Visual Direction Fluency

What it measures

A four-item scale measuring the degree to which the direction in which a moving object is depicted in an advertisement is perceived as intuitively correct and right for the scene. Two items are positively keyed (feels correct, feels right) and two are reverse-scored (feels wrong, should be heading in the opposite direction). The scale captures a fluency-based perceptual judgment about whether a depicted object's directional orientation matches culturally embedded reading conventions, tapping a subtle but theoretically meaningful source of processing ease in advertising visuals.

Response format

9-point Likert

Scale items

• The direction the _____ is heading in the ad feels intuitively correct to me.
• The direction the _____ is heading in the ad feels right to me.
• The direction the _____ is heading in the ad feels wrong to me. (r)
• The _____ should be heading in the opposite direction. (r)

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

FILL-IN-THE-BLANK FORMAT: The blank should be replaced with the name of the moving object depicted in the ad (e.g., 'car', 'person', 'animal'). Alpha = .86 for both the four-item (Study 2) and three-item (Study 3) versions — Monahan & Romero (2020). A three-item version (items 1, 2, and 4) was used in Study 3. Response scale uses 9 points. Items 3 and 4 are reverse-scored. Adapted from Cesario & Higgins (2008), with substantially revised wording.

Citation

Monahan, Jennifer L. and Adriana A. Romero (2020). Going the right way: The role of direction in advertising. Journal of Advertising, 49(3), 252–268.

Keywords