Guided by the Grid: Raising Attention with the Rule of Thirds

ABSTRACT

The rule of thirds is a longstanding principle that helps artists and photographers to compose aesthetically pleasing images. Despite the rule’s wide use by photographers, little is known about its impact on viewers in particular to raise attention to the main subject and narrative of an image but also to possibly limit cognitive load. The findings of this exploratory, experimental study of undergraduate students at a U.S. university suggest that the rule of thirds serves as a geometric guiding structure that directs participants’ vision. The rule of thirds appears to enhance participants’ ease of information processing by raising attention to the predominant visual content of an image, making it more salient to the observer. Overall, the rule of thirds enabled a more correct recognition of the primary valence and the main subject or focus of interest of an image, indicating that participants may glean a better understanding of the intended message of an image. But findings also indicate significant differences between the rule of thirds composition and the placement of the main subject along the rule of thirds grid, suggesting the latter as being more effective.

KEYWORDS:

• Rule of thirds
• news photography
• main subject recognition
• visual cognition
• visual information processing
• compositional principle
• attention
• vision

Acknowledgement

We want to thank Dr. John E. Newhagen for his inspiration, guidance and support.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 While the RoT is a widely used concept in the visual arts and image creation including video, painting, drawing, animation, rendering, etc., this research focuses on photos (still images) and specifically on the use of RoT in news photography.

2 Ensenberger (2011) points out that the RoT is an important tool to create balance in a photograph. “Balance implies that the elements within the frame have a sense of visual weight, larger objects obviously outweigh smaller objects, and dark or saturated objects weigh more than lighter colored ones. The positioning of each element and its proportional relationships to other elements is critical to the visual hierarchy within the composition. It communicates to the viewer what's most important in your photograph” (68).

3 Having a command of the RoT is just one skill among several others that can distinguish professionals from amateurs. Other critical skills include lighting, image clarity/quality, angle usage, distance selection, and editing skills (see Greenwood and Thomas 2015; Nilsson and Wadbring 2015; Mortensen 2014; Barnhurst 1993).

4 By valence we refer to the affective and/or emotional quality of an image, which assumes a bipolar dimension ranging from negative to positive. Valence is an important factor in perception and has been described as a basic building block of narratives and human emotional life (Barrett 2006).

5 Given the number of images each participant had to view and comment on, we limited the survey questions to avoid fatigue effects.

6 This has to be right underneath the table