Viewer Reactions Research Articles

Image Influence on Concern about Stormwater Flooding: Exploratory Focus Groups

Increased urbanization coupled with climate change is increasing the number and intensity of stormwater flooding events. Implementing efforts to successfully manage stormwater flooding depends on understanding how people perceive these events. While images of stormwater flooding abound, how these images influence perceptions about flooding events or management options remains understudied. Our objective is to contribute to the general understanding of how various types of images depicting stormwater runoff and stormwater related flooding influence individual and group interpretations of causes of events, major impacts of those events, and responsibility for managing stormwater related events. To this end, we convened focus groups, gave participants numerous photos of stormwater flooding, asked them to identify which images were most concerning, and to then discuss the specific aspects of the photos that prompted concern. We also tested whether a priming image implicating climate change or development as a cause of stormwater flooding influenced viewer reactions. Finally, we asked participants about preferences for who should manage stormwater. Our results revealed that photo location, the water’s appearance, and what people were doing in the photo influenced levels of concern. We also found that priming seems to affect opinions regarding urban stormwater management. Finally, there is some evidence that the absence of people in the photo may affect beliefs about who should manage stormwater.

WHAT COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE SAY ABOUT AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE?

Today, researchers can observe the neural responses to an aesthetic image in the human brain and examine the physiological reactions of viewers to an art object. Neuroaesthetics is a new field of study that characterizes the evolutionary history of the creation and evaluation of art by examining these responses. Neuroscientists, who have managed to map the neural pathways of the visual processing processes that occur in a person's brain while watching artworks, have been focusing on how the visual cortex processes information and reaches aesthetic judgment in recent years. The focus of this research is how a work of art is perceived, how the visual cortex processes information when reaching aesthetic judgments, color perception, synesthesia, and finally, the effects of brain damage on artists. In the study, firstly, the visual-spatial processes, which are the basic processes of visual perception, were discussed. In this way, object perception and the visual processes occurring in the brain during the perception of the art object were examined. In the next section, which draws attention to the perception of color as well as shape and spatial location, synesthesia, which has been the subject of many studies by neuroscientists in recent years and is known as the perception of one sense together with another sense, is discussed. Finally, studies on brain-damaged artists, one of the experimental methods most preferred by neuroscientists in research on aesthetic perception, and the data obtained from these studies are presented.

‘Angry and heartbroken for the failure of the system’

As the number of wrongful conviction media productions released to the public increases, an understanding of their potential impact on viewers is prudent. One such production, When They See Us, depicts the wrongful conviction of five racialized youth, and we investigated the effect of watching this specific wrongful conviction media production on a subset of Reddit users’ online conversations about wrongful convictions and the criminal justice system in general. Following an inductive content analysis of Reddit comments shared to r/WhenTheySeeUs (N = 461), seven coding categories were observed. The ‘Wrongful Conviction Relevant’ coding category was the third most frequently occurring, representing 28% of total comments. Additionally, after conducting a deeper thematic analysis of the ‘Wrongful Conviction Relevant’ comments, the following themes and subthemes were identified: Risk Factors (Individual Characteristics and System Factors), Exoneration and Beyond (Impacts on Exonerees and Changes to System), and the Innocence Movement (Unmet System Expectations and Public Awareness). Users’ ‘Wrongful Conviction Relevant’ comments were situated within the academic literature investigating wrongful conviction correlates, outcomes, and preventative measures, and discussed in relation to viewer reactions to other wrongful conviction media productions.

White Americans’ preference for Black people in advertising has increased in the past 66 years: A meta-analysis

This study investigates Black and White consumers' preferences for Black versus White people in United States advertising contexts over 66 y, from 1956 until 2022, a time in which the United States has experienced significant ethno-racial diversification. Examining Black and White consumers' reactions to visual advertising over more than half a century offers a unique and dynamic view of interracial preferences. Mass advertising reaches an audience of billions and can shape people's attitudes and behavior, emphasizing the relevance of clarifying the influence of race in advertising, how it has evolved over time, and how it may contribute to mitigating discrimination based on racial perceptions. A meta-analysis of extant experiments into the relationship between the depicted endorser's race (i.e., the model in a visual ad) and the reaction of Black and White viewers pertains to 332 effect sizes from 62 studies reported in 52 scientific papers, comprising 10,186 Black and White participants. Our results are anchored in a conceptual framework, including a comprehensive set of perceiver (viewer), target (endorser), social/societal context, and publication characteristics. Without accounting for temporal dynamics, the results indicate ingroup favoritism, such that White viewers prefer White models and Black viewers prefer Black models. But by controlling for the publication year, it is possible to observe a time-dependent trend: Historically, White consumers preferred endorsers of the same race, but this preference has significantly shifted toward Black endorsers in recent years. In contrast, the level of Black consumers' reactions to endorsers of the same race remains largely unchanged over time.

