The paper proceeds as follows:  Section 2   reviews  relevant  previous research in this area。  Section 3 presents the research model and hypotheses。  Section 4 describes the experimental design and methodologies used during the data collection phase of the study。 Section 5 summarizes the  conclusions  of the study。

2 The media equation and interface design 

Drawing from works in  psychology,  sociology,  and communications, the major thesis of Reeves and  Nass’  work, The Media Equation, is that ‘‘media  equals real life’’。  They claim that equating  mediated  and  real life is neither rare nor unreasonable。 It  applies  to everyone, it applies often, and it is highly  consequential。 The only time when this equation does not apply is when people make a  conscious  effort  not to treat media as real。 The automatic  and  natural response is to accept what seems to be real as  in fact real。 Reeves and Nass argue that the  basic  assumption that people treat media as merely tools is  fundamentally wrong。  Further, they suggest  that  psychological  and social rules that apply to human–human  interactions also apply  to human–media  interactions。

These experts in the communications field posit that inpiduals’ interactions with computers, television, and other media are fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life。 If  there  are  social  and natural values associated with media  (including computers), then we can design them to  best capture these values to our advantage。  Within  this broad context,  they further suggest that emotions  are generated from interactions with media。 

This undoubtedly applies to the e-commerce context。  This study seeks to apply Reeves and Nass’ research on traditional media (e。g。 television, video,  static images) to the web medium, particularly in the  e-commerce context。

2 。1。 Emotion, attention, and memory

According to Reeves, emotion, an innate human characteristic, associated with cognitive processes, is  important for social interaction and organization。 The distinguishing feature in this view is that emotion  is  involved in the interaction with media。 Emotion can be simplified into two basic components:  Valence  (simply as good or bad) and Arousal (the volume of  things good and bad)。 However, it is very difficult to measure emotion, even in its simplified components, directly。 Physiological measurements (e。g。 EEG) are among the few techniques available to measure emotion directly。 Therefore, psychologists have developed different methods to measure emotion indirectly。 The most reliable ones are those  based  on  the  relationship between emotion , attention and memory。 In this study,  we  focus on attention and memory for two reasons: they  are important issues in an e-commerce context and  they can be measured reliably。

2 。1。1。 Emotion and attention

One of the  most  prevalent views concerning the effects of arousal on  performance has been that they are mediated by  attentional mechanisms。 More specifically, it has often been assumed that heightened arousal has a substantial effect on attentional selectivity or narrowing。 This is usually tested by using a primary task and a secondary task that are performed concurrently。 There is general consensus that attention is a limited resource。