The Representation of Help Givers in First Aid Instruction Materials: A Multimodal Reception Study

This study explores how far a variety of choices in the visualization of help givers in first aid instruction materials can be associated the perception of these help givers in viewers. We present a reception study, in which we analyze 40 images from a first aid corpus by focusing on variations in their image type, perspective, camera angle, shot size, color, facial expression visibility, and gender. A total of 107 participants evaluated these images using 20 pairs of trait adjectives on a 6-point scale. Results indicate that drawings had a slightly higher positive composite score than photographs. Bird's-eye perspectives, front-facing camera angles, and full-body shots all yielded a higher positive composite score, which suggests a preference for visual cues related to directness and completeness. Color images were favored over grayscale. Interestingly, images with obscured facial expressions were rated higher, potentially due to reduced emotional cues allowing for individual interpretation. Images portraying female help givers consistently received higher positive scores than male help givers. These findings show the relation between visual design and the perceived positive characteristics of help givers. The insights can be useful in the process of optimizing first aid material design.