Bilingual Cigarette Warning Labels: Effects on Young People's Recall and Attention in Lebanon

Abstract

The goal was to determine the effects of bilingual cigarette warning labels on the recall performance and attention of young bilingual Lebanese college students. Forty-eight students were shown English-only, Arabic-only, or bilingual cigarette warning labels in 2020. Participants recalled as many of the labels as they could after the experiment and then two weeks later. Eye tracking was used to determine attention to the label and subjective data were collected. Results showed that bilingual labels did not lead to better recall; participants needed more time to extract data from bilingual labels and first looked at them later in time, although bilingual labels were revisited more. However, participants believed that bilingual labels were better. It appeared that bilingual labels led to clutter rather than helped recall. © The Author(s) 2023.