The closer, the better? Processing relations between picture elements in historical paintings

Abstract

The present eye-tracking study investigated how audio explanations influence perception and the cognitive processing of historical paintings. Spatially close and distant pairs of picture elements and their semantic relations were named in an audio text either immediately after each other or with descriptions of other elements in between. It was assumed that the number of backward fixation counts on the first of the two mentioned related picture elements should be higher if they are spatially close rather than spatially distant. There should also be more backward fixation counts if the elements are named temporally close rather than temporally distant. Similar predictions were made for the retention of these picture elements and their relations. A 2x2x2 within-subject design (n=36) with spatial distance (close vs. distant), temporal distance (close vs. distant) and painting (Leutze vs. West) revealed more background fixation counts for spatially close compared to spatially distant elements but just for the Leutze painting. Accordingly, the relations between the spatially close pairs were retained better than between the spatially distant pairs in the Leutze painting but vice versa for the West painting. The results are discussed with regard to the spatial contiguity principle of multimedia learning and research on text coherence.

Telling You More Fluently: Effect of the Joint Presentation of Eco-Label Information on Consumers’ Purchase Intention

“…Research on multimedia learning suggests the spatial distance between image and text affects cognitive or learning effects [ 51 ], and proposes the theory of “spatial contiguity effect” [ 52 ]. When images and text are both needed to understand a concept, spatial contiguity between them can reduce the time individuals spend searching for information, and they can retain more information in their short-term memory [ 53 ], which better facilitates learning [ 54 ]. When information is spatially partitioned, individuals become prone to attentional separation [ 50 ], in which case their cognitive load increases owing to the need to mentally combine different sources of information [ 55 ], which can result in reduced cognitive effects [ 52 ].…”

“…This is because the eye movement paths of individuals with high prior knowledge are characterized by higher saccade lengths [ 57 ]. Thus, individuals with high prior knowledge are better able to visually and cognitively connect spatially distant elements to fully comprehend the information [ 53 ].…”

“…However, consumers with high eco-label knowledge rely less on other information cues and more on their prior knowledge to process eco-labels [ 46 ]. Furthermore, even if consumers with high eco-label knowledge see the descriptive text, they can quickly link the eco-label and the text cognitively to complete their information processing [ 53 ]. Based on this, we predict that spatial distance will not have a significant effect on their cognitive fluency.…”

Eye tracking and visual arts. Introduction to the special thematic issue

“…We can set AOIs top down (i.e. comparing some figures of a painting with other figures as Glaser, Knoos, & Schwan, 2020;Hardiess & Weissert, 2021), in a neutral manner such as a grid (Sancarlo, Dare, Arato, & Rosenberg, 2020) or bottom up by using recorded data as the area most often looked at (Fuhl et al, 2018)). The analysis of fixations reveals the variable degrees of saliency within and across artworks.…”