Do you know how our brain finds Wally?

In addition to being a picturesque pastime, “Finding Wally” games can help us understand how advertising works. Numerous studies have investigated how certain advertisements act on our attention. and our memory, and these books can serve as an example to understand it.

It is more than possible that you remember mythical advertisements like that of Zumosol’s cousin or Tenn’s butler, the one who passed the cotton across the tiles and assured that cotton does not deceive, for example. But why does this happen? Research carried out in 2009 in the US studied the impact of advertisements on our memory and the vital role that surprise can play in this process, thus clearly remembering which brand the advertisement that impacted us so much belongs to.

At the same time, there are already a series of neurological studies that are beginning to shed some light on how we process visually the information on websites and the role that advertising plays in the world on-line.

In this article we will see some techniques that advertisers and web designers use to “catch” our attention and memory, and ultimately, our interest. For this, a clear example to understand all this will be the classic game or book of Where is Wally?

Where is Wally?

Where is Wally? It is a practical and well-known game and visual attention exercise. Created by Martin Hanford, this character has been the protagonist in a couple of dozen books, video games, an animated series and even the cast of a movie. Wally is a boy with glasses, a hat and a red and white striped sweater. which is hidden among numerous distracting elements, thus making the task of finding it difficult.

Leaving aside the most superficial details, let’s think: How long does it take us to find a different element in a visually busy or crowded environment? ¿How our eyes search for Wally in a visually dense imagefull of details and optical false clues?

That was the question two researchers asked themselves.: Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Don Berkey, professor of Neuroscience at MIT.

Specifically, they wanted to explore two different possibilities:

Do we move our attention across the page as if it were a scanner, in an orderly manner, examining inch by inch? Or, conversely, do we scan the image as a whole, looking for clues in the overall pattern of where Wally might be?

The answer seems to be that we do both at the same time. And the reason is that both systems are active in our minds and come from our evolutionary past. We have to focus our attention on the task at hand, but we also have to analyze the environment so as not to overlook something that may suddenly need our attention.

The way the brain does this is fascinating. It does this by creating, literally, a network of neurons, all firing in a synchronized pattern. It seems that this synchronization is what involves the focusing of our attention.

Thus, there would be neurons specialized in detecting faces, while others would be in charge of recognizing colors, patterns or shapes. As a whole, its activation would be responsible for helping us detect and memorize different types of stimuli.

Finding Wally from the crowd

Let’s go back to Wally. Neurons tend to have specialized functions. We have already said that we have neurons that are better at choosing colors, others at identifying shapes and others at unraveling and identifying patterns.

In Wally’s case, before we start scanning the page, we recruit the neurons that are most suitable to recognize the image of the character. For example, since he is dressed in red, the neurons responsible for seeing this color are activated. Thus, we create an image of Wally in our “mind’s eye” and have our “detective neuron” ready to intercept him.

Foveal attention and peripheral attention

But how can we really find Wally? This is where the two brain mechanisms work in unison. For understand it better, let’s explain the difference between foveal attention and peripheral attention.

Foveal attention It is what occurs in the area where the brain focuses our eyes, allowing us to pick up fine details. When we read, for example, we use foveal focus to decipher the shape of letters and interpret them. Eye tracking only captures foveal attention. This represents the “center of attention” function.

However, the brain has to tell the eyes where to move next. To do this, it is based on peripheral attention. Therefore, both types of visual attention play an important role both when it comes to detecting stimuli and when it comes to storing them in our long-term memory.

Peripheral attention allows us to scan a much wider field of vision. Its objective is to determine if there are elements in said field that deserve reorientation of foveal attention. Peripheral vision is specially tuned to take in movements and gross visual cues. This has a significant impact on the effectiveness of advertising.

How is the proccess

Let’s imagine that our neural team has already identified the target pattern we are looking for. This image has been implanted in our prefrontal cortex. Through peripheral vision we begin to scan the entire image to find possible matches.

To help separate the most promising areas of the image from background noise in detail, a prefrontal cortex area It organizes our neurons to synchronize and capture details. This process also serves to capture characteristic sounds from a lot of noise. For example, in a crowded square, it helps us pay attention to a musician playing at the other end of the venue.

So, our foveal attention is focused on those parts of the image where Wally is most likely to be. That’s where a more detailed scan comes into play to determine if this character is actually present. This same basic process occurs in many other situations, and advertising is responsible for exploiting it to make us pay attention to a particular product.

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