Using photo editing to understand the impact of species aesthetics on support for conservation

Abstract Many threatened species suffer from a lack of conservation attention compared to others. Prioritisation of funding, research and conservation efforts seem to be driven by reasons beyond conservation need. This could be due to a ‘beauty bias’, whereby aesthetically pleasing species receive more attention. We examined how editing an image to increase a species' aesthetic appeal may impact donation choices and public attitude towards that species. We posed two research questions; first, ‘do people make different donation choices when they see original images of a species compared to when they see images of the same species that have been edited to match aesthetic preferences?’ Using hypothetical donation experiments, we asked respondents to allocate funds to the conservation of three pictured species, one ‘aesthetically appealing’, one ‘aesthetically unappealing’, and one whose image was either edited to reflect common aesthetic preferences or left unedited. Our findings suggest that images edited to make an animal more visually appealing tend to receive higher hypothetical donation amounts than original images. We also posed a second research question; ‘How do people of varying conservation expertise respond to original versus edited images of wildlife?’ To investigate this, we ran three focus groups with individuals unfamiliar with our test species, those familiar with two or more of our test species, and with conservation professionals, which showed mixed reactions both within and between groups. Focus group participants with less conservation expertise noted that edited images often seemed ‘cuter’ than unedited images, and were more likely to compare them to cartoon characters. Participants with more conservation expertise and species familiarity reported greater empathy towards unedited images, and noted that the edited images prompted an ‘uncanny valley’ response, highlighting the need for further scrutiny in how photo editing might be used in conservation messaging. Our findings support the beauty bias hypothesis and highlight that decisions on conservation support should acknowledge that less aesthetically pleasing species are disadvantaged in public attention and funding. In addition, the findings highlight the role of conservation expertise in impacting viewer reactions, as well as the ethical implications of editing images of wildlife. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Spare the rod and spoil the pervert: Corporal punishment and the nineteenth century in popular culture

This article compares corporal punishment in nineteenth-century fiction with corporal punishment in the fictional recreation of the nineteenth century in twentieth-century film and television. It locates in the literature of the actual nineteenth century two creative impulses influencing the dramatic representation of Victorian schooling in modern adaptations. One is the evocation of schools in Victorian works of fiction, which became television and film adaptations. Another impulse is the subversive and covert flagellation literature of the fin de siècle. Both the respectable and the illicit literatures adduce core elements of corporal punishment: the formation of tableaux of bodies; the importance of access to the body; the subversion of what should be an act of correction because the subversion becomes permanent; and the way the restorative becomes aberrant. This article proposes that the popular culture of the twentieth century made overt what had been covert in the nineteenth century. Surveying period drama on British television and film using the 1971 adaptation of Tom Brown’s School Days as a focal point, this article proposes the fusion of the overt and covert of the preceding century. Close readings of popular culture productions show, as do the reactions of contemporary viewers, that they presented corporal punishment which subverted rather than chastised and which perverted rather than restored. These twentieth-century evocations of the previous century were contiguous with debate on the use and abolition of corporal punishment in modern schools. This article weaves together the past and the present, suggesting that classic works made by modern interpreters evoked the past in ways that subverted the present.

Brand new: how visual context shapes initial response to logos and corporate visual identity systems

PurposeWhen a new logo is released, it does not have an established meaning in the mind of the viewer. As logos have become more highly scrutinized by consumers and critics, it has become more important to understand viewers’ initial responses to logos. While other studies have researched the impact of aesthetic choices on viewer reaction to logos, this study aims to understand the effect of the surrounding visual identity system when a new logo is introduced.Design/methodology/approachThis study combines a content analysis of 335 posts on the logo review website Brand New with the voting data from their polls to understand how visual context correlates with a viewer’s initial response.FindingsIncreased amounts of visual context correlate to an improved response from viewers. Different types of context that can be presented – from logo variations and environmental examples to videos and animation – have varied effects.Practical implicationsWhen releasing a new logo, companies and organizations may receive a better response from viewers if they provide more visual context. Animations may also provide an improved response.Originality/valueThis study takes a novel approach to exploring viewer responses to logos by combining content analysis with voting data. While most studies use fictitious or abstract logo designs, this study uses actual logos and context to better understand viewer responses.

