Taking a step back and brainstorming some more

Despite my previous post being quite focused in the direction of attention spans, my over-thinking brain continued (and probably continues) to push ideas around, sometimes all at once.  This post will be about my brainstorming, mind mapping and subsequent decision on the topic I have chosen to look into for my Honours' project (well, for now…!)

After Simone's lecture on Friday, it became apparent that I hadn't really done enough mind-mapping to my own satisfaction, so I made several about different topics I was considering exploring; motion graphics, attention spans, and a "jellyfish" mind map about all the areas I had thought of.  

Above: attention spans

• High-intensity stimulus vs simpler, streamlined
• What stimulus does the eye/brain latch onto?  In what order?
• Emotional stimuli
• Designing for low attention spans?
• Autism and ADD learning structures
• Creativity and Cognition studies website
• listed articles of use

Ideas from this mind map 

• Further user experience/investment with interactive art piece - appears static, but as the user clicks or touches more animation or art revealed (think "Strawberry Thief" game by Sophia George)
• Design for learning or educational
• Possible combination of the above
• Kinetic learning styles - how and why

Above: motion graphics

• Kinetic information
• Attention span & visuals
• How does the golden spiral relate to motion design?
• Saccadic eye movements
• Design motion information to correspond with eye movements
• Isometric
• Papercraft/traditonal art simulated digitally
• Static pieces made interactive with touch/click
• 2D? 3D? Combination?
• Create a motion animation from a static piece of art?

Ideas from this mind map

• Watch tutorials and learn!
• Overlay static, possibly traditional medium pieces with 3D motion animations

Above: Jelly fish mind map

Here I wrote down ideas as they came to mind, and ones which followed from those.  Ideas which could be linked were circled in the same pattern.  Here I found the ideas concerning transmedia narratives quite helpful to the ideas process, as this got me thinking about why transmedia narratives are effective and what kind of project would typically use them.  The "art for emotion" ideas also got me thinking about illustration as a tool for emotion.  These two things then helped lead me to the topic of art informing social behaviour, which is the mind-map below.

This topic I think would work best as a dissertation topic as there is potential for a lot of psychological research and case studies into propaganda and branding.  

• What kind of design has the most influence?
• Why was it designed? Reaction to the times
• Political art movements (propaganda)
• Multiple ways to be absorbed my someone
• Transmedia
• What is the most effective end user experience?
• QR codes integrated into art
• Immersive or interactive art
• Branding and persuasion
• Personal interest = greater emotional involvement?
• What is it about the narrative that makes people want to continue?

This led to the question of how to choose an honours project topic that would link to the above topic if that were to be my dissertation topic.  After a lot of muddled brain-stewing, a chance finding of a book about graphic design exercises which involved designing for brands gave me a lightbulb moment.  Arguably all design involves psychology and an attempt to influence someone, however branding is an area where this is particularly true as it is more often than not tied up in the process of buying and selling goods or a service.  Some of my favourite honours projects from previous years have been ones on branding, and it is an area which can include graphic design, motion graphics and illustration which are the three key areas I would like to be the most proficient in.  

Above: branding

• How far does a brand have to go?
• Transmedia as an effective medium
• Propaganda and branding
• Lifestyle brands: Life Is Good, Lulu Lemon, Hollister, Lush, Abandon Ship, Genius Foods (case studies)
• What is the end user experience of the brand/message's impact? What experience are consumers being promised? 
• Propaganda designs aimed at consumers; WWII posters
• What parts of a person do brands try to call out?  How do we convince someone they "need" a product?

Next steps:  Reading up on books/articles relating to branding and emotional design, case studies on what and why brands are successful from a visual point of view.

17/09/14

This week I have been researching eye movements attention spans, as it is something I have noticed is a recurring topic in psychological and sociological research with regards to it’s ever-shrinking nature among Generation Y. I realised recently that I am someone who learns a lot better from video content than I do from static tutorials, and I began to wonder if this was because the combination of audio and movement held my attention better than some static step-by-step guide. E-learning and the era of smart technology have shrunk our attention spans, and while many online articles urge us to regain our concentration, I have been thinking about what it might be worth to look at using motion graphics as a way of catering to this statistic. I decided to just get stuck in and begin reading to see what I could find - normally I wouldn’t do this as it’s much better to know what you are looking for. but I know very little on attention spans as it is.

The bulk of my notes on the topic of attention spans thus far are from the book “Attention in Vision: Perception, Communication and Action” by A.H.C van der Heijden, which references many other books in-text. This book is written for those who study the field of psychology, so I found it quite hard going at times. One of the key things I found out which may inform where I go form where is the typical eye movements a person makes when taking in “stimuli”. These are known as saccadic eye movements, during which the eye has two states: “move” (M) and “fixate” (F). According to Bridgeman (1992, p76) who is quoted in-text by der Heijden, “The vast majority of behavioral acts are saccadic jumps of the eyes....Saccades occur several times per second throughout waking life...The fact that we are blissfully unaware of them...speaks to the minor role that consciousness plays in governing and monitoring behavior.” Following on from this, der Heijden quotes from Skinner (1972), who says:

‘A(n) example, a “cognitive activity”, is attention. A person responds only to the small part of the stimuli impinging upon him. The traditional view is that he himself determines which stimuli are to be effective by “paying attention” to them. Some kind of inner gate keeper is said to allow some stimuli to enter and keep all the others out. A sudden or strong stimulus my break through and “attract” attention, but the person himself seems to otherwise be in control.’ (Skinner, 1972, p177)

I found this snippet particularly interesting because it suggests that we may have more control over what we pay attention to, which leads to the question of what content could be defined by a large group of people as “worth” paying attention to?

