The visual size of an object determines the strength of our emotional reaction to it, German neuropsychologists found out.
Why do tabloids like to print full-page headlines so much? Because large letters impress us much more, German neuropsychologists answer, based on the results of their own research on brain activity *. And they explain: the brain always “adjusts” our emotions to the size of the object that causes them. For example, if we find a hairy spider that happened to be next to us, at a distance of, say, 10 centimeters, we will be much more frightened than if we noticed it from a distance of a couple of meters. Thus, the visual size of an object determines the strength of our emotional response. Conclusion? Let’s not take newspaper sensations too close – neither to the eyes nor to the heart.
* M. Bayer & al., PloSONE, 2012, vol. 7.