Hi Bryan, re: seeing banner ads with your peripheral vision: The human eye has different receptor cell types in the focal area than it does on the places far from the focal area. the focal area is - you guessed it - equipped with cells for precise observation. the parts of the retina far from the focal area have cells that are better at 'blunt' perception. detecting motion is one of those. the outer-retina cells detect motion in the peripheri and the eye orients towards it so that the focal area is on the moving object. You can pick up a neuroscience textbook at HalfPrice books that'll have chapters on the retina, which is considered part of the human brain because it's neurons. Here's the neuroscience text I used: http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Science-Eric-Kandel/dp/0838577016. Or, you could just get a (probably much smaller) book on cognition that'll tell you what you need to know in a nutshell about visual perception. I used Matlin's textbook "Cognition".
re: the "old brain": I've heard more than I ever wanted to about how under certain conditions 'humans revert to using their "lizard brain" when emergency strikes". Right, when your child is drowning or your life is threatened you're going to use reflexes and ingrained behaviors, but let's not mistake a flashing content container for an attack by a potential predator. Also, the "lizard brain" concept is going too far, too, since there is a lot of cortex around the older parts of the brain and the brain distributes processing for the kinds of tasks we use in UIs. In a nutshell, our behavior is driven by implicit and explicit thoughts, but it's not likely to reach the point of someone having a fight-or-flight response to a UI. Of course, the value of usability testing is that you'd be able to record the exact moment when someone flees the scene out of fear. For a reverse perspective, though, it's good to see immersive virtual reality being used to treat PTSD. I hope this helps. On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Bryan J Busch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I was at a conference once, (either SxSW or Adaptive Path's UX Week), and > someone was speaking about banner ads, and how we only see them in our > peripheral vision, which makes us nervous because our "old brain" knows > that > shadows moving in the corner might well be a tiger, and we should be on > alert. > > Does any of this sound familiar? I'm very interested in how psychology > plays > a role in web design, but so far I haven't found any resources on the > topic. > Is there anything you can recommend? > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- Jay A. Morgan Information Architecture & Scenario-based design. Design Patterns & Mental Models. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
