My cartoon/schema dyslexia
I’m not sure what to call it, but I’ve written about it before at some length: I have trouble understanding cartoons that are completely visual, particularly those that are told in more than one square. Here’s an excerpt from that post:
Cartoons were already my nemesis. I didn’t like them, although they were ubiquitous on TV. I didn’t like watching the creature being flattened and then springing back up again. I didn’t like the characters walking off cliffs and not realizing it for a moment, and then falling. I didn’t like the pummeling and the mayhem; I felt it as more real than I knew it should be perceived. And in some strange way I sometimes even had trouble following the plot.
Was that because I wasn’t interested? Or was it because I was repelled, or because I was particularly cartoon-challenged? Probably a combination of all three, because the phenomenon persisted into adulthood and involved even some cartoons whose content didn’t especially repel me. I used to like animated Disney movies, but have never liked Pixar, in part because the images seem “wrong” to me in some difficult-to-define way.
Sometimes there’s too much going on visually in cartoons, too; I get distracted. I sometimes fail to get the joke in non-animated cartoon squares (like the ones in a magazine) because I focus on the wrong detail or misinterpret details in odd ways.
There’s much much more at the link.
So yesterday I happened on this photo on the “sidelines” at American Digest. It isn’t a cartoon but rather a visual joke, with a caption, so I at least theoretically have a chance to get it right:
But it stumped me. Or rather, it took me a while to mull over, and then I came up with an alternate and utterly absurd interpretation that I knew wasn’t correct but was all I could think of to explain it.
I saw it as a single photo of a sort of bookcase-like, two-shelved arrangement that had five boxes on it, two on the top shelf and three on the bottom, with two boxes in the front of the bottom shelf opened up and the rest closed. The two top boxes were from Krispy Kreme, so I knew that meant doughnuts. The one in the back on the bottom was the same thing; a box of doughnuts, closed (or maybe an open one facing away from the viewer? Or a stack of two? This wasn’t clear, but it didn’t seem to matter, so I ignored it). The two in the front contained food, and the food wasn’t doughnuts. What was it? I could see celery sticks and cherry tomatoes, and dip. But the rest? Maybe salmon, as in sashimi or lox? And something green, like maybe a seaweed salad to go with the sashimi?
Yes, I know, I know. Kind of disconnected and weird. But as I said, I get bogged down in the details and get way too nitpicky. They didn’t look like carrot sticks. And I detest raw broccoli spears, so perhaps my mind rejected that interpretation on principle.
Then I tried to tie it all together with the caption. Workplace violence? Why? The combination of doughnuts, crudites, and sashimi? That oughtn’t to do it. Then I remembered the Twinkie Defense and I thought—maybe it’s the doughnuts, leading to workplace violence. But no, that didn’t seem right at all—why would anyone bother to put all that other stuff in the photo, if it was just about doughnuts?
And so it had to be explained to me what the cartoon meant.
I’m assuming none of my readers share my bizarre cartoon/schema dyslexia affliction. But just in case, I’ll say that the photo is supposed to represent before and after (before above, after below), and that some person had filled some Krispy Kreme boxes with the veggies and dip as a joke, and that’s the thing that (har de har har har) would lead to the workplace violence.
[NOTE: I’m not sure I’ve used the word “schema” correctly, but I couldn’t find a better one for what I’m talking about here, which doesn’t just involve cartoons but involves interpretations of visual cues. No doubt some of you will have some ideas on that.]
Everyone was expecting a sugar high and were forced to eat their veggies. That would make many people mad.
And so it had to be explained to me what the cartoon meant.
I’m assuming none of my readers share my bizarre cartoon/schema dyslexia affliction.
I saw it a few months ago, I think, and I had to think about it for several seconds to get it.
That’s not nearly as bad as when I try to read western cartoons, Japanese manga, Korean manwe though. The Japanese normally go top to bottom, right to left. The Koreans use the Western design, which is from Left to Right, top to bottom.
