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Foreword
The research presented in this book is remarkable in its theoreticalapproach, its methodology, and in its potential to increase ourunderstanding of how people interact with mediated messages inuseful ways. While this study reports the results of an empiricalexperimental examination of two common structural features usedto attract attention in web banner advertising, those results are notthe most exciting thing about this research. Rather, this researchshould excite you because it shows us a new way to answerquestions about what people attend to, involuntarily, on the weband how to craft messages which draw attention to themselves andencourage people to process and remember the central rather thanthe peripheral aspects of the message.
Many people have done studies examining the use of animationon the web or the impact of adding arousing pictures to advertisements(in print and on the web). What makes this study different isthat its goal is not to demonstrate that there is some effect of doingthese things, but rather its goal is to try to fi gure out why there is aneffect. What is the cognitive pathway through which an arousingpicture or an animation gains access to the brain and thereby plantsthe germ of an idea in a person’s memory?