[Paleopsych] Visual processing and propaganda

[Steve Hovland]

At any point in time, our state of mind is similar
to a neural net that has been trained.

The effect of any new learning input depends
on how far those inputs deviate from the average-
data with greater deviation affects the state more
than data with less deviation.

Visual processing by life forms is much, much
older than verbal processing, and may be much
more efficient for that reason.

The visual system might be compared to a
massively parallel computer, able to take in
large amounts of data at once and process
it quickly.  

Effective propaganda relies mostly on images
to take advantage of the ancient power of vision.
If words are used they will be so few in number
that they function mainly as images.

Propaganda pieces that deviate too widely from the
current state of the viewer's mind may be rejected,
so it may be useful to proceed by small steps.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net