending and receiving emails—both of

which involve a heavy cognitive workload—viewers

will perceive an interrupting ad as being much more

intrusive than when they engage in an easier browsing

task. Therefore, the website viewers’ cognitive

engagement with the website content is positively

related with perceived ad intrusiveness. The R2 value

is 0.012, which indicates a relatively low explanatory

power. A possible explanation is that the main factors

that influence a viewer’ perceived ad intrusiveness are

ad informativeness, entertainment, and editorial-ad

congruence (Edwards et al., 2002). The viewer’s

cognitive engagement is less effective than ad content

in affecting ad intrusiveness.

Theoretical Implications

The proposed model and research findings

contribute to the Information Management and Online

Advertising literature streams. This study

systematically examined the influences of browsing

path phases, episode relatedness, and information type

on cognitive engagement from the perspective of

attentional inertia. We also investigated the effect of

content interestingness on cognitive engagement in a

Web browsing context. This study demonstrated that

attentional inertia is the major driver of cognitive

engagement. A high level of relatedness, a text-based

information type, and interesting content induces more

attentional inertia, and the viewer becomes highly

engaged with the content.

This study identified a positive relationship

between cognitive engagement and ad intrusiveness.

This finding is consistent with the conjecture of

Edwards et al. (2002), though that study did not

measure the construct of cognitive engagement or

investigate its causes. We confirmed the role of

cognitive engagement in consumers’ responses to

intrusive advertising. Online advertising is an example

of persuasive technology that is designed for changing

users’ attitudes or behaviors (Chan et al., 2010). The

design principles cover the aspects of ―when,‖ ―how,‖

and ―who‖ (Chan et al., 2010; Fogg, 2003). The

―when‖ aspect suggests that the technology, e.g., ad

delivery systems, should identify the right time to

persuade; the ―how‖ aspect posits that appropriate

content should be delivered by the technology; the

―who‖ aspect highlights that the persuader, e.g., the

advertiser, is capable of influencing the perceived

credibility. Each of the three aspects represents a key

design characteristic of effective online advertising.

Prior studies focused mainly on the ―how‖ aspect,

such as delivering informative, enjoyable and

congruent ads to reduce intrusiveness (Edwards et al.,

2002; Ying et al., 2009). Our study highlights the

―when‖ aspect. An online intrusive ad can be

delivered when the viewer’s cognitive engagement

with webpage content is at a low level. When people

are highly engaged in a cognitive process, they will

perceive a greater level of intrusiveness if an ad

interrupts the process than when they moderately

engaged in the process.

We adapted Rothbard’s (2001) scale measuring

work engagement to our scale for measuring cognitive

engagement with website content. Two professors in

the business administration area assessed the scale’s

logical consistencies, ease of understanding, and

context fitness. Second, in the pretest, a factor analysis

was conducted to ensure the validity and reliability of

the scale. Third, the subjects’ cognitive engagement

316 International Journal of Commerce and Strategy December

measured by the scale was highly correlated with their

recall, which confirms the usefulness of the scale.

Finally, in the main experiment, the validity and

reliability of the scale were ensured once again with a

large sample size. Since using an eye-tracking system

to collect website viewers’ eye fixation data is time

consuming and costly, it is not a practical method for

gathering data from extremely large samples. The

proposed scale provides an economic, useful, and

rapid way to measure cognitive engagement with

webpage content in a large-scale experiment.

Cognitive engagement mediates the influence of

website design characteristics on ad intrusiveness. The

characteristics containing episode relatedness,

information type, and interestingness should be

considered for general websites. Other design

characteristics that might influence ad intrusiveness

via cognitive engagement should be considered for

special types of websites. For instance, in e-learning

situations, students' engagement in multimedia

presentations can be increased by developing

presentations that provide more challenge, feedback,

presenter control and variety (Webster and Ho, 1997).

For computer games, the design characteristics

including focused goals, challenging task, clear and

compelling standards, affirmation of performance, and

affiliation with others, have impacts on engagement

(Dickey, 2005).

Practical Implications

Our research findings provide practical

recommendations for advertisers and ad service

providers regarding how to grab website viewers’

attention while reducing the perceived intrusiveness

and the irritation caused by the ads. First, a high level

of episode relatedness will increase the website

viewers’ cognitive expectations and demands for

subsequent content and increase the amount of mental

resources they allocate to the task. Browsing related

content requires more attention and the viewer is less

likely to take a cognitive break between episodes. In

contrast, browsing unrelated content allows for a

cognitive pause between each episode, and the level of

attention is less likely to be sustained between

episodes. Therefore, to reduce the perceived

intrusiveness of the ads, advertisers and ad service

providers should deliver intrusive ads between

webpages whose content is unrelated.

