Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Clownpants In The Classroom? Hypnotizing Chickens? Measurement Of Structural Distraction In Visual Presentation Documents, Jodi Kearns, Brian O'Connor

Jodi Kearns, PhD

This paper considers the structure of entertainment media as a possible foundation for measuring aspects of visual presentations that could enhance or interfere with audience engagement. Factors that might account for the large number of negative comments about visual presentations are identified and a method of calculating entropy measurements for form attributes of presentations is introduced. Entropy calculations provide a numerical measure of structural elements that account for engagement or distraction. A set of peer evaluations of educational presentations is used to calibrate a distraction factor algorithm. Distraction as a consequence of document structure might enable engineering of a balance …