Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

Stimulus

recognized?Get frustrated

Ye s

1

Perception

Stimulus

interesting?

Focus attention

elsewhere

Ye s

2

Attention

Stimulus

understood?

Input more, re-examine

paraphrase, or quit

Ye s

3

Sentence-levelcomprehension

Decisionschemaactivated?

Ye s

4

Schemaactivation

Slot valuepresent? Redirect

search

Ye s

Ye s

Ye s

Discard

Discard

5b

5a

Informationacqusition

Proposal’svalue best? Reject orchallenge

Ye s

6

Informationintegration

Reject All slotsfilled?

Ye s

No

No

No

No

No

No

No. Searchexhausted

No. Searchexhausted

Accept

No

No

No

Desireddecision

recognized?

Desired

decision worth

making?

Searchfor nextvalue

Activateschema

Search forschema

cues

FIGURE 3.1

A Cognitive Process Model of Audience Decision Making