The University of Michigan studied how American and Chinese students pay attention to objects and backgrounds.
“Hey, that’s a tiger!”
“Yes, but did you notice it’s standing in front of some fascinating flora?”
“No, I’m too busy being fascinated by its teeth!”
Our very hypothetical conversation illustrates (well, tries to illustrate) a University of Michigan study of perception. By comparing Chinese students with American students, researchers found the Americans paid more attention to objects in the foreground of a picture.
The Chinese students noticed it as well, but also spent time observing the background and taking in the whole picture. Researchers believe the differences stem from the cultures and the relative complexity of how culture impacts the way people socialize.
27 Chinese and 25 Americans of European descent took part in the study, according to the Detroit Free Press. Researchers monitored the eye movements made by the students as they were shown a series of images with foreground and background objects.
The study seems to show a greater perception of context by the Chinese students. Maybe that bodes well for contextual advertisers like Google and MSN, who have begun operations in China and will compete with Yahoo, Baidu, and others for the growing number of Internet users and potential online customers.
American students spent little time on the background, shifting their focus to the forefront after a very short period of time. For advertisers, that may mean ads delivered to the forefront ahead of content will get more attention than those placed on the sides of pages. Food for thought as the holiday shopping season approaches, isn’t it?
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
