Running head: EFFECT OF VOLUME ON VIDEO PREFERENCES 1

Volume’s Effect on Video Preferences

Hedy Zhang

Hill Country Christian School of Austin

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Abstract

This research aims to test and analyze whether the volume of a video’s

background music affects people’s video preferences. Based on research of the fluency of

processing information, we hypothesized that the subjects would prefer louder videos

over quieter videos. 92 people participated in this experiment. Two surveys--which

included volume-modified videos--were used in this experiment. Participants were then

asked to rank the videos. The results indicate that ratings for the louder video were

significantly higher than ratings for the quiet video, thus supporting our hypothesis that

people prefer louder videos over quieter videos. This experiment opens a field of further

research as it provides explanation for real life scenarios, such as why movies always

have loud background sound and how commercial music always sounds loud.
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Volume’s Effect on Video Preferences

Many factors contribute to a person’s preference of one advertisement video over

others. It could be a matter of prior experiences, personal interest, or the context in which

the video is presented: Does the video have high-quality editing; does the video have a

high pixel ratio; or does the video have good background music? According to Carpenter

(2013), fluency is what makes a task or object easy to process. Additionally, higher

fluency of an object or concept facilitates memory and makes one more likely to choose

the object due to its familiarity. One of the factors that affects the receiving fluency of

background music of a video is the volume. When a video is louder, people do not have

to exert as much energy to focus on what is being delivered, as compared to the attention

that would be required in a quieter video (Carpenter). This raises the question: Does the

volume of a video affect people’s preferences? Do people prefer louder videos over

quieter videos?

The hypothesis of this experiment is that participants will give a higher rating to

louder videos when compared to quieter ones. The reasoning that supports this hypothesis

is that louder videos take less effort to understand and process, thus making people like it

more. In this experiment, all participants engaged with the videos for the same amount of

time but with different levels of intensity. In other words, the energy and focus of the

louder videos are presumably easier to understand and remember, thereby allowing

viewers to “encounter it more” (Carpenter, 2013). In this case, encounter does not mean

the amount of time the participants engaged with the video, but the intensity of the

encounter. The energy and focus that would have been used to understand what the

background sound was saying could be used for picking up other details and messages in
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the video rather than attempt to comprehend what the speaker said. Because people can

understand the video with less effort, they may have a better understanding of the video,

leading them to like it more. There are many examples of how this effect could be

relevant in real life: teachers speaking louder than their normal volume to facilitate

memory and attention or commercials on the radio being louder than the music that was

just played.

Method

Participants

There was a total of 92 participants in this research study. 30 of them were

recruited from Mturk.com, while the others were recruited by word-of-mouth (hearing

about the survey through friends). Of the 92 participants, 54 were male and 38 were

female. 86% of the participants were between 18 to 54 years of age, and 76% of the

participants had graduated from college.

Materials

The materials used in this research were six video advertisements for different

brands of cereal, each around 20 seconds long with volumes modified to be either loud or

quiet. Loud videos were played at 100% of the original video volume, and quiet videos

were played at 10% of the original video volume. An additional volume-modified

alphabet song was used for the purpose of volume calibration.

Procedure

The experiment was conducted with two different forms of the same survey. Both

surveys consisted of six videos that were played in the same order: Three of these videos

were quiet while the other three were loud. The only difference between the two surveys
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was that a loud video in Survey Form A would be quiet in Survey Form B, and vise

versa.

The subjects in this experiment were first required to answer several questions

about their age, gender, and the highest education level that they received. They were

then asked to put on their headphones and watch a video of the alphabet song as a volume

calibration. The volume of the video alternated between loud and quiet among the letters,

which were grouped by the phrases of the song. For example, the letters ‘A’ through ‘G’

were loud, the letters ‘H’ through ‘N’ were quiet, and so on. Subjects adjusted the volume

to a point that they could hear every letter pronounced in the song clearly. Then, the

subjects watched six volume-modified advertisement videos. Volumes for the six videos

alternated between loud and quiet (e.g., the first video was loud, second video was quiet,

third video was loud, etc.). To counterbalance, the first video was loud in one version of

the survey and quiet in another. After watching each video, the subject was asked to rate

how much they liked it on a scale of one to ten (one being the lowest and ten being the

highest).

Results

The participants submitted their surveys, the data were imported into a

spreadsheet, and each participant’s average scores for loud versus quiet videos were

separately calculated and compared. The average rating of the louder videos was 6.57

(SD = 1.64), and the average of rating of the quiet videos was 5.93 (SD = 1.78). Ratings

for louder videos were significantly higher than ratings for quieter videos, t (91) = 3.59, p

< .01.

Discussion
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The results of this experiment show that ratings for the louder videos were higher

than ratings for the quieter videos. This supports the original hypothesis that louder

videos would have higher ratings when compared to others. This can be explained by the

mere exposure effect and the idea of how fluency facilitates the understanding process,

which in turn affects the audience’s preference of the videos (Carpenter, 2013).

There are several improvements that can be made to this experiment. Future work

can explore the ways in which preference of sound volumes may be relative among

individuals, and whether loudness could actually have negative effects on certain

people’s experience of videos. The videos chosen for the experiment could also be longer

so that participants could have a more accurate perception and rating of the videos. The

content of videos used could also go beyond the genre of cereal commercials. Further

study could also explore additional factors and reasons that lie behind people’s

preferences of louder videos.

The reasons listed above could have affected the result of this experiment.

However, this experiment was very practical because it tested real life scenarios. The

results from this experiment might be one of the reasons why advertisements are

sometimes too loud and why theaters always play the sound of a movie loudly.
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References

Carpenter, S. K., Wilford, M. M., Kornell, N., & Mullaney, K. M. (2013, May 04).

Appearances can be deceiving: Instructor fluency increases perceptions of

learning without increasing actual learning. Retrieved August 29, 2018, from

https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-013-0442-z.

Fournier, G. (2016, July 17). Mere Exposure Effect. Retrieved October 30, 2018, from

https://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/mere-exposure-effect/