experiments / EXP-007 / active

In progress — day 8 of 14

Does visual disruption extend attention, or simply delay its withdrawal?

Derived from Autopsy #006. Identical content under two structural conditions. Testing whether a non-linear opening holds contact differently than a composed one — or whether the difference dissolves by the end.

Hypothesis

An opening that disrupts visual expectation — through non-linear cuts, frame inconsistency, or offset — creates a pattern interrupt that delays the first decision to withdraw attention.

If true: the disruption variant should show measurably higher contact at the 0:07 and 0:15 marks compared to the clean variant, under matched conditions.

Falsification condition: if both variants show equivalent contact curves through the first fifteen seconds, disruption does not delay withdrawal. That would be a different finding with different implications.

Conditions

Variable Disruption Clean
Opening structure Non-linear / 3 cuts in first 3 seconds Single frame / direct address / 1 cut
Text Present, fragmented timing Present, standard timing
Audio Identical across both
Content body Identical from 0:04 onward
Works per variant 6 total — 3 complete 6 total — 3 complete

Early signal — first three per variant

Contact held to midpoint (0:14 mark):

Disruption variant

V-A 58%
V-B 64%
V-C 61%

Clean variant

V-D 41%
V-E 33%
V-F 40%

Current gap: +22 percentage points in favor of disruption. Exceeds hypothesis threshold. 6 remaining works will determine whether this is structural or a novelty effect that collapses under repetition.

Field notes

  • Day 5: V-B produced the highest contact figure in this dataset. The three-cut sequence in the first two seconds appears to be the active variable, not overall edit density.
  • Day 7: V-F showed the lowest contact of any work in the experiment. Context controlled. Not a timing explanation.
  • Day 8: The clean variant may be losing novelty across successive works — not anticipated, may confound the final comparison.
  • Uncontrolled observation: disruption variant generates more written responses. Not part of the original hypothesis. May reflect a different phenomenon.
If disruption holds — next revision
If the gap sustains above 15 points across all six pairs, disruption becomes the default opening structure. EXP-008 will then test whether the content body can remain clean while only the opening disrupts — or whether disruption in the opening creates an expectation the body must also fulfill.
If disruption collapses
If the gap closes below 10 points, the early signal was a novelty effect. Familiarity is a resource that depletes. If that is the finding, the implications are harder to work with — and would change what this archive is trying to do.
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EXP-007 / active / 6 works remain / results appended as they accumulate