It doesn’t work right if the brain can’t figure out which is which.
ad agency meeting: ‘maybe we try cows leaving a sign that says “I ait yur donutz”‘
I think it’s a good joke, badly told. There is no need to show two boxes—one would work better. The opened box should be blown up large enough and lit well enough that you can recognize the ubiquitous crudites tray at first glance. Having to puzzle it out ruins the joke. Finally, the “April Fool” is lost in shadow.
If the joke were well told and you didn’t get it, then it may be fair to read into it some affliction. In this case, not so much.
Everyone in the office was drooling, expecting to have some yummy sugary doughnuts, but it was the preachy, leftist vegetarian’s turn to bring the morning treats on April 1st, so they felt compelled to beat the crap out of him.
Just for you, neo . . . (7 seconds) . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO4DPI1hegc
It’s a great visual joke. The first part sets you up to expect one thing and then you get the opposite.
Try this one:
A Jew, a Catholic and a Muslim walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What is this – some kind of joke?”
I just lol’d at the photo before I read the column. (Which, I did think it was funny. Obviously.)
But I have to remember to never to share a cartoon with you on Saturday evening. It would be too disruptive of your church attendance the next morning.
I have the same problem, tho not as frequently. F’r instance, I got the one you used as an example.
I think not everyone’s brain works the same way. I read somewhere that people w/ an IQ bout 130 (IIRC) do in fact think differently.
I tell myself that is, in fact, my problem. 😉
If only workplace violence could be mitigated by better of a failure in expectations management
Words I removed came back…
Arrrrgggggghhhhhhhh
We’re all wired a bit differently within a basic template. As afflictions go, it’s pretty inconsequential. Then again, as a child, I loved cartoons and laughed my head off at them.
Um, am I the only one that thought that the veggie tray was more appealing than the Krispy Kreme’s?
KRB
It plays on expectations, and sometimes it doesn’t have to be a cartoon. One year in junior high my German class gave the teacher a box wrapped in green paper on St. Patrick’s Day; inside was an orange. The teacher, an Irish Catholic, was somewhat less than amused….
i saw the same picture a few days ago in a twitter feed but the caption was : ‘you only had one job’
KRB: Yes, you *were* the only who found the veggie tray more appealing.
Jenk: Oooh, that is serious. Irish passions rivaled those of Israel-Palestine though they seem to have subsided at least a bit in recent years. While everyone knows green==Irish did the “gift-giver(s)” really understand the significance of orange? And was the whole class in on it as your wording implies (“my German class gave the teacher …”)?
“I think not everyone’s brain works the same way. I read somewhere that people w/ an IQ bout 130 (IIRC) do in fact think differently.” leelu
No question that there’s variability in emphasis. But personally, I don’t find high IQ people to think ‘differently’. Mentally ‘faster’ and able to grasp more complex subjects easier, sure but as we all know, there is no shortage of really smart fools. In fact, there are millions of them.
Actually I have a suspicion that neo may have also found the veggie tray more appealing which could explain why she didn’t “get it” the way some of us have here.
I’d say about 50% of the class was in on it and yes, they knew–we were a bunch of smart-asses so she knew we weren’t being malicious. Well, no more so than normal….
Jenk,
Better a smart ass than a dumb ass. Although, maybe not much better.
Huh. A thread that’s not about the campaign. Let’s see if we can tie it in anyway. Let’s see…Neo doesn’t like cartoon characters…no, I can’t find a connection.
The sign inside the box does not say “April Fool” but “April Fools.” I took that not as a joke on people who opened the box expecting a doughnut but as a gratuitous insult to people who eat doughnuts.
I meant “April Fool’s” is the joke “April Fools” is the insult.
I have a variation. Not very visual. Struggled in physiology since I could never see the nodule or whatever that was pinned in a dissection (that everyone else could). Have trouble with maps. Can’t tell who is who in low rez b&w photos (where most others can tell… somehow).
Very funny and interesting post. I’d seen the doughnut/veggies joke on Facebook and got it instantly, without thinking about it at all–thought it was very funny, too, perhaps only fulfilling the stereotype of IT people and doughnuts. I think your puzzlement, Neo, is definitely an oddity, but the close attention devoted to figuring it out obviously indicates some positives to the trait.
A somewhat similar quirk of my own: I am a very word-oriented person–always reading, always writing. Yet I seem to have a somewhat similar blind spot about puns. Frequently I just don’t notice them.
Case in point: on a certain music forum that I frequent there used to be a user who signed herself “flamgirlant.” How many of you see the play on words instantly? How many after a moment’s thought? Well, I never did get it on my own–I eventually asked, and then was embarrassed. For comparison, I submitted it to my wife, who immediately laughed, having seen it instantly. (And she’s the math major.)
I had trouble understanding the joke also because I kept wondering about the context in which the cartoon was drawn. I just couldn’t get past the thought that they were referring to Michelle Obama and her campaign to force her food choices on everyone else.
I got this joke right away, and as far as I know have none of the symptoms you describe, but I am completely stumped by those graphics telling one which way to swipe ones card in a card reader!
For some reason my n rain can’t process those images and I get no cues as to direction. I actually get a little anxious when using one, hoping no one is watching and sees me make mistakes. I’ve figured out how the readers work, and now typically look at the device’s construction to determine the direction to face my card.
Years ago I read that Native Americans could not comprehensive D 3 dimensions depicted in 2 dimensional drawings. They did not see angled lines as depicting depth and it all just looked like lines to their eyes.
Ip Gissa Gul
always made me laugh though tissant strictly visual
Mac:
About the pun.
I immediately see a female insect and next I see “flam” to equal “flame”. I would wager that more woman see the pun and see it quicker than men.
Flamboyant is not a very common word but I am completely familiar with it. Never have I noticed the male insect contained in it where I immediatly noticed the female insect in the made-up name.
Suppose we came across the name “girlant”. Would we be likely to think it was a pun on “buoyant”?
It did take me a while to get the pun. At least 5 minutes.
That is definitely an odd way of viewing a visual joke, and it is hard to wrap ones mind around it if you get the joke instantly, which I did. My suspicion, giving your other post, is this- you don’t form expectations for what is coming. I don’t even think it can be the case that you didn’t get it because you actually would have preferred the veggies and dip, since I would have preferred that myself; but my expectation on the opening of the box consists of it containing donuts and that most other people would be very, very pleased to find donuts.
Veggie have their place … AND SO DO DONNUTS!
mf–
Yeah, the insect part was what separated itself out in my brain, and I guess once that had been done the brain sort of locked in on that idea–“…it must have *something* to do with ants…but what?…”
The answer may interest you, and bears slightly on why people change their political beliefs.
I’ve done a fair amount of visual arts. Your affliction is more common than you think.
Art, especially storytelling, depends on a fair amount of willful suspension of disbelief. When you watch a movie, or a cartoon, or read a book, you brain is lying to you, trying to trick you into believing what you are seeing is actually happening. The job of a good artist is to help you suspend your disbelief, to help your brain lie to you. (Much like a politician, eh?)
In computer-generated art, there is a phenomenon called the “uncanny valley”. When a drawing is simple, like a smiley face or a stickman, it is easy to recognize it as a friendly human being. When it is very realistic, it is also easy to recognize. But somewhere in the middle, that recognition severely dips. This dip is the “uncanny valley”. Things are too detailed for the mind to generalize it like it does for smiley faces, and yet it is not detailed enough to be seen as real. Or perhaps, it is so close to reality that it becomes creepy. The skin color is off, the eyes don’t move right. Instead of looking as the artist intended, it looks like something from a horror movie.
This is why Pixar people are always very cartoonish in their proportions. It is easier for the human mind to accept computer-generated people as cartoons than to accept realistic people. I’ll bet that you are seriously disturbed by watching The Polar Express with Tom Hanks.
