Observed

There’s a vast literature on the psychology of images.  About how, for example, we learn from birth to read faces.  About the gender differences in how visual stimuli are processed.

I’ve already offered the short version of how this relates to newsletters and other marketing communications.  How an arresting image will be the first thing the reader’s eye will land on long enough to process it.

Here’s a bit more… (more…)

The Battle of Jericho, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1851-60. Joshua and the Israelites marched around the walls of the fortress seven times before blowing their horns and bringing down the walls.

Looking for a good way to be remembered?  One route is literary.

Another way is more quantitative than qualitative.  More about deployment than style.

I’ll call this one The Rule of Seven.

Most behavioral psychologists will tell you that it takes between about five and seven impressions for most humans to store anything in their long-term memory.  Short-term memory, BTW, lasts about 18 seconds; long enough to remember, for example, a phone number. (more…)