An ISU professor has caused some debate in the past few months by challenging the common idea that sex sells.

Brad Bushman, associate professor of psychology, said he and graduate student Angelica Bonacci conducted their study to measure whether sex and violence influence the memory.

“We found that people who watched shows of a neutral nature remembered the ads [immediately following the show] 67 percent more often when compared to people who watched shows with sex or violence and 60 percent more often after 24 hours,” he said.

Bushman said the study consisted of 162 men and 162 women between the ages of 18 and 54. Each individual was randomly assigned to a group that watched a violent program, a sexually explicit program or a neutral program.

Bonacci, who has worked with Bushman for two years, said having a study with a lot of attention is overwhelming, but it is good to inform people.

“The primary significance of the study is when you are dealing with mass media, they are dealing with the bottom line of money, and this study tells advertisers that people will not remember the commercial or the product for shows with a sexual or violent nature,” she said.

Drake University advertising professor Randall Blum said he “cannot believe that this research will hold up.

“It is absolutely a phenomena right now that the emotional tie is what sells,” he said. “It’s all about the sensual feeling and getting the consumer to feel like they are a part of the commercial itself – it would seem to debunk his whole theory because we see recall rates [in this advertising] that are higher.”

Blum said the recall rate will depend on the commercial.

“If it was a soap sud commercial, they have low recall rates to begin with,” he said.

The study is the first to measure memory associated with sexual explicit shows. However, there have been several other studies testing memory and violence.

“If I were an advertiser, I would want people to remember my product, and people are less likely to remember a product if the show has sex and violence,” he said.

Bonacci said one study really cannot change everything, but they are getting a lot of press coverage making advertisers notice.

“Next, we are looking at what is causing this memory deficit, when people are watching the shows do people not remember the advertisements because they only remember the sex or violence,” she said.

Bonacci said another area they are looking into is if the memory deficit is caused by the content of the commercials during the program.