But this applies to other things as well. Some people can’t accept science fiction, or medieval fantasy as real. Their minds simply won’t be lied to that dragons, or wizards, or space ships could be real. They can’t suspend their disbelief for those things. A lot of guys can’t accept musicals, because they can’t believe people would break out singing in the street. Their minds simply won’t accept it as true.
Also, there’s a fair amount of skill going into focusing people’s attention on different things, and the symbols used to convey meaning. There’s actually quite a library of symbology used to cue the reader in to what is happening. We use head nods, finger pointing, hands on hips, etc to communicate between people, and there are also unspoken gestures used by cartoonists to communicate with the reader. If you don’t do a lot of comics reading, then you wouldn’t necessarily interpret these gestures the way someone else would. Your problem with the donut picture is that your mind doesn’t separate the images into separate images sequenced in time, you just take the picture as one image. So instead of before and after, you see several boxes on a shelf.
Part of this is probably that you don’t read a lot of comics, and part of it is probably the way your mind interprets data. You seem to think in a very straight-forward way and take things very literally and at face value.
Mac:
Maybe, because being boys, we don’t think of girls as ants and it was so odd to think of them that way, that brain lock developed.
Cartoons have a plot?
Hell, half of the movies you would have seen as a small child being rerun on television, didn’t even have one. Or one that made any sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_plot
“When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout …”
mf and Mac,
I actually think it’s a linguistic thing, at least in this case. It took me several minutes to get the joke too. I, like the two of you was reading “flam-girl-ANT” and it made no sense. When I started changing the accentuation and read “flam-GIRL-ant” I got it immediately. Part of that was in not knowing how to accentuate a nonsense word. My confusion was visual but the joke was aural.
Also keep in mind that “flamboyant” comes from the French (“flame like”) and has nothing to do with boy vs. girl, just as history (from the Latin “Historia” has nothing to do with “HIS-story” vs. “HER-story” (“His/Her” in Latin is “eius”). Knowing this might make it even more difficult to initially get the joke. Again a visual vs. an aural joke.
T:
Now that makes perfect sense and descrbes exacrly how I saw it. Also, I never tried to say the word aloud.
Tim Turner:
I think that’s true of my visual perceptions. Just about everything that isn’t realistic is in the uncanny valley for me. I saw that photo as one photo, not two.
However, with words it’s quite different for me. I love poetry, for example.
Tim Turner,
Just looked it up (I should get in the habit of doing that first). The technique is called “rotoscoping.”
As suspected, that was as painful as having to explain a joke to someone.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. After all, there’s no gain without pain.
“Hong Kong Elementary School Admissions Test Question #21”
“Hong Kong Elementary School Admissions Test Question #21”
Failed!
neo-neocon
I don’t doubt it, it can be very random. I imagine you also have little problem with stories performed in ballet.
T
And oddly enough, not 5 minutes ago I was looking up that very movie because I was looking up the filmography of the actor John Hurt (who also plays Berlin-wall escapee in Night Crossing, and psuedo-Nazi Chancellor Sutler in V for Vendetta).
The world is divided into two kinds of people ….
I won’t submit Says:
April 3rd, 2016 at 7:29 pm
“Hong Kong Elementary School Admissions Test Question #21”
Failed!
***
If at first you don’t link, try try again.
Got the answer almost immediately; do I have to return my diplomas?
(However, “flamgirlant” took overnight for inspiration to strike, so maybe that balances out.)
PS the ease with which children solve the problem may be related to the phenomenon of faulty letter-recognition, in which some don’t distinguish b, p, d at the same age as others.
As for some real time illusions go to this link:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=impossible+motion+magnet+like+slopes&view=detail&mid=2329EA0B05FB575C74172329EA0B05FB575C7417&FORM=VIRE
These are specially constructed forms which appear one way (which is not consonant with their reality) but only from a single point of view. From any other point of view, the illusion fails.
