Writing With Pictures: Consumer Response To Images

I have argued (briefly) elsewhere that some contemporary Christian approaches to visuals in worship are all too often failing to read visual language fairly and consistently with their own standards. So it is important that a set of experiments seem to indicate visuals are in fact read by consumers in consistent ways. "In the experiments, different renditions of the same three image types (a cat, a sunset, and an abstract painting) were consistently read by consumers as texts that communicated a complex set of attributes for a facial tissue. Just by varying the style and context of the objects pictured, the authors were able to selectively communicate particular properties that went beyond resemblance to an object or the sensory effects of formal features. 'We are questioning the tacit assumption made by Mitchell and Olson -- and many others that followed -- that images affect consumers via emotion or sensation rather than through a coded, conventional system,' the authors write."
Hmmm. One in the eye for the naysayers.
ScienceDaily: Writing With Pictures: Toward A Unifying Theory Of Consumer Response To Images: