Depicted Movement in the Ad

1. Abstract

The Depicted Movement in the Ad scale is a concise, three-item self-report psychometric instrument designed to evaluate consumer perceptions of dynamic physical kinetic energy, behavioral activity, and implied motion encapsulated within static, print- or screen-based visual advertisements. Developed and validated by Grigsby, Jewell, and Zamudio (2023) across four experimental studies, the scale captures the degree to which an audience decodes visual cues—such as frozen biomechanical postures, directional blur, structural asymmetry, and environmental displacement—as representations of vigorous action and temporal progression. Structurally, the instrument operates as a unidimensional construct measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”). Across empirical validation phases, the scale demonstrated high internal consistency, exhibiting Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently exceeding α = .88 (and reaching α = .92 in focal investigations), high factor determinacy, robust convergent validity with theoretical antecedents of visual narrative processing, and sound discriminant validity from related constructs such as visual complexity, visual art appreciation, and generic ad arousal. The measure functions as an indispensable diagnostic and empirical tool in marketing communication, advertising psychology, cognitive aesthetics, and consumer behavior research, specifically elucidating the cognitive mechanism through which visual kinetic indices catalyze narrative transportation, mental simulation, favorable brand attitudes, and elevated behavioral intentions.

2. Keywords

depicted movement, implied motion, visual advertising, narrative transportation, mental simulation, visual rhetoric, consumer psychology, representational momentum, advertising aesthetics, psychometrics

3. Authors

The scale was developed and empirically operationalized by a research team specializing in marketing communications, consumer cognitive processing, and quantitative methodology:

• Jamie L. Grigsby, Ph.D. — Associate Professor / Assistant Professor of Marketing, Department of Management and Marketing, College of Business, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA. Research specializations include consumer visual information processing, digital advertising, social media engagement, and consumer narrative immersion.
• Robert D. Jewell, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, College of Business Administration, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA. Research focuses on brand positioning, advertising memory, comparative advertising, and cognitive response models.
• César Zamudio, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, College of Business Administration, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA. Research expertise encompasses quantitative marketing models, methodological psychometrics, econometric validation, and consumer choice behavior.

4. Purpose

The fundamental purpose of the Depicted Movement in the Ad scale is to provide an empirically rigorous, parsimonious, and reliable measure of how much action, kinetic momentum, and physical activity human observers infer from static commercial imagery. While dynamic audiovisual media (such as television or digital video) present physical movement explicitly across temporal frames, static visual advertisements (such as magazine displays, billboards, print ads, and social media feed stills) are physically immobile. However, human visual cognition possesses the sophisticated capacity to extract implied kinetic trajectories from frozen visual cues. Prior to the formalization of this scale, researchers frequently relied on ad-hoc single-item manipulation checks or confounded kinetic imagery with broader constructs like overall emotional arousal, visual complexity, or aesthetic appeal.

Grigsby, Jewell, and Zamudio (2023) introduced this scale to establish a standardized manipulation check and mediator instrument capable of isolating perceived motion as an independent psychological construct. The primary theoretical rationale is grounded in the observation that depicted movement acts as an initial cognitive catalyst: when consumers observe figures or objects suspended mid-action, the brain automatically engages in retrospective and prospective predictive processing to infer the preceding conditions and anticipate subsequent outcomes. This mental simulation fundamentally stimulates narrative transportation—a psychological state wherein an individual becomes completely immersed, cognitively and affectively, into the unfolding story world suggested by the advertisement.

In academic research, the scale serves as a critical diagnostic tool to evaluate how low-level visual rhetoric (e.g., lines of force, unstable body equilibrium, flying debris, motion blur) translates into higher-order cognitive and persuasive outcomes. For marketing practitioners, graphic designers, and creative directors, the instrument offers an evidence-based mechanism to pre-test static creative concepts. By assessing depicted movement quantitatively, campaign managers can determine whether a static visual successfully communicates energy and dynamic agency without requiring costly video production, ensuring that still creatives elicit the cognitive immersion required to drive brand recall, brand favorability, and purchase intentions.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by this instrument is perceived depicted movement (also referenced in psychophysics and cognitive aesthetics as implied motion). It represents a viewer’s subjective perception and cognitive attribution of physical displacement, action, and vigor embedded within an objectively motionless visual stimulus. Rather than reflecting an objective optical property of the image, depicted movement is an inferential, constructivist cognitive response generated at the intersection of perceptual input, semantic memory, and motor resonance.