Second, different types of information require

different amounts of mental resources and different

processing methods, and they induce different levels

of cognitive workload. Intrusive ads are better placed

beside image-based content than beside text-based

content because image-based content induces less

cognitive engagement with the content. Since image

recognition is rapid and effective, processing

image-based content generates a lighter cognitive

workload and requires fewer mental resources.

Therefore, we recommend that advertisers and ad

service providers place intrusive ads on websites

devoted to images (e.g., photo-sharing sites) and

websites that use photo exhibits as the main means of

delivering information.

Third, website content interestingness will

attract viewers’ attention and induce cognitive

engagement. Interestingness is one of the main factors

that induce a sense of pleasure (Jordan, 1998). The

recent boom in digital games and interactive websites

has highlighted the importance of interestingness to

website design. Interestingness plays an important role

in increasing viewers’ willingness to revisit the site,

and the behavioral intention to use the site (Rice, 1997;

Sledgianowski and Kulviwat, 2009). Website

designers continuously explore ways to pique the

interest of viewers. However, interesting website

content increases viewers’ engagement with the

content and, thus, increases their tendency to perceive

an ad as highly intrusive when it interrupts the content.

The techniques of recommender systems

(Adomavicius and Tuzhilin, 2005; Bobadilla et al.,

2013; Huang, 2011) can be used to predict what items

a website viewer will like (be interested in) or dislike.

Web users’ browsing, searching, buying and rating

behaviors can be used to understand their preferences.

2017

317 S.-L. Huang and H.-W. Chen

Generally, these techniques can be categorized into

content-based or collaborative approaches.

Content-based approaches recommend items that are

similar to those that the user preferred in the past.

Collaborative approaches identify other users whose

tastes are similar to the user and recommend the items

preferred by them to the user. Thus, we recommend

that advertising service providers predict viewers’

attitudes toward webpage contents by using

recommendation techniques, and avoid delivering

intrusive ads that interrupt the browsing of interesting

content. In addition, we recommend advertisers to

reduce the intrusiveness of an intrusive ad by

improving its informativeness, entertainment, and

editorial-ad congruence (Edwards et al., 2002).

The mediation role of cognitive engagement

between website design characteristics and ad

intrusiveness has been identified. Thus, delivering

intrusive ads when deep cognitive engagement has not

been generated is a good practice. Inserting

image-based content between pages of text-based

content could suppress cognitive engagement with

website content (Hsieh et al., 2012). Another practice

is delivering an ad before a viewer highly engages in

website content by placing the ad in the very

beginning of a sequence of episodes.

Research Limitations

This study is not without limitations. Since most

of the participants in the experiment were college

students, our sample might not be generalizable to all

Internet users. All of the themes in our experimental

websites were about comics (one comic, specifically)

and we used only one intrusive ad in the experiment,

so the result may not be generalizable to other website

themes and other types of intrusive ads. We

considered only text- and image-based content. The

effects of other information types, e.g., text-image

mixed and video-based content, need to be examined

in future studies. Moreover, the experiment considered

only goal-oriented Web surfing. How cognitive

engagement influences ad intrusiveness in surfing

without goal-oriented reasons is worthy of further

research. Overall, this study contributes to online

advertising research by offering a conceptual model

that explains the effect of cognitive engagement on the

intrusiveness of ads, and by identifying the situations

that influence cognitive engagement. This study calls

attention to the need to improve intrusive advertising

on the Web. Further research is certainly required for a

better understanding of the effects of context on

intrusive ads.

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黃旭立為國立臺北大學企管系教授。主要研究領域為電子商務、線上廣告、資訊管理。學術論文曾發表於 International Journal

of Electronic Commerce、Electronic Commerce Research and Applications、Journal of Electronic Commerce Research、Decision

Support Systems、International Journal of Information Management 等期刊。

Shiu-Li Huang is a professor at the Department of Business Administration of National Taipei University. His research interests are

e-commerce, online advertising, and information management. His papers have appeared in International Journal of Electronic

Commerce, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Decision Support Systems,

International Journal of Information Management, and several other journals.

陳弘偉為國立臺北大學企管系研究生。主要研究領域為電子商務以及線上廣告。

Hung-Wei Chen is a graduate student in the Department of Business Administration, National Taipei University. His research

interests are e-commerce and online advertising.