Word: visual
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...Iranian-French animated autobiography Persepolis copped the Jury Prize, on its way to international renown and an Oscar nomination. (But never a Pixar movie, though several would have been ready for a mid-May slot. Go figure.) Today DreamWorks unveiled its latest ani-movie, Kung Fu Panda. As cunning visual art and ultra-satisfying entertainment, it proved an excellent choice...
...systematically measure their "cognitive accessibility." It's the kind of research that also helps Day explain how well, for example, jurors understand instructions given in court. Day (whose research is not funded by either the industry or the FDA) analyzes ads for their linguistic complexity, speed of voiceovers, visual distractions and the timing of when information is given about drug benefits and side effects - all to help determine how easy it is to understand and remember the information presented...
...found that test subjects had difficulty recalling the side effects mentioned in the commercial. (Here's a link to an early version of the ad, not the specific commercial Day studied - drug-makers continuously tweak ads after they're launched.) When Day studied the 2005 ad, she found several visual distractions that influenced viewer comprehension. During a voiceover about side effects, the bee flew from side to side, its wings flashing and flapping nearly four times per second. At the end of the commercial, when a voiceover talked about the benefits of Nasonex, the bee hovered in place...
...consumers, according to the NEJM article, prompting patients to seek new treatments, ask better questions of their doctors and solicit advice for medical conditions that might have gone untreated. But the potential for confusion is undeniable, as Day's data attests. Sometimes the ads employ crafty timing or visual distraction to deemphasize the risks. Sometimes they do so simply by using complex language: in a study of 29 drug ads that Day conducted in 2000 and 2001, Dayfound that, on average, benefit information required a sixth-grade level of language comprehension, while side effect information required a ninth-grade level...
...Frank put it later, his goal was to make pictures that would constitute "an authentic contemporary document; the visual impact should be such as will nullify explanation." Which they did--and then some. The parameters of American photography in the 1950s were largely set by magazines like LIFE and Look. More often than not, their taste ran to shots that were crisp as an apple, easily deciphered, and put a bright spin on things. Frank's were blurred, murky, tilted and mysterious. In Parade--Hoboken, New Jersey, the Stars and Stripes flutter between two bunkered enigmas, an image radically...