Högskolan i Skövde

Short-form media on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram have completely changed the way people consume media. Different forms of media compete for our attention and aim to be remembered, liked, and shared. Multimodal media with voice-over stories have gained popularity quickly. Subjectively, it seems to succeed in giving a feeling of heightened attention. However, the actual effects this has on our memory and attention remain unclear. In this study, we sought to contrast predictable, low-event visual stimuli with distracting, high-event stimuli to examine their effects on the encoding of auditory working memory. 21 participants were recruited to perform a memory recall test in three different conditions. Baseline, high-event, and low-event condition memory scores were then compared along with recorded HRV data for each condition to represent cognitive load. No statistical significance between HRV data or memory scores was found. Repeated measures ANOVAs of HRV and memory scores showed p-values higher than 0.05. This means that further research is needed on the subject to understand why it has become such a widespread phenomenon and if there is any real evidence behind this feeling of sustained attention.