The Perception of Speed Altered by Visual Priming: Application: Design Pattern and Color

In an ever-faster world, products that are designed for enhancing the speed of a certain task can and are being designed in rapid iterations by means of adding or modifying features that impact the energetics, kinematics and kinetics of a given product. Given the ubiquity of said changes and the need to market these products in a very crowded marketplace, it is imperative for the products to communicate the ‘speed’ of the additional features. Thus, it has been hypothesized that adding a few simple changes to the visual representation of a product or the context in which it is being presented could enhance the perception of the product dynamics at a cognitive or emotional level. The present work is aimed at determining the impact of visual elements such as shapes, colors, and textures on the perception of speed. Three hundred and twenty subjects participated in a discrimination task and a reaction task to measure the impact of various patterns, textures, and colors on the perception of speed. Throughout both tasks, the subjects were exposed to a number of various visual patterns or colors presented as a static background or recognizable object for a set amount of time. Based on the subjects’ performance we have identified and quantified the impact of specific visual design patterns and colors on the perception of speed. Primary results indicate promising evidence that certain fundamental visual elements of shape, color, and texture when presented as a static background or object design could induce subtle changes in visual perception that can alter the overall movement dynamics perception.