Bharatanatyam and Art activism in the Networked Digital Space

All over the world, traditional models of art activism through dance involved performances that reached a limited audience, while the advent of networked digital spaces has vastly expanded the scope of art activism to a global level. Offering a qualitative netnographic exploration of how Bharatanatyam has been employed for such art activism in the digital space, this article examines the implications for this prominent traditional South Indian dance form in terms of stylistic changes as well as viewer reactions. Through content analysis of the viewer responses to ten popular renditions uploaded on YouTube over five years (2016–2020), we trace how the art form is evolving and how activist goals are reciprocated by the audience. Our findings confirm that Bharatanatyam has great potential to evolve by adapting novel social themes. However, while such contemporary renditions may elicit viewer responses that critically appraise specific social issues and pave the way for social change, the resulting innovations continue to co-exist with old conflicts and tensions about ‘traditional’ art and its uses.

Youtube Video TrendingAnalysis Based on Machine Learning

Social media platforms play an important role in commerce, entertainment, marketing, education, media and communication. YouTube has a large and active user base, making it the center of corporate digital marketing efforts. There are always videos that attract a lot of attention in a short period of time and become trending videos on YouTube, and these videos can be displayed as trending videos on YouTube and updated daily. In this article, we analyzed data on YouTube trending videos in the US region and analyzed the targets that captured the attention of users in a relatively short period of time. We conduct exploratory data analysis on each aspect to gain data insights and find statistical similarities between them to understand viewing patterns across video categories. We present our analysis by measuring, mining, analyzing, and doing ANOVA comparisons of four scales of different categories of likes, dislikes, opinions, and comments. In addition, the study compared the accuracy of three machine learning methods on YouTube data, which counts the number of views and viewer reactions of popular videos on YouTube.

ROBOTIC ART IN THE CASE STUDY OF THE INFERNO PERFORMANCE (TRANSHUMANIST PROJECTS IN REALITY)

This paper analyzes the provisions of the transhumanist “philosophy” implemented in contemporary art, particularly, in cyber art. The performance Inferno created by two artists - Louis-Philippe Demers and Bill Vorn is presented as a case study. The artists have shown this performance in various parts of the world: from the USA to Russia. From the point of view of transhumanism, this performance is positioned as a “useful experience” and as an illustration of symbiosis (mutualism) of man and machine. However, this assessment initially contains a number of errors. Firstly, there is a substitution of concepts and processes, where the term “symbiosis” does not correspond to the essence of the phenomenon. Secondly, the article emphasizes the role of the experiment when, through robotic art, the “voluntary” monitoring of the reactions of the performance viewers is carried out, and the viewers serve as experimental samples or transhumans in the context of the “human enhancement” project.

A quantitative analysis of the reactions of viewers with hearing impairment to the intralingual subtitling of Egyptian movies

This study investigates how the viewers with hearing impairment reacted to the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) subtitles added to some Vernacular Arabic movies during the COVID-19 stay-at-home period. A sample group of 106 deaf participants was asked to watch the MSA subtitled version of the Egyptian vernacular movie, Boushkash, and fill in an 18-item questionnaire of five constructs, namely, (1) movie watching habits, (2) technical aspects, (3) linguistic and paralinguistic information, (4) attitude, and (5) future actions and recommendations. The analysis showed that the intralingual subtitling of vernacular Arabic comedy movies was received positively by the participants. The technical specifications of the subtitles were satisfactory and adequate. The paralinguistic information was helpful as it offers a better understanding of the movie and creates a sense of reality in the movie's scenes. This indicates that intralingual subtitling is a step in the right direction that makes audiovisual materials accessible to people with hearing impairment and enhances their feeling of social inclusion. The study concludes that more governmental care in the Arab countries should be directed towards this minority group by urging national TV channels to add intralingual translation to their various programs.

