The effect of message type on primary perceptual field in visuals

Abstract

This study aims to determine the relationship between message type and the field(s) that students perceive first in an instructional material. It employs the scanning model and its study group consists of 150 sophomore students attending the Faculty of Education at Ahi Evran University. The data has been obtained by identifying the student responses to a visual material designed by the researchers. The results have been interpreted through the frequency, percentage and the Kendall’s tau_b test applied on the collected data (p<.05). As a result, message type is of importance in placing the message in an instructional material. The field including the primarily perceived message in a visual principally focuses around the center of the visual or in the first point of interest according to the rule of thirds. Furthermore, encoding messages in the form of letters or numbers leads to a change in the primary perceptual field. Therefore, it would be useful to encode verbal information in various techniques such as numerical expression, symbolization, etc.