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TV's real power
Sounds and motions stir up primitive responses
By Heidi Vogt
We’ve all watched a month-old baby lying on its back in a crib, fascinated by a twirling mobile overhead. We look on, amused, as the child’s eyes jump from object to object and he gurgles in joy at having so many exciting shapes dancing in front of him.
Turns out his experience isn’t that different from a 30-year-old sitting in front of a television set.
On one level our viewer is captivated by, say, the latest dramatic twist in the “Sopranos.”
But as researchers are coming to better appreciate, there's a whole other level on which television draws us in. It's pretty basic, and it has nothing to do with story lines and character development.
We are instinctively drawn to things that move and make noise, reflecting our past as a less-developed species surviving against a legion of threats.
“We’re very sensitive to motion,” says Daniel R. Anderson, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts who studies children’s television.
“When we see motion flickering in our visual periphery we very automatically look up. It has pretty clear survival value.”
This special quality of TV makes it the most powerful of all media, say researchers.
A new British study has concluded that the human brain is hard-wired to like television. The study showed 150 people information on three products--a vacation, a cell phone and a car--using three mediums.
Researchers recorded how much the participants remembered from a video using text only, sound only, and both together. When visual and audio were combined (à la television) people were more likely to remember the product.
"The brain simply likes telly," said Geoffrey Beattie, a professor of psychology at Manchester University and head of the study. "Even I am surprised at how powerful television has been proved to be. No wonder it is the world's favorite medium."
But with television omnipresent in today’s society, we tend to tune out a lot of this commotion.
“Most people watch television in an inattentive mode. It’s very common for people to use television to relax, to do other things while they’re watching TV -- like folding laundry, or paying bills,” says Anderson. In this mode only captivating sounds or more motion are going to catch our attention.
Another recent study has tried to figure out what can make us sit up and really pay attention to what’s playing on the TV.
The answer: at least for television news (the subject of the study) it’s all about movement, specifically animated graphics.
The team of researchers from Indiana University and NewsLab, a Washington, DC, nonprofit that works to improve broadcast news quality, showed subjects news stories on tornado damage using three different techniques: an animated graphic showing how a house could be torn apart by a tornado, a text block on the screen with advice on how to protect your house accompanied by an audio track and video of a tornado with a voice-over explaining how it could damage a house.
“The subjects’ heart rate declined most for the animated graphic,” explains Julia Fox, an assistant professor of telecommunications at Indiana University and principal author of the study.
“That means that they had increased attention.”
Participants also remembered more information from the animated graphic than the video. Those who paid attention to the stationary text remembered it well, but most barely glanced at the words, even though they had been told they’d be asked questions about it later. Using stationary text is “putting up something that is as good as a black screen,” says Deborah Potter, executive director of NewsLab.
“A certain amount of visual change definitely helps keep people’s attention,” says Anderson. “It’s the main reason why directors switch camera angles and switch focus in talk shows.”
But Anderson warns against relying on constant movement to keep viewers engaged.
“If the content isn’t fundamentally interesting to the viewer, the viewer is going to go back to whatever they were doing.
November 25, 2002© 2002 Media Life
-Heidi Vogt is a staff writer for Media Life.
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