Научные поиски в советской кинематографии 1920-х–1930-х годов. (Метод «параллельной кинозасъемки» Анатолия Терского)

In this paper, we consider a unique period in the development of Soviet cinema, from 1928 to 1932, when the Geographical and Ethnographic Cinema-Atlas project was underway. It implied the making of a series of cultural films about the peoples and cultures of the USSR and, therefore, involved the search for scientific grounds for advancing cinematic art. In the second half of the 1920s, some Soviet filmmakers even worked out specific methods, based on real scientific research, which could be applied in the field of documentary. For example, one of the key trends in the theory and methodology of Soviet cinema in the 1920s–1930s was the study of the audience’s perception through decoding—with the help of psychology (reflexology)—of the recorded mimic reactions of viewers. We have analyzed the method of “parallel filming” of the audience, which was introduced by the Soviet film director and ethnographer Anatoly Terskoy within the scientific, cinematic, and ideological contexts. We believe that this overlooked concept is a valuable material for today’s documentary filmmakers. On the one hand, Terskoy’s works highlight the creative paradigms in which cinematographers were making their ethnographic and anti-religious films in the Soviet Union of the 1920s and 1930s. On the other hand, it was such scientific and creative searches that later became the theoretical basis for large-scale projects on the cinematic representation of different parts of the USSR on screen.

Visual Attention Software: A New Tool for Understanding the “Subliminal” Experience of the Built Environment

Eye-tracking technology is a biometric tool that has found many commercial and research applications. The recent advent of affordable wearable sensors has considerably expanded the range of these possibilities to fields such as computer gaming, education, entertainment, health, neuromarketing, psychology, etc. The Visual Attention Software by 3M (3M-VAS) is an artificial intelligence application that was formulated using experimental data from eye-tracking. It can be used to predict viewer reactions to images, generating fixation point probability maps and fixation point sequence estimations, thus revealing pre-attentive processing of visual stimuli with a very high degree of accuracy. We have used 3M-VAS software in an innovative implementation to analyze images of different buildings, either in their original state or photographically manipulated, as well as various geometric patterns. The software not only reveals non-obvious fixation points, but also overall relative design coherence, a key element of Christopher Alexander’s theory of geometrical order. A more evenly distributed field of attention seen in some structures contrasts with other buildings being ignored, those showing instead unconnected points of splintered attention. Our findings are non-intuitive and surprising. We link these results to both Alexander’s theory and Neuroscience, identify potential pitfalls in the software’s use, and also suggest ways to avoid them.

BoPopriation: How self-promotion and corporate commodification can undermine the body positivity (BoPo) movement on Instagram

ABSTRACT Proponents of the body positivity (BoPo) movement prominently use social media to promote body appreciation and normalize marginalized bodies. However, companies and social media users have increasingly commodified the movement for self-serving reasons or economic gain. Providing a unique test of the persuasion knowledge model, this experiment examined (a) how the commodification of a prosocial movement can undermine its efficacy and (b) how the symmetry between visual and text-based messaging can influence viewer reactions. Results indicated that body positive posts on Instagram that contained self-promotion or promoted products were viewed as less morally appropriate and were less effective at promoting body appreciation and inclusivity. Practical implications are discussed and a novel boundary condition for the persuasion knowledge model is presented.

Does This Photo Make Me Look Good?

In recent years, the use and importance of visual communication through photos have grown considerably. However, we have little understanding of the alignment between the intentions of the photo posters and the reactions of viewers. To address this gap, we replicated previous work that studied the alignment of poster and outsider judgments of text posts by extending it to photo posts. In our study of 573 users across four social media platforms, we found that outsiders generally judge photo posts more positively than anticipated by posters. Examining viewer engagement on social media revealed that photos depicting family and friends receive fewer reactions. We apply our insight to propose novel solutions that can help users create a more positive digital presence by aligning their photo posts with the expectations of their audiences.

Genre Expectations and Viewer Reaction to Our Planet: Are Audiences Motivated to Act More Sustainably?

As more people turn to documentaries to learn about environmental issues it becomes even more important to consider the ways in which genre and its representational patterns, such as the use of images, affect viewers. Re-examining the multiliteracies framework and grounded in rhetorical genre studies, this paper explores the first two episodes of Our Planet, a Netflix docu-series that catalyzed strong responses based on two jarring image sequences. The purpose of this paper is to examine how our familiar understandings of particular genres impacts our understanding of particular issues and what happens when the familiar patterns of a genre are challenged.

온라인 방송에서 시청자 반응 및 의도 기반의 실시간 광고 서비스를 위한 데이터 모델링 기법

기존의 광고 서비스와 사용자의 인터랙션은 제한적이다. 개인화된 광고 서비스를 제공하기 위해, 광고 시스템은 사용자의 프로파일 및 사용자-컨텐츠 관계에 기초하여 사용자의 선호도를 예측해야 한다. 사용자의 선호도를 예측하기 위한 방법으로 추천 기법에 대한 많은 연구가 진행되어 왔다. 그러나, 기존의 추천 시스템은 계산 복잡도가 높은 매트릭스를 연산을 수행하기 때문에 실시간 선호도 예측을 보장하기 어렵다. 본 논문에서는 미디어 컨텐츠 시청자의 반응 및 의도 기반의 실시간 광고 서비스를 위한 데이터 모델링 기법을 제안한다. 사용자 선호도를 실시간으로 예측하기 위해 사용자 히스토리 데이터는 트리구조로 구성된다. 트리 구조는 데이터 탐색 및 비교를 로그 시간 복잡도 이내에 수행 가능하다. 추천의 정확도를 향상시키기 위하여 사용자의 긍정적인 평가와 부정적인 평가를 모두 고려한 추천 알고리즘을 제안한다. 마지막으로, 실제 데이터를 통해 제안하는 추천 기법의 성능을 다양한 방법을 통해 평가한다.

Loss and beauty: how experts and novices judge paintings with lacunae.

Lacunae are the voids left by missing or damaged pieces of artwork, and their presence constitutes a central problem in the aesthetic experience of viewing artwork. However, we hypothesize that experience and knowledge of art might differentially modify viewer reactions to degraded artwork. Here, we investigated the implicit and explicit attitudes of art experts and non-experts towards the aesthetics of perfectly intact and lacunar artwork. Sections of Flemish oil paintings were displayed with or without a degradation mask, which mimics lacunae. Three groups differing in their interaction with art were assessed: art restorers, art historians, and art viewers lacking any art-related professional expertise. We found that (1) professional experience/expertise in art restoration affected implicit, but not explicit, attitudes among restorers, (2) art historians had positive explicit, but not implicit, attitudes toward intact artwork, and (3) it was difficult for non-specialist viewers to understand or appreciate artwork that was not perfectly intact. We further discuss the implications of these results to other forms of aesthetic evaluation and expertise. Modified preferences in experts may improve knowledge of the plastic changes that occur in the cognition of aesthetics and may thus be of significant relevance to enhance the effectiveness of art conservation programs.

С иконой и ножом: о семиоэстетических причинах вандализма А. Балашова

The article deals with semiotics of the vandal action of Abram Balashov in Tretyakov gallery aimed at the damaging Iliya Repin’s painting “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 14 November 1581”. We compared two acts of Russian vandals who attacked the canvas on 1913 and on 2018. There is considerable difference between Igor Podporin’s reckless ideological action and Balashov’s actions which were carefully planned. Balashov was an icon painter, but wanted to be a painter. Like M. Voloshin we insist that his mental disorder is caused by provocative Repin’s painting. The shocking effect of this artwork caused a similar reaction of Russian viewers on 1885 disgusted and amazed by naturalism and expression of the painting. Repin’s work was inspired by his own bleeding trauma experienced in childhood, by the European paintings of the bleeding Christ, by Russian antimonarchist radicalism, by N. Karamsin’s gothic version of tsar Ivan activity, finally by «le genre féroce» of the modern French painting. Repin added to visual look of Ivan the Terrible some demonic features and to his son figure some Christ features. Balashov belonged to subculture of Russian Old Believers in turn was inspired by hagiography of Old Believer martyr Morozova and by icon like painting “Boiarynia Morozova” of Surikov. Balashov’s vandal act is a typical Russian «fool for Christ» gesture. Probably he followed the tradition of damaging devil's faces in books and on icons.

Talking events: How social interaction and discourse shape cultural participation, aesthetic evaluation, and meaning-making

This paper uses the case of “talking events” – i.e., exhibition openings and talks by artists – to examine how cultural experiences are interactional accomplishments. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in Accra, Ghana, and Johannesburg, South Africa, the paper demonstrates the role of interaction and discourse in art galleries and museums in three ways: First, talking events encourage engagement with art spaces by promoting the practice of sociability, and temporarily subverting social and physical barriers to entry. Second, at talking events, the reactions of other viewers mediate individual evaluations of art, by drawing attention to aesthetic details, and by presenting alternative perspectives of the exhibited artworks. Thirdly, talking events reveal the backstory of the exhibition, which provides another layer of understanding, beyond the initial, intuitive experience. Notably, talking events render the symbolic boundary between lay viewers and art professionals more permeable, as lay viewers act as “inadvertent critics” who evaluate and interpret artworks together with cultural experts.