Butterflies And Bananas. An experimental study into the effects of (a)symmetry, order, and context on the interpretation of visually and verbally presented juxtaposed entities

Plug, I.

Butterflies And Bananas. An experimental study into the effects of (a)symmetry, order, and context on the interpretation of visually and verbally presented juxtaposed entities

Files

5a91a4e92b834-Research Master's Thesis Butterflies & Bananas Ilona Plug.pdf (4.18 MB)

Authors

Plug, I.

Issue Date

2018-01-25

Language

en

URI

http://theses.ubn.ru.nl/handle/123456789/5511

Abstract

Juxtaposed entities, like butterfly and dress or banana and bread, invite people to look for meaningful connections between the entities. The type of interpretation one ends up with might depend on which of the object is most likely to be the topic (symmetry), the alignment of the objects (order), and the presence of verbal cues (advertising context). The present study investigated whether (a)symmetry, order, and context affect the interpretation of visually and verbally presented juxtaposed entities. No effects were found for order and modality, but the results showed some interesting findings for symmetry and context. All object pairs (e.g., banana-bread) were most likely to elicit interpretations of comparison, but asymmetrical object pairs (e.g., butterfly- dress) increased the chance of metaphorical interpretations. Adding contextual cues like a brand name and a product category increased the chance of metaphorical interpretations even more.