Category: Deliverables-04

There were a few moments that really stuck out to me in Lena Groeger’s presentation. She explained the mere-exposure effect which says we like things we’ve been exposed to before; we find comfort in the predictability. This effect is a fundamental aspect of humans, evident as early as in our childhood development, like when we were obsessed with the same storybook and made our parents read it over and over again or how we picked up patterns to help us learn shapes, vocabulary, and everything foundational to our learning. It reminded me of how I was absolutely obsessed with Cinderella 2 and would literally watch it over and over again, back-to-back multiple times in a day.

Something else that I found so fascinating was the speech-to-melody effect seen in Diana Deutsche’s speech:

I literally have it stuck in my head as I’m writing this.

In all, I think humans are deeply fascinated with loops. On Tik Tok, any video that somehow has a loop that seamlessly connects its beginning and end makes everyone go crazy in the comments!

In watching Groeger’s presentation, I learned how powerful a tool GIFs can be. Before watching the vid, I thought it was used to spread funny memes, etc., but it can actually be useful in a variety of contexts. Groeger cites a lot of examples like the expansion of US territories, how the NY subway expanded overtime, etc. Side by side, the expansion of US territory is hard to understand, but by looping it in one GIF, it becomes easier to visualize it.

The example Groeger uses in her presentation:

Reading/Viewing: Loops as Visualizations

What really interested me in Lena’s presentation was the music illustration to explain repetition and looping. It was describing how we begin to repeat song lyrics or melodies because we are exposed to it so many times. Our brains then continue repeating the lyrics so that we can recall the next few words. Elements of a song such as a melody, rhythm, beat, and pitch helps us to remember the lyrics. These musical loops harness the power to teach. Loops have power.

(I read the article.)

What stuck out to me while reading was the passage on how repetition functions in music, and how that relates to gifs. I’m a musician so I’ve grown to be aware of how repetition functions within composing, within listening and engaging with music, et cetera–but here, that same sort of logic is presented as a tenet of gif design/usage. As she noted, there is tremendous learning capability from having an infinite loop there to 1) show information (Visuals helping mental organization) 2) show the order that tasks should/can be completed in 3) provide this information in a fun and accessible way. It’s a brilliant tool that helps our silly brains.

(And as a small additional note, the section regarding Diana Deutsche’s research into vocal tonality and how repetition can transform how we hear something was very cool. It reminds me also of Charles Cornell’s meme arrangements. Here is one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCQM4efUUUI)