The effect of graphics on environmental health risk beliefs, emotions, behavioral intentions, and recall.

ABSTRACT: Lay people have difficulty understanding the meaning of environmental health risk information. Visual images can use features that leverage visual perception capabilities and semiotic conventions to promote meaningful comprehension. Such evidence-based features were employed to develop two images of a color-coded visual scale to convey drinking water test results. The effect of these images and a typical alphanumeric (AN) lab report were explored in a repeated measures randomized trial among 261 undergraduates. Outcome measures included risk beliefs, emotions, personal safety threshold, mitigation intentions, the durability of beliefs and intentions over time, and test result recall. The plain image conveyed the strongest risk message overall, likely due to increased visual salience. The m

SUBMITTER: Severtson DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3045813 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature