![]() If this were true, then: yes, a child below could make eye contact. This Illustration from the Cornell study illustrates an erroneous three-dimensional assumption about a two-dimensional picture: the front of the cereal box is shown here as if it were a window in front of a three-dimensional googly eye. ![]() (A video of Brian Wansink discussing the study, follows after the fold…) Pictures do not reorganized themselves as we move around a room.įor this to work the way they say it works, the faces on these cereal boxes would need to be three dimensional. This is true for the same reason that, in pictures of a face looking at the viewer, the eyes seem to follow you all around the room. To the children below, the eyes would still appear to be looking downward- not making eye contact. If the cartoon eyes on a cereal box are averted downward, they cannot “meet the upward gaze” of children below. A supposedly downward gazing character would be looking at what exactly? The kid’s belt?īut there’s another flaw to the study that’s even more fundamental: two-dimensional pictures simply do not work that way. …An average four-year old is about 40 inches tall. If this research was in any way meaningful - which it’s not - these supposedly downward looking characters would be looking below eye level of the youngest kids possible. … We then looked up the average height of a 13-month old. For example, the study supposedly found that the average shelf placement was 23 inches, and the average height of the supposedly downward looking gaze would therefore be 20.21 inches. He’s done some very interesting research. It was this “corollary” about downward-looking “spokes characters” that caused the aforementioned kerfuffle. …In a creepy corollary, the researchers found that the eyes of characters on boxes of cereal marketed to kids were directed downward, and can meet the upward gaze of children in grocery store aisles. I had some doubts, however, about the very next sentence… ![]() This is pretty much the opposite of what I was saying in 2010 ( about eye contact maybe being too confrontational for consumers), but, okay, assuming their scientific methods were kosher, then I was fully on board and ready to learn something new. In a study published last month in the journal Environment and Behavior, researchers at Cornell University manipulated the gaze of the cartoon rabbit on Trix cereal boxes and found that adult subjects were more likely to choose Trix over competing brands if the rabbit was looking at them rather than away… The reason they are there may have more do with your subconscious craving for eye contact than the taste of the products. Look inside your kitchen cabinet and odds are you have a collection of old friends gazing back at you - the Quaker Oats man, the Sun-Maid girl, Aunt Jemima and maybe a Keebler elf or two. ![]() Look Over Here) cited a recent study at Cornell ( Eyes in the Aisles: Why is Cap’n Crunch Looking Down at My Child?) that’s created something of a kids-branding kerfuffle: My child wears crocs, and I’m not particularly proud.Tim Lihan’s animated illustration from yesterday’s NY TimesĪn article by Kate Murphy in Sunday’s NY Times ( Psst. They’re not pretty, but they’re functional. We became complacent and let her wear them whenever she liked, which ended up being daily. We hid them when those friends we once ribbed came to visit, and then one day she wore them to the shops. We bought them because every time Lacey wandered outside, her poor baby skinned little feet would be sore from little spikes blown from a nearby tree. Sssshhh.Īt first we told Lacey they were to be house shoes only. That’s right, we didn’t even get the real deal, we got fakes. Then one day we found ourselves at the shops with a $5 pair of fake crocs in our hands. We’d tease them, and let them know how daggy they were. ![]() We used to laugh at friends who let their children wear crocs. That took up far more energy than I ever imagined.Īnd two years on, my child wears crocs. I forgot about any routines, and was too busy just trying to figure my new little person out and keep her healthy and thriving. When she arrived it all went out the window. #Psst look over here how toI’d teach her sign language, learn how to crochet her a sentimental blanket and keep her away from television until she was three. She’d be in a nice routine, we’d walk everyday with the pram and I’d sing her lullabies each night, after I’d read her three books, of course. Ideals I planned to put into place once she was here. There were plans I had for our child when I was pregnant. Our child was never going to stay awake past seven, own noisy non-educational toys or wear a pair of crocs. ![]()
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