Photos: Patterns of eye movements studying a face

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Looking at saccadic eye jumps is as important regarding the “why” as it is the “what” - der Heijden states that an understanding of the eye movements a person makes while taking in information is a good indicator of how the information is selected and processes. He writes:

“..when I can adequately handle the cognitive control of saccadic eye movements, I have not only dealt with the vast majority of behavioural acts but also with the acts that are of prime importance in real life visual information processing tasks.  Functional models concerned with the generation and control of saccadic eye movements are dealing with the sequences of the form...F M F M FM... After a short stay (F), the eye jumps to a new position (M) and stays there for a while (F), etc...The sequence can be written as ...F >> >> M > F >> >> M > F >> >> M.”

The link between the pattern above and the “where and when” of visual processing is examined. der Heijden explains this as:

“ ...a sequence with >> X > Y >> as the unit of analysis and with X as the ‘sending’ term, in charge of ‘selection’, and Y as the ‘receiving’ term, in charge of ‘reception’.” This sequence, he writes, “...offers great opportunities for explaining the cognitive control of a saccadic eye movement, with >> M > F >> as the unit of analysis. Because two different eye movement parameters have to be accounted for, the where and the when, and because the intentional sequence recognises two different functional states, state X and state Y, an unambiguous relation between international sequence states and eye movements directly suggests itself.”

So arguably, X the sending term is linked with the “movement” state of the eye and Y the receiving term is linked to the “fixed” state of the saccadic movement. der Heijden sums this up as:

“What is to be expected is that the states X and Y of an intentional sequence

....Y >> >> X > Y >> >> X…

can control the movements and fixations in a saccadic eye movement sequence

...F >> >> M > F >> >> M ...

in such a way that the eye provides the visual information required for task performance at the right moment in time. And the problem we have to be concerned with is: How to conceive that control of F and M by sequence state X and by sequence state Y.”

This poses an interesting and potentially challenging area of research for me, as going forward it makes sense to watch and attempt to create infographics/motion graphics that are designed in a way that leads the eye in a pattern that is best suited to processing information. Of course I have only touched the surface on attention and our visual perception and there is a lot more research that could end up leading me down the path of psychology rather than motion design, so my next steps will likely be to composition principles in art and design itself, such as the Golden Spiral and ratios.



References

Text:

Bridgeman, B. 1992.  Consciousness vs. unconscious processes.  The case of vision.  Theory and Psychology. pp76

van der Heijden, A.H.C, 2003.  Attention in Vision: Perception, Communication and Action.  Psychology Press: Oxford.

Skinner, BF. 1971.  Beyond Freedom and Dignity.  Hackett Publishing Co.  Cambridge.

Images:

1. Online image, found at: http://people.cs.umass.edu/~mahadeva/papers/book-chapter.htm [Accessed 19 September 2014]

2. Viktora, Simon, 2009.  Szakkad. Online image, found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade [Accessed 19 September]

The start of honours year

Where I’m at just now 

During my third year I got quite into motion graphics, using After Effects and more recently Cinema 4D to create work.  At this point I would like to continue learning about and creating both 2D and 3D graphics, as well as perhaps finding a style that combines the two.  The reason I like motion graphics is that it incorporates graphic design, which I enjoy doing, but the animation side of things means there is arguably more potential for me to learn and experiment.  At this point in time one of the things I hope to do is work for a graphic or digital design firm after I graduate, so I do want to improve and hone my skills in this area as much as I can.  However I am aware that this is the last year where I can dedicate most of my time to working on what I want.

I started out by playing around and following tutorials, without having much of a direction to go in.  Getting stuck in and playing around in C4D was a way to get the ball rolling.  Here are some experiments and results of tutorials below:

Water simulation, created by accident following a Greyscale Gorilla tutorial.  The aim was to hide the water and only have the light caustics showing so that it would look like the reflections seen on the bottom of a pool.   This ended up not working out as there was probably a little step somewhere I missed, but the end result above was this fluid water-like thing.

Another tutorial gone not-quite right, this effect was made by using defectors and changing the levels of the sub polygons throughout the animation.

Apologies for the horrendous quality of this video!  This was made following a tutorial where the aim was to learn about attractors and collision tags, which are effects that are applied in C4D to emulate physical effects.

Following on from this at the moment I plan to keep doing tutorials in the hope that learning more skills will give me a bit of direction.