This document discusses a study on how typographic styles can influence emotion and memory. It proposes investigating whether specific typefaces produce emotional responses, and if people from different backgrounds associate certain emotions with different design features of typefaces, such as serif vs sans serif. The study would use eye tracking and self-reports to analyze how typestyle designs affect attention, memory, and emotion. The results could provide insights into improving science communication by understanding the emotional aspects of visual processing and how design influences meaning.

1. 01/09/16MEi:CogSci, Vienna
Human Affect
Mag.a Jeanna Nikolov-Ramirez
Aesthetics
On Qualitative Aspects of Mnemonics
at the Intersection of Image and Text
&

2. How scientists see text
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 2

3. How designers see text
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 3

4. Universal “Laws” of aesthetics
“…many have wondered whether there are some universal
[aesthetic] principles. Do we have an innate "grammar" of
aesthetics analogous to the syntactic universals for languages
proposed by linguist Noam Chomsky…? The answer may be yes.
We suggest that universal “laws” of aesthetics may cut across not
only cultural boundaries but across species boundaries as well”
(Ramachandran & Rogers–Ramachandran, 2006)
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 4
“To provide more than a general definition of the subject matter
of aesthetics is immensely difficult. Indeed, it could be said that
self-definition has been the major task of modern aesthetics. …”
Encyclopedia Britannica

5. Questions
• In what ways are
knowledge
development and
meaning affected by
visual qualities?
• How can visual quality
help us learn and
memorize better?
• How can science be
conducted/
communicated more
effectively?
• How is valence
connected to design
features in science
communication?
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 5

6. Emotion at core of neurological
processing of vision
§ Webpage design study (Capota et al., 2007) found that
participants could judge the aesthetic appeal of a
website even before the visual signal could reach the
areas of the brain responsible for conscious visual
perception.
§ Conscious decisions may be influenced by emotions that
are formed preconsciously in response to visual stimuli.
§ “Emotion is at the very core of the neurological
processing of vision” (Vuilleumier, P. & Driver, J., 2007).
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 6

7. Design and Mnemonics
“if a typeface evokes certain thoughts or emotions that do not
match the text it depicts, readers may falsely remember textual
material; in other words, their reading comprehension may suffer.
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 7
• Mnemonics:
• learning strategies that can improve the initial learning
and later recall of information. Bellezza (1981)
• “the study and development of systems for improving
and assisting the memory”
Visual tone may mislead readers much as voice tone may
mislead listeners.” Brumberger (2004)

8. 01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 8

9. 01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 9

10. Global processing
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 10

11. 01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 11

12. 01/09/16MEi:CogSci Nikolov 2016.06.25 12

13. Typographic Styles
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 13

14. Typography and Affect
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 14

15. Study Design
§ Eye tracking experiment, semi-structured interviews,
self-report
• 10 motives, 3 versions (scientific rather abstract terms)
• Alternating “neutral” and aesthetic typographic stimuli
• Each motive is seen only once, Duration: 20 sec
• 60-100 subjects (design students, established scientists)
• Possible EEG

16. Recordings
16
• SMI RED Contact-free, remote-
controlled infrared eye camera
• Automatic eye and headtracker
• Temporal resolution: 60 Hz
• SW: ExperimentCenter, SoSciSurvey,
EyeTrace.

17. Hypotheses
§ Emotion is involved in interpreting visual information
(typestyles)
§ People have the same or somewhat similar interpretation
of visual information (typestyles designs) irrespectively of
their background or age
§ There is a link between typestyle construction features
and emotion responses.
§ Typestyle construction features influence affect for
purposes of interpreting visual information.
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 17

18. Questions
Q1: Does viewing specific typefaces produce emotional
responses?
Q2: When viewing typestyle designs, do all subjects irrespectively
of age, gender and background feel the same emotions?
Q3: Are certain emotions and concepts predominantly associated
with the formative design features of typefaces - differences in
classification (serif, sans serif, script), terminal construction
(angular or rounded), character width (condensed or extended),
and weight (light or bold)?
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 18

19. 01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 19

20. 01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 20

21. Mapping affective states
“An alternative method of characterizing affective states
and emotions, most often applied to moods and basic
emotions, is to focus on the underlying, often
physiologically correlated factors (e.g. arousal) and map
these onto distinct dimensions. Several such two- or three-
dimensional sets have been proposed, including positive
and negative affect (Watson & Clark, 1992), energetic and
tense arousal (Thayer, 1996), hedonic tone, energy and
tension (Matthews, Jones, & Chamberlain, 1990), and
valence and arousal (Watson & Tellegen, 1985; Russell,
1979)”.
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 21
Koch (2011)

22. The Geneva Emotion Wheel
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 22

23. Non-verbal responses
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 23
PrEmo™ interactive animated characters
http://www.premo-online.com/en/how-does-it-work/

24. Challenges
§ Understanding the emotional component and context of science
communication
§ Neural underpinnings of observing visual content and reading
§ Social nature of visual design
§ Evolutionary origin of shape/style informing meaning
01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 24

25. References
1. Brown, S. (2011). The Miseducation of the Doodle. A List Apart
Magazine, 25.
2. Brumberger, E. (2004). The rhetoric of typography: Effects on
reading time, reading comprehension, and perceptions of ethos.
Technical Communication, 51(1), 13-24.
3. Brunel, Frédéric F., and Rishtee Kumar. "Design and the big five:
Linking visual product aesthetics to product personality." Advances
in consumer research 34 (2007): 238-239.
4. H. Leder, "Next steps in neuroaesthetics: Which processes and
processingstages to study?." Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity,
and the Arts, vol.7, no. 1, p.27, 2013 [Online]. Available: APA
PsycNET,http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/aca/7/1/27/. [Accessed
May, 31, 2016].
5. B. E. Koch, “Human emotion response to typographic design,”
Ph.D.dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA, 2011.
6. L. Malafouris “The aesthetics of material engagement,” in Situated
Aesthetics: Art Beyond the Skin, R. Manzotti, Ed. Exeter: Imprint
Academic,2011, pp.123. 01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 25

26. MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 01/09/1626

27. 01/09/16MEi:CogSci MoPE Nikolov 2014.12.17 27

28. 28
Jeanna Nikolov-Ramirez
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0wfyRgBze7c/UO8zTtj1QjI/AAAAAAAABl0/QTLYtMEbD88/s1600/2.jpg
@tendersubject