Attentional, Affective, and Cognitive Responses to the Food and Drug Administration’s “The Real Cost” Youth Cigarette and E-Cigarette Prevention Campaigns Among Young Adults

Attentional, affective, and cognitive responses indicated a favorable response to campaign ads. Decreases in heart rate and increases in cognitive activity in the medial prefrontal cortex are associated with message processing and message-consistent behavior change. Some of the E-cigarette ads but none of the cigarette ads elicited cognitive activity associated with defensive processing, potentially owing to young adult's perceptions of E-cigarettes as less harmful than cigarettes. More work will advance the understanding of the rationale for increases in activity associated with defensive processing in response to the E-cigarette ads.