“The world is divided into two kinds of people ….”
… those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t ba-dump
To see how common Neo’s “affliction” is, simply poll your circle of friends for attitudes about newspaper comics pages. They are still a highlight of my day at age 68. I would guesstimate at least half of newspaper readers skip them completely.
sdferr! A kindred spirit! My family’s favorite cartoon. I believe it originally ran in the New Yorker a few decades ago – but I’m sure that magazine would never consider running such a cartoon now. The whole caveman-dragging-cavewoman-by-the-hair thing used to be a regular feature of the comics but has now vanished from public discourse.
At our house we still say “Hom tont ho” once in a while or call a dog a “huppy dod.” I had the cartoon on my fridge for years — but I did notice that I often had to translate it to visitors.
Yes! Got the Hong Kong test question answer in less than 5 seconds!
I watched about 5 minutes of “Polar Express” and was disgusted by the “animation.” I walked away rather than watch any more.
@SamS – good catch, but it is more likely that the person didn’t know it should be “April Fool’s” vs “Fools”. Like “its” vs “it’s” – stuff like that gets mixed up all the time.
I get most cartoons and visual jokes instantly, and am usually quick with puns. But sometimes I just don’t, or I’m not. It’s an odd feeling, quite insecure even if I am alone with no accompanying pressure. I carry my social pressure with me, perhaps. These last few years I care less and am more comfortable saying to others “I didn’t get it.”
When I remember the ruse it can be fun when someone tells me liberal humor that isn’t actually funny, but just meanness, to affect not to get the joke and make them explain it. Then you just nod and say “oh” expressionlessly.
Come to think of, I should have used that on FB yesterday. Darn.
I tried the various flamgirlant strategies: flame, ant, flam, flaming, girl, lant, saying it aloud, long-a, short-a, spelling it backwards, because of the music reference I tried to locate a music term in it. Never saw it. I decided I’d rather read the comments than have the satisfaction of figuring it out. When it was explained, I thought it was a stupid pun.
I think the sense of not getting a joke must be similar to how autistic people feel much of the time.
Neo,
Once explained, was the visual joke funny to you?
uffdaphil – I stopped reading the comics page because it didn’t carry “Nancy” and “Henry” any more.
All I have to say is, Krispy Kreme doughnuts are out of this world when still warm.
Yancey Ward:
I don’t think jokes are usually funny after they’re explained. So there’s that aspect of it.
But no, it wasn’t funny to me. Perhaps because I don’t like Krispy Kreme doughnuts (although I really do like doughnuts).
Neo,
What do you think of this?
Link
Yancey Ward:
That link didn’t work for me.
Here it is unlinked:
http://brightcove04.brightcove.com/23/15364600001/201603/853/15364600001_4797405860001_4797380938001.mp4
Yancey Ward:
Funny.
But of course the cartoon isn’t.
FOAF: Henry was the first strip I was aware of. My folk’s called me “Little Henry” for my late arriving baby hair.
A great treat for me in the fifties was reading my uncles’ stacks of old strips from the twenties and thirties. Life With Father, the Katz. Kids, Popeye etc.
My oldest daughter is similar. We homeschool and I occasionally add “The Far Side” to her lessons because she doesn’t get visual+verbal puns without explanation. Once, when she was about 4, I was reading her an illustrated version of Clay Boy, by Mirra Ginsburg. At the end, the boy has grown to giant proportions after eating people and animals of the town, and explodes. My daughter couldn’t wrap her head around what the various body parts (people and animals intact but partially off the page) meant. She was my live action Disney watcher at that age, too. Cartoons didn’t make sense until she was older. She still enjoys sci-fi and action books better than girlie “relationship/nuanced” books. I am the opposite (so are my other two children), so it’s been interesting to learn to relate.
Pity – I guess/assume you empathize with Sheldon on “Big Bang Theory” and don’t get the joke there either.