Advertisers will sell more stuff if their commercials run during innocuous family-fare programs rather than sexually charged shows, suggests new research into the effects of erotic programming on viewers’ response to ads.

Programs with overtly sexual content appeared to interfere with viewers’ ability to remember the commercials, according to the study, published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.

Researchers Ellie Parker and Adrian Furnham at University College London said provocative content may have left little “cognitive space” in viewers’ brains to process the commercials.

The researchers brought volunteers into a laboratory to watch an episode of the comedy “Malcolm in the Middle” and an episode of “Sex and the City” called “Was It Good for You?” One program contained nudity and sex scenes; the other had neither. Interspersed in the programs, the researchers had viewers see different advertisements for cell phones, hair products, and other everyday items. After the program, the volunteers were asked to recall as many advertisements and brands as they could.

“Brand recall for advertisements was ‘hindered’ by sexual content of programs, suggesting that there is something particularly involving or disturbing about sexual programs,” the paper concluded.

In a separate part of the experiment, researchers tested how advertisements with sexual content affected viewers. They found that men had better recall of advertisements with sexual content, and women had worse recall for those ads.