London, UK. Research finds voters could be heavily swayed by a continuous response tracking measure (the worm, increasingly used in live election debates around the world.

Unlike standard political polls that use sample sizes comprising hundreds or thousands of voters, an alternative method is based on a very small sample of undecided voters (sometimes as few as 12). These voters watch the debate live and record their satisfaction with what the leaders are saying using a handset.


The averaged responses of the small sample result in a time series of data — the worm — that is superimposed over the video of the debate. The findings call into question the ability of people to form their own judgements about preferred election candidates.



Worm Graph Methodology

Click Pic for DetailsFirst introduced by the United Sates in 1960, televised election debates are now a prominent feature in the election campaigns of many countries. The worm sampling methodology used by CNN in the United States, as well as broadcasters in Australia and New Zealand, reached the United Kingdom during its own first televised election debates between the leaders of the main parliamentary parties in 2010.

Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Bristol carried out their study by manipulating the worm and superimposing it on a live broadcast of the third UK election debate, which was viewed by the study subjects.

Two groups of 75 viewers took part; in one group, the worm favored the incumbent Prime Minister, in the other group it favored the leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg. The experimenters successfully convinced the majority of the viewers taking part in the study that they were watching an authentic audience response to the live debate.

The study team's findings appear in the journal PLoS ONE.

Professor Colin Davis, from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway explains: "We were amazed by the size of the effect that our worms had on viewers' opinions of who won the debate, and even on their choice of preferred Prime Minister. If our results were to generalise to the population at large, a biased worm in a debate shortly before polling day could determine the result of a close election.

He added: "In theory, an election debate should be an opportunity for the public to listen to the candidates and form independent opinions that are unfiltered by spin and commentary. The introduction of the worm compromises that possibility.

"The squiggly worm is certainly interesting to watch — sometimes more interesting than the candidates — but there's a real danger that we can get sucked in by the worm and allow it to sway, or even determine, our opinion. Results like ours force us to reconsider to what extent 'our' opinions really are our own."

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