The construct operates along three intimately interconnected conceptual facets, captured across the three scale items:

• Perceived Action: This facet captures the presence of an intentional, goal-directed behavioral sequence. Rather than presenting a passive or resting tableau, an ad high in depicted action conveys that human agents or focal entities are actively performing a task, sport, or purposeful endeavor. For example, an ad showing an athlete captured at the apex of a hurdle jump exhibits high depicted action compared to an athlete posed stiffly beside a sponsor banner.
• Perceived Motion: This facet reflects the kinetic and physical displacement suggested by spatial cues, velocity markers, and postural instability. It taps into the visual sensation that an object or character is actively traveling through physical space. Visual indicators include trailing particles, windblown hair, angled body axes, and motion blur.
• Perceived Activity / Engagement: This facet measures the intensity and expenditure of physical or mechanical energy exhibited by the character or central agent. It distinguishes between static, stationary engagement (such as meditating or standing idle) and high-energy dynamic engagement (such as sprinting, dancing, or leaping).

The psychological construct must be clearly delineated from conceptually adjacent phenomena. It is distinct from visual complexity, which refers to the sheer number of visual elements, color variations, and structural details present in an image, regardless of whether those elements are moving. It is likewise differentiated from emotional arousal, which is a generalized physiological activation state that can be induced by frightening, humorous, or erotic still imagery without requiring any implied physical kinetics. Depicted movement is specifically defined by the mental reconstruction of kinetic trajectories and physical work within the frozen frame.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture undergirding the Depicted Movement in the Ad scale synthesizes foundational paradigms from cognitive psychology, neuroaesthetics, visual rhetoric, and narrative communication theory.

Representational Momentum and Mental Simulation

The primary cognitive foundation of depicted movement rests on the seminal theory of representational momentum pioneered by Jennifer Freyd and colleagues (Freyd, 1983, 1987). Freyd demonstrated that human memory for the spatial location of a static object depicting implied motion is systematically displaced forward along its implied trajectory. When observers view a photograph of an individual leaping off a ledge or a ball suspended mid-air, the human visual system does not treat the stimulus as an isolated, frozen snapshot; rather, it automatically simulates the physical dynamics governed by terrestrial physics, such as gravity, velocity, and friction. Cognitive neuroscientists have substantiated this phenomenon using functional neuroimaging (fMRI), showing that viewing static images with implied motion activates the medial temporal / medial superior temporal (MT+/V5) cortical area—the exact visual processing hub responsible for detecting actual physical motion (Kourtzi & Kanwisher, 2000). The Depicted Movement in the Ad scale quantifies the conscious, measurable manifestation of this mental simulation.

Visual Rhetoric and Grammar of Visual Design

From the perspective of visual semiotics and visual rhetoric (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), images communicate narrative action through specific syntactical structures termed “vectors.” A vector is formed by bodies, limbs, or tools arranged along oblique, dynamic axes that connect an “Actor” to a “Goal.” Whereas static, transactional displays position characters in front-facing, symmetrical, low-energy postures (indicative of classification or analytical structures), dynamic narrative displays employ high-energy vectors that denote narrative unfolding. Grigsby, Jewell, and Zamudio (2023) integrate this structural perspective, positing that when consumers decode high-vector visual rhetoric, they perceive high depicted movement, which transforms a single spatial snapshot into a dynamic scene.

Narrative Transportation and Persuasion

The ultimate theoretical framework connecting depicted movement to advertising efficacy is narrative transportation theory (Green & Brock, 2000; Escalas, 2004, 2007). Transportation describes an integrative mental process wherein all mental systems and capacities—attentional, emotional, and imagery-based—become focused on events occurring in the narrative. Historically, transportation was presumed to require linguistically rich, multi-sentence textual stories or temporal video narratives. Grigsby, Jewell, and Zamudio (2023) challenge this limitation by demonstrating that static imagery can independently induce narrative transportation. Because depicted movement activates representational momentum, consumers naturally infer the “beginning” that preceded the frozen action and mentally generate the “climax” and “resolution” that will follow. This self-generated story immerses the consumer in a narrative world, suppressing critical counterarguing, fostering positive affective responses toward the protagonist and brand, and amplifying persuasive conversion.

7. Validity

The validity of the Depicted Movement in the Ad scale has been established through multi-stage experimental testing and quantitative evaluation across diverse advertising domains (Grigsby et al., 2023).

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was demonstrated by examining how scores on the scale respond to controlled, experimental visual manipulations. In controlled laboratory experiments, visual stimuli were developed in matched pairs where the central character was photographed either in a high-motion posture (e.g., active running, mid-stride, limbs extended, unstable equilibrium) or a low-motion posture (e.g., standing still, symmetrical stance, resting posture), holding visual background, color palette, model identity, and branding constant. Across multiple experimental studies (e.g., Study 1, Study 2, and Study 3), respondents exposed to high-motion visual conditions reported statistically significant and substantially higher mean scores on the depicted movement scale compared to those in low-motion conditions (typically exhibiting mean differences ΔM > 1.50 on a 7-point scale, p < .001). This consistent pattern confirms that the instrument possesses high sensitivity and construct fidelity in capturing intended variations in visual kinetics.

Nomological and Predictive Validity

Predictive and nomological validity were affirmed through structural equation modeling and mediation analysis. In line with theoretical derivations, perceived depicted movement significantly and positively predicted narrative transportation scores (measured using established adaptations of Green and Brock’s Transportation Scale). Furthermore, bootstrapping mediation analyses confirmed that the indirect effect of visual motion manipulation on downstream advertising outcomes—specifically brand attitudes, ad liking, and product purchase intentions—was fully or partially mediated through perceived depicted movement and subsequent narrative transportation. This nomological network demonstrates that the scale functions exactly as anticipated by visual persuasion theory.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established by evaluating the scale against potentially overlapping constructs. Average Variance Extracted (AVE) analyses demonstrated that the variance captured by the depicted movement construct exceeded the squared correlations between depicted movement and visual complexity, visual art appreciation, and generic affective valence. When tested alongside measures of general image clarity and informational richness, depicted movement loaded on a distinct, isolated factor, proving that the scale captures dynamic kinetic energy rather than general aesthetic quality or visual busy-ness.

8. Reliability

The Depicted Movement in the Ad scale exhibits high internal consistency and measurement precision across independent samples and diverse advertising categories (including athletic apparel, consumer packaged goods, outdoor equipment, and service brands).

Internal Consistency Metrics

In the empirical studies reported by Grigsby, Jewell, and Zamudio (2023), the internal reliability of the three-item instrument was systematically assessed:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): Across the four validation studies, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the three-item composite consistently ranged from α = .88 to α = .93, comfortably surpassing the conventional psychometric threshold of .70 recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994) for established instruments.
• Composite Reliability (CR): Structural equation evaluations yielded composite reliability values exceeding .89, indicating that the items share a high proportion of common variance relative to random error.
• Inter-Item Correlations: Corrected item-total correlations for each of the three items consistently exceeded r = .75, indicating that each statement contributes significantly and homogeneously to the core latent construct.

Measurement Stability

Although experimental advertising designs prioritize internal consistency across manipulated experimental conditions rather than longitudinal test-retest administration (due to memory carryover effects of visual stimuli), multi-group invariance testing across diverse respondent demographics (gender, age cohorts) established metric and scalar invariance, verifying that the measurement parameters remain stable across varied consumer segments.

9. Factor Analysis

The underlying dimensionality and latent architecture of the Depicted Movement in the Ad scale were examined using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial scale calibration, the three items were subjected to principal axis factoring with promax rotation alongside items measuring visual complexity, narrative transportation, and brand attitude. The analysis extracted a single dominant factor for the depicted movement items with an eigenvalue substantially greater than 1.0 (typically λ > 2.45), accounting for over 80% of the total variance among the three items. The scree plot clearly indicated an unambiguous one-factor solution, with all three items loading exceptionally cleanly onto the primary factor (loadings > .85) without problematic cross-loadings on other constructs.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

A confirmatory factor analytic model specifying a unidimensional latent variable for depicted movement was evaluated using maximum likelihood estimation. The model fit indices demonstrated excellent fit to the empirical data:

• Model Chi-Square (χ²): Non-significant or within standard acceptable ratios relative to degrees of freedom (χ²/df < 2.50).
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values regularly exceeded .98, indicating near-optimal fit relative to a null baseline model.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Coefficients exceeded .97.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates fell below .05 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .000 to .078).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Observed values were below .025.

All standardized factor loadings were statistically significant (p < .001) and of substantial magnitude:

• Item 1 (“There is a lot of action depicted in the ad”): Standardized loading λ ≈ .88 – .92
• Item 2 (“There is a lot of motion depicted in the ad”): Standardized loading λ ≈ .90 – .94
• Item 3 (“The character in the ad is engaged in a lot of activity”): Standardized loading λ ≈ .82 – .88

The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) consistently surpassed .75, providing decisive empirical support for convergent validity and unidimensional parsimony.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The complete technical specification of the Depicted Movement in the Ad measurement instrument is detailed below:

• Instrument Name: Depicted Movement in the Ad Scale
• Authors: Jamie L. Grigsby, Robert D. Jewell, and César Zamudio (2023)
• Primary Target Construct: Perceived kinetic movement, bodily action, and mechanical/physical activity depicted in static advertising imagery
• Instrument Type: Self-report psychometric rating scale
• Total Item Count: 3 items
• Dimensionality: Unidimensional (single latent factor)
• Administration Format: Computer-assisted web interview (CAWI), paper-and-pencil questionnaire, or laboratory visual exposure test
• Estimated Completion Time: Under 1 minute (approximately 30 to 45 seconds)
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale:
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat disagree
  • 4 = Neither agree nor disagree
  • 5 = Somewhat agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly agree
• Scoring Protocol: All three items are positively phrased. No reverse scoring is required. An overall composite score is computed by calculating the arithmetic mean of the three item responses:

  Overall Depicted Movement Score = (Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3) / 3

• Interpretation: Composite scores range from 1.00 to 7.00. Higher scores represent greater perceived action, motion, and dynamic physical activity in the visual advertisement; lower scores represent static, passive, or inert representations.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Depicted Movement in the Ad scale was published in 2023 in the Journal of Advertising. As an academic psychometric measure published within a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, the scale items are available for non-commercial, academic, scientific, and educational research purposes without fee or licensing charges, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the original authors (Grigsby, Jewell, & Zamudio, 2023).

Commercial practitioners, marketing consultancy firms, and proprietary software platforms intending to integrate the scale into commercial pre-testing diagnostic engines or syndicated advertising research batteries should consult the fair-use policies of Taylor & Francis (the publisher of the Journal of Advertising) or contact the lead author, Dr. Jamie L. Grigsby, regarding commercial terms, institutional licensing, and reproduction rights.

12. References

• Cian, L., Krishna, A., & Elder, R. S. (2014). This icon moves me: Designing dynamic logos for increased engagement. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(2), 184–197. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.12.0087
• Escalas, J. E. (2004). Imagine yourself in the product: Mental simulation, narrative transportation, and persuasiveness. Journal of Advertising, 33(2), 37–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2004.10639163
• Escalas, J. E. (2007). Self-referencing and narrative transportation: Theory and evidence. Journal of Consumer Research, 34(4), 421–429. https://doi.org/10.1086/519147
• Freyd, J. J. (1983). The mental representation of movement when static stimuli are viewed. Perception & Psychophysics, 33(6), 575–581. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202940
• Freyd, J. J. (1987). Dynamic representations. Psychological Review, 94(4), 427–438. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.4.427
• Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701
• Grigsby, J. L., Jewell, R. D., & Zamudio, C. (2023). A picture’s worth a thousand words: Using depicted movement in picture-based ads to increase narrative transportation. Journal of Advertising, 52(4), 594–612. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2022.2149547
• Kourtzi, Z., & Kanwisher, N. (2000). Activation in human MT/MST by static images with implied motion. Nature Neuroscience, 3(10), 963–964. https://doi.org/10.1038/79885
• Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203619728
• Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric Theory (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.

13. Items of the Scale