Why do we click on some images and not others, and what mechanisms captivate our attention? This inquiry fostered my attention when researching strategies employed by YouTube content creators developing thumbnail images, and this transferred into the design methods employed by digital companies to create images that lure our attention.

Developers use an intricate dance of methods to employ colors, content, and emotions in images to enhance our engagement. These practices underscore a broader query regarding the factors influencing our disposition to interact with images in the pursuit of information, but how are these visual strategies employed to alter our choices.

The Picture Superiority Effect

There is a psychological aspect when scrolling through content and picking which images you engage with. The "picture superiority effect" is a concept of how our brain processes text in correlation to images. To sum this up, people remember pictures far better than words. According to Brain Rules by John Medina, if you "hear a piece of information, and three days later, you'll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you'll remember 65% (1)."

This concept is deeply rooted in our behavioral psychology. But why do we do this? John allocates our behavior for images cognizant of our survival. Typically, most of our hardwiring is grounded in natural environments necessitating acute visual discernment to identify food, threats, and potential mates. Our brains naturally prioritize visual information in the world around us.
Think of being in the supermarket. You tend to pick the brightest apple and the greenest broccoli. These visual attributes of shape and color influence our mundane choices. This subconscious visual selection process extends beyond simple food choices to include complex decisions on how we traverse information.

So why do outstanding colored images grab our attention more than others? This could be due to the way our memories function. Ever wonder how a memory athlete memorizes a deck of cards in under two minutes? They are captivating the way our brains function to remember and recall information, and this may crossover to image selection.

They use mnemonic techniques to exploit our propensity for images. One memory athlete accompanies a particular card and suit with a celebrity mental picture. The ace of hearts is Brad Pitt giving a speech, and the ace of diamonds is Michael Jordan slam-dunking a basketball. Each mental athlete visualizes a mental image unusually or profoundly. Typically, a character acts something out or does something silly. Our minds grab a hold of these unorthodox images and cue our interest. This strategy of picturing bizarre and vivid images underscores the brain's capacity to latch onto unique and emotionally engaging visuals over the ordinary.

Typically, images with drama and emotion tend to pull our eyes.

There is a good reason why most YouTube thumbnail images have dramatic facial expressions. The human aspect of drama enhances the image.

Visual Masking

Another thing to consider is the act of visual masking. Only a fraction of visual information contributes to the conscious visual percept (2). Stimuli that would be visible if presented in isolation are invisible when subsequently masked by a spatially overlapping visual pattern or by a surrounding metacontrast stimulus (3). Simply put, we look into the fridge for the pickles we can't see in front of our faces. Same for scrolling the internet or social media. We are bombarded with so many images our visual perception is overloaded, so our minds begin to shut off unnecessary information. These tend to be images that don't stick out with bland colors, are unrecognizable, and images that do not pertain to our motives. Visual information comes in, bounces around our subconsciousness, and if it's relevant, the information travels to the conscious level. This is a little too dumbed down but relays a good point on how we interact with the information in front of us. Companies prioritize visuals to keep us engaged in their content. A good image with the proper visuals to cue our interests guides our attention to the textual information.