The Limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP) is a data based model proposed for investigation of the real-time processing of mediated messages. It provides the primary theoretical conceptualization of human information processing within a psychological perspective which enables researchers to track the overtime interactions that occurs between a message, the medium and the user. This model has the advantage of being applicable to all types of media even those yet to be invented and also with all types of messages and users (Lang, 2000). LC4MP is uniquely designed for understanding and prediction of the real-time interactions between a mediated message and human information processing system by use of motivational mechanisms and basic and basic cognitive process.
There are five basic assumptions that inform this theory. To begin with, human are the primary information processor, cognitive resources are necessary for information processing by humans, At any given time the available cognitive resources available for humans are limited. Secondly human beings are assumed to have two evolutionarily old motivational systems which are the aversive and the appetite system which promote survival and protect humans from harm. Thirdly the media is understood as being continuous and continuously varying streams of sensory information that occurs in one or multiple modalities with a range of redundancy among the modalities. Fourth it is conceived that human activity occurs over time. Lastly communication is perceived as the ongoing dynamic, continuous interaction between a message or medium and a message user or recipient. LC4MP also does not distinguish between communication that is interpersonal and that which is mediated (Lang, 2000).
Message processing as proposed by LC4MP model consists of three main cognitive process which are inclusive of; encoding, storage and retrieval. Encoding refers to the process of selecting significant information from the source in order to process that information further. Encoding process is non vertical and idiosyncratic in that it reflects the automatic reaction to structural and content of the message at the same time reacting to the goal and media of the message before the selection. Storage refers to the processes of relating acquired information to the existing information within an associative network of memory. Information is well stored if the link between the old and the current information is strong. Retrieval on the other hand refers to the ability to activate information that was previously stored.
LC4MP model provides one fixed pool limited capacity. The resources are perceived to be independently allocated to storage and encoding through the use of automatic and controlled process. The controlled placement is under the message control and is mainly affected by the viewers’ preferences and perceptions, goals and choices. On the other hand automatic allocation happens involuntarily. Lc4mp applies two automatic allocations which include the motivation allocation and the orienting response.
Predictions on how the level of activation in the appetitive- and the aversive system of motivation -may affect the allocation of the cognitive resources to encoding and storage of the message is made possible with this model. The LC4MP proposes that since information intake is basically a function of approach behavior, an increase on the appetitive activation consequently results in the increase of resources allocated to storage. In the same way increase in aversive activation is presumed to result to increase in the resources allocated to storage.
Various researches especially on viewing televisions have been done to verify the predicaments of this model and the results have been positive. For example some researchers have examined the extent to which negative and positive messages enhance the aversive and the appetitive motivational system respectively. This researches collected time locked psychological measures used for indexing aversive and appetitive activation during viewing of media. The results from the researches show that positive information influences appetitive response such as smiling and laughing. On the other hand negative information elicits aversive reactions such as frowning (Larsen, 2012)
LC4MP is a useful theoretical frame work especially in studying the overtime interactions of the diverse motivated cognitive processing and emotional content. People usually give messages related to the emotions that they currently have. It is also true that human beings have varying levels of motivation depending on the danger or the reward at hand all of which are bound to affect their reactions in terms of the message. It has generally been established that motivational activation is comparatively fast and automatic with emotional response (Larsen, 2012). Despite of this facts and advantages of the LC4MP theory there are various fields in which this theory needs some improvement in order to be more effective.
LC4MP has mainly focused on the activation of the communication system in human beings. The deactivation process is not well exhausted and some improvement on the current LC4MP could be useful in doing this. The same technique that is applied in determining the activation process for the activation process can be reversed in order to determine the activation process. For example if someone walking at night so something and thought that it was a tiger but just when he was about to take off he realized it was simply an antelope then how does the initial processed information become deactivated. Some improvements can also be made to determine how information is processed when activation and deactivation is occurring at the same time. For example if in this example the person is not so sure whether the animal he has just seen is a tiger or an antelope.
One way of establishing this is to incorporate LC4MP with other theories such that the two theories can complement each other. For example the dynamic time series models have shown usefulness in systematic examination of real time message processing (Wang et al. 2012, in press). This theory is therefore able to provide answers to the gaps left by LC4MP about dual processing and deactivation. This improvement will also help in determining methods through which human beings store information. LC4MP only takes two things into account- whether the message is emotional and if it is positive (appetitive) or negative (aversive). By categorizing messages in to this spectrum it fails to put into consideration that emotions exists in a range of value for example a person can be very excited, excited, relatively excited or just somehow excited. This dynamics do make a lot difference and it is important to involve the time factor in order to effectively determine how storage of information is done by human beings (Wang et al. 2012).
LC4MP model is a very comprehensive and effective information model that applies cognitive psychology and makes various assumptions in understanding the process of message processing through encoding, storage and retrieval. This model has been applied in various researches especially on television and has shown that various messages elicit different reaction to people which can either be aversive or appetitive. The only shortcoming of this model is that it fails to comprehensively explain the reverse (deactivation) process. Future improvement on LC4MP should incorporate the dynamic time series model in order to be able to measure emotions over time.
References
Lang, A. (2000). The limited capacity model of mediated message processing. Journal of Communication, 50, 46–70.
Larsen, J. T., McGraw, A. P., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2001). Can people feel happy and sad at the same time? Journal of Personality
Wang, Z., Morey, A. C., & Srivastava, J. (2012). Motivated selective attention during political and processing: The dynamic interplay between emotional ad content and candidate evaluation. Communication Research.
