Study indicates puzzle piece has negative associations

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Long associated with autism, new research is questioning whether or not the ubiquitous puzzle piece serves as a pro or con for organizations tied to the developmental disorder.

Dating to at least the 1960s, puzzle pieces have commonly been used to denote autism. The imagery is currently employed by Autism Speaks, the Autism Society of America and numerous other groups in one form or another and puzzle pieces grace everything from t-shirts and pins to credit cards and license plates.

For the research, 400 members of the general public were asked to categorize various shapes, concepts like “grief” or “cheer” and puzzle pieces — both generic and those used by autism organizations — during a series of quick online exercