I’ve harped on a lot about how good visual design helps manage the first impression someone constructs. Here’s a link to the article that discusses the way we process first impressions (in PDF format) and the Guardian article that discusses it. What’s fascinating is the conclusion that we process our first impressions of people the same way (and the same part of the brain) that we process our first impressions of objects. Now, I’m slightly skeptical of the methodology – they used pictures of people on a screen rather than real people – which to me is perfect to study how people make first impressions of pictures, maybe not ideal otherwise. Additionally, it’s interesting to see that part of this is done by an area that controls emotion, so logic is out, emotional responses in.