Generating Science Buzz: An Examination of Multidimensional Engagement With Humorous Scientific Messages on Twitter and Instagram

This study investigates the types of humor embedded in funny scientific posts on social media and their effects on engagement. We mapped the landscape of such posts on Twitter and Instagram through content analysis of their message attributes. Regression analyses were then conducted to examine how different humor types, communicative functions, and visual attributes were associated with liking, retweeting, and commenting. On Twitter, wordplay and satire were found to be positively related to posts’ engagement levels, while anthropomorphic humor was negatively associated with the presence of comments. On Instagram, humor had no relation to engagement.

ASSESSING RELATIONS AMONG LANDSCAPE PREFERENCE, INFORMATIONAL VARIABLES, AND VISUAL ATTRIBUTES

The theory of preference matrix proposes coherence and complexity as informational variables to explain landscape preferences. To understand the relationship between the perceived coherence/complexity and the visual attributes of landscape scenes, we constructed multivariate generalized linear models based on a questionnaire study. A total of 488 respondents’ ratings of the preference, the perceived coherence and complexity, and four visual attributes, namely, the openness of visual scale (openness), the richness of composing elements (richness), the orderliness of organization (orderliness), and the depth of view (depth), of a set of digitally manipulated landscape scenes were analyzed. The results showed that landscape preference needed to be explained with coherence and complexity together. Meanwhile, rather than showing the one-one connection with a single visual attribute, the degree of perceived coherence/complexity should be explained with multiple visual attributes. Ranked by explanatory power, the coherence was positively related to orderliness, negatively related to richness, and positively related to openness. The complexity was positively influenced by the level of richness, depth, and negatively influenced by orderliness and openness. Based on the results, feasible ways to build landscape environments with both preferable coherence and complexity were proposed.

Effects of Visual Attributes of Flower Borders in Urban Vegetation Landscapes on Aesthetic Preference and Emotional Perception

The vegetation landscape in urban green space has been shown to provide great psychological benefits to people. Flower border is a well-designed small-scale vegetation landscape with the advantages of color and vegetation richness. This study focused on the effects of the visual attributes of flower borders on the aesthetic preference and emotional perception. The face recognition measurement method was used to obtain the emotional perception and the questionnaire survey method was used to measure the aesthetic preference. The results indicated the following: (1) regarding the ‘color features’ factor, high proportions of cool color and green vegetation significantly increased aesthetic preference and emotional valence, while the proportion of warm color had a negative effect on valence; (2) the ‘visual attractiveness’ (color brightness, and visual richness) and ‘color configuration’ (number of plant patches and number of color hues) factor was positively associated with aesthetic preference and emotional valence; (3) aesthetic preference was significantly related to emotional valence; (4) males expressed higher aesthetic preference and valence for flower border images than females. The results are expected to improve the aesthetic quality of flower borders and to promote public emotional health through the effective design of urban vegetation landscapes.