nderstood. The advertisers in
metropolitan newspapers and magazines of large circulation are the ones
who have most at stake. But whatever the field to be reached, it is well
to bear in mind certain facts based on the Laws of Recall that have been
established by psychological experiment.

Most advertisers have a general idea that certain relative positions on
the newspaper or magazine page are to be preferred over others, but they
have no conception of the real differences in relative recall value.
When the great cost of space in large publications is considered the
financial value of such knowledge is evident.

By a great number of tests the relative recall value of every part of
the newspaper page has been approximately determined. It has been
found, for example, that a given space at the upper right-hand corner of
the page has more than twice the value of the same amount of space in
the lower left-hand corner.

[Sidenote: _Effect of Repetitions_]

Many advertisers adopt the policy of repeating full-page advertisements
at long intervals instead of advertising in a small way continually.
Laboratory tests have shown, on the contrary, that a quarter-page
advertisement appearing in four successive issues of a newspaper is
fifty per cent more effective than a full-page advertisement appearing
only once. It does not follow, however, that an eighth-page
advertisement repeated eight times is correspondingly more effective;
for below a certain relative size the value of an advertisement
decreases much more rapidly than the cost. There are, of course,
modifying conditions, such as special sales of department stores, where
occasional displays and announcements make it desirable to use either
full pages, or even double pages, but the great bulk of advertising is
not of this character.

[Sidenote: _Ratio of Size to Value_]

Every year in the United States alone six hundred millions of dollars
are expended in advertising the sale of commodities, and for the most
part expended in a haphazard, experimental and unscientific way. The
investment of this vast sum with risk of perhaps total loss, or even
possible injury, through the faulty construction or improper placing of
advertisements should stimulate the interest of every advertiser in the
work that psychologists have done and are doing toward the accumulation
of a body of exact knowledge on this subject.

[Sidenote: _Risks in Advertising_]

THE SCIENCE OF FORGETTING