Big letters, big feelings

Advertising uses a lot of pictures. Pictures awaken our particular interests. We look at them longer and more intently than letters. As a result, we remember advertisements with pictures better. Pictures also produce strong emotional reactions. The brain recognizes pictures very quickly. It knows immediately what can be seen in the picture. Letters function differently than pictures. They are abstract characters. Therefore, our brain reacts slower to letters. First, it must understand the meaning of the word. One might say the characters must be translated by the language part of the brain. But emotions can be produced using letters too. The text just needs to be very large. Studies show that big letters have a big effect as well. Large letters aren't just more noticeable than small letters. They also produce a stronger emotional reaction. This is true for positive as well as negative feelings. The size of things has always been important to mankind. Man must react quickly to danger. And when something is large, it's usually already quite close! So it's understandable that large pictures produce strong reactions then. Less clear is how we react to large letters. Letters aren't actually a signal for the brain. Despite this, it shows greater activity when it sees large letters. This result is very interesting to scientists. It shows how important letters have become for us. Our brain has somehow learned how to react to writing…