Table 2: Recommendations to enhance the theoretical and ecological validity of methodologies tackling non-conscious memorization (and processing) in marketing communication.
1 Refer to Tulving [98] concepts of autonoetic and noetic awareness and unawareness.
2 Select either a flexible or a strict approach of unawareness in memorization (and processing) depending on experiment targets.
3 Rigorously control unawareness by associating a number of criteria:
  1. For the flexible approach:
    1. Set up a non-intentional memorization framework and check the absence of explicit incentives to supposedly non-conscious processing via specific experiment procedures and instructions;
    2. Check demand unawareness via a post-experiment recall questionnaire giving progressive cues;
    3. Check the incapacity of verbally and accurately reporting processing and memory traces supposed non-conscious, via a post-experiment recall questionnaire including general questions(s);
  2. For a strict approach, add the following criteria to the above mentioned a), b) and c):
    1. Check, if possible directly, the non-conscious nature of processes via verbalization and/or psycho-sensorial techniques during exposure;
    2. Check the incapacity of verbally and accurately reporting processing and memory traces supposed non-conscious, via a post-experiment recall questionnaire giving progressive cues;
    3. whenever possible, apply a post-experiment recognition test.
4 Conduct research specific to marketing communication under conditions closer to everyday life on:
  1. Exposures to forgotten messages and their temporal effects, by checking autonoetic unawareness via a post-experiment recall questionnaire.
  2. Non-conscious effects of emotional contexts, by measuring autonoetic and noetic unawareness via recall tests and specify the different levels of noetic awareness.