This study investigates how online dating profiles, consisting of both pictures and texts, are visually processed, and how both components affect impression formation. The attractiveness of the profile picture was varied systematically, and texts either included language errors or not. By collecting eye tracking and perception data, we investigated whether picture attractiveness determines attention to the profile text and if the text plays a secondary role. Eye tracking results revealed that pictures are more likely to attract initial attention and that more attractive pictures receive more attention. Texts received attention regardless of the picture’s attractiveness. Moreover, perception data showed that both the pictorial and textual cues affect impression formation, but that they affect different dimensions of perceived attraction differently. Based on our results, a new multimodal information processing model is proposed, which suggests that pictures and texts are processed independently and lead to separate assessments of cue attractiveness before impression formation.

这项研究调查了如何以视觉方式处理由图片和文字组成的在线约会资料，以及这两个因素如何影响印象形成。个人资料图片的吸引力在系统上有所不同，并且文字中是否包含语言错误。通过收集眼睛跟踪和感知数据，我们研究了图片吸引力是否决定了对个人资料文本的关注以及文本是否起辅助作用。眼动追踪结果表明，图片更有可能吸引最初的注意力，而更具吸引力的图片会受到更多关注。无论图片的吸引力如何，文本都受到关注。此外，知觉数据显示图形和文本提示都影响印象形成，但是它们对知觉吸引力的不同维度产生不同的影响。