The existence of the so-called halo effect has long
been recognised. It is the phenomenon whereby we assume that
because people are good at doing A they will be good at doing B, C and D (or
the reverse—because they are bad at doing A they will be bad at doing B, C and
D). The phrase was first coined by
Edward Thorndike, a psychologist who used it in a study published in 1920 to
describe the way that commanding officers rated their soldiers. He found that officers usually judged their
men as being either good right across the board or bad. There was little mixing of traits; few people
were said to be good in one respect but bad in another. In his prize-winning book “The Halo Effect”,
published in 2007, Phil Rosenzweig, an academic at IMD, a business school near
Lausanne in Switzerland, argued: Much of our
thinking about company performance is shaped by the halo effect … when a
company is growing and profitable, we tend to infer that it has a brilliant
strategy, a visionary CEO, motivated people, and a vibrant culture. When performance falters, we're quick to say
the strategy was misguided, the CEO became arrogant, the people were
complacent, and the culture stodgy … At first, all of this may seem like
harmless journalistic hyperbole, but when researchers gather data that are
contaminated by the halo effect--including not only press accounts but
interviews with managers--the findings are suspect.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/strait In today's twitterverse, you will sometimes
see dire straits spelled as dire straights.
Dire Straits were a British rock band formed in London in 1977
by Mark Knopfler (lead
vocals and lead guitar), David Knopfler (rhythm guitar and backing
vocals), John Illsley (bass
guitar and backing vocals), and Pick Withers (drums and percussion). The band became one of the
world's best-selling music artists, with records sales of over 100
million. Their first hit single "Sultans of Swing", from their self-titled debut
album, reached the top ten in the UK and US charts in 1978. They released hit singles in the 1980s, such
as "Private
Investigations" (1983), "Money for Nothing"
(1985), and "Walk of Life"
(1985). Their most commercially successful album was Brothers in Arms (1985),
which has sold more than 30 million copies and was the first album to sell a
million copies on the compact disc (CD)
format. Dire Straits' sound was drawn
from a variety of musical influences, including jazz, folk, and country, though mainly from the blues-rock
of J. J. Cale. Their stripped-down sound
contrasted with punk rock and
demonstrated a roots rock influence
that emerged from pub rock. Many of Dire Straits' compositions were
melancholic. According to the Guinness
Book of British Hit Albums, Dire Straits have spent over 1,100
weeks on the UK albums chart, ranking fifth all-time. Brothers in Arms is
the eighth-best-selling album in UK chart
history. Their career spanned 15 years. They split in 1988, reformed in 1991, and
disbanded again in 1995. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_Straits See also
https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/dire-straits
Hermann Rorschach grew up in Switzerland. One of the most popular games of his youth was
Blotto or Klecksographie, a game requiring players to make up poems or act out
charades based on what they see in an inkblot. Rorschach enjoyed the game so much that his
classmates nicknamed him "Klecks," the German word for
"inkblot." Rorschach's
interest in inkblots continued into adulthood. While studying patients
with schizophrenia in medical school, Rorschach observed that, when asked what
they saw in the inkblots, the patients gave responses much different from those
of his friends. He wondered if the inkblots could be used to create
profiles of different mental disorders. Perhaps people with depression
interpreted the images differently than those with anxiety or schizophrenia or
no mental illness. With his hypothesis
established, Rorschach began studying 405 subjects, 117 of whom were not
psychiatric patients. Each person was presented with a card and asked,
"What might this be?" This was repeated with as many as 15
different cards per subject. Rorschach didn't analyze what the subjects
saw, but rather the characteristics of what they reported, including if they
focused on the image as a whole or on a smaller detail, or if they took a long
time to provide an answer. For example, one card shows an image often
interpreted as depicting two people. If the subject took a long time to
respond, he or she might be revealing problems with social interactions.
After four years of research, Rorschach believed that his test could help
diagnose mental illness and interpret a patient’s behavior. Rorschach published his findings and ten
standard inkblot cards in 1920. The popularity of the test grew, reaching
its zenith in the 1950s and 1960s. Modern psychology has questioned the
usefulness and accuracy of the test. https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/inkblot-test/17670
The McGurk effect is
mind-blowing. It involves showing a person's lips making
the shape of one sound—like "bah"—while the audio is actually the
person saying "fah." What's
interesting is that your brain changes what you "hear" based on what
you see. It's "bah" all the
way through, but when we see "bah" our minds transform "bah"
into "fah." Chris Higgins Link to BBC video illustrating the McGurk
effect at http://mentalfloss.com/article/72587/mcgurk-effect-or-brains-are-weird
A typeface is a fully accomplished
work of design. But unlike most forms of art and design, it
also becomes a tool: a work of design
that generates other design, transports new meanings, and deeply influences the
way people engage with our products. Graphic
designers have always used typography to visually connote written language,
conveying aspects like mood, personality and age. Many experiments have shown how different
typefaces can make a message more or less trustworthy and appealing to readers.
One of
these experiments was conducted in
2013 by filmmaker and author Errol Morris and the New York Times. The results show that readers were more likely
to agree with an essay if the font used was Baskerville, rather than other
fonts such as Comic Sans and Helvetica.
Author Alessio Laiso and colleague Rick Sobiesiak selected four
typefaces applied to four different websites, conducting a relatively simple
survey of 73 participants from 17 countries. Learn the results at https://medium.com/design-ibm/how-fonts-influence-what-users-think-of-your-product-238874c593d7
The Baskerville font was developed in
the 18th century by John Baskerville (1706–1775) and its clear, sharp image set it apart from
others of its time. John Baskerville was
a major figure in the improvement of print technique and typography and his
work influenced the work of such famous designers as Didot in France and Bodoni
in Italy. The fonts of John Baskerville
were composed of more contrasting elements than any print characters that had
been designed before. They needed finer
paper and printing ink in order to display and highlight their details. Baskerville can often still be found in use
in books and magazines. https://www.linotype.com/1882/baskerville.html See sample of Baskerville, trademark of the
Monotype Corporation, at http://image.linotype.com/samples/hirespdf/139907.pdf
Monotype Imaging
Holdings, Inc. is a Delaware corporation based
in Woburn, Massachusetts. It specialises in digital typesetting and typeface design as well as text and
imaging solutions for use with consumer electronics devices.
Monotype Imaging Holdings and its predecessors and subsidiaries have been
responsible for many developments in printing technology. Monotype developed many of the most widely
used typeface designs, including Times New Roman, Gill Sans, Arial, Bembo and Albertus. Monotype has carried out a series of
acquisitions from 2000 onwards of companies such as Linotype GmbH, International
Typeface Corporation, Bitstream Inc. and FontShop.
This has gained it the rights to many further widely known designs,
including Helvetica, ITC Franklin Gothic, Optima, Avant Garde, Palatino and FF DIN.
It also owns the MyFonts online
retailer used by many independent font design studios. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotype_Imaging
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1958
September 25, 2018
No comments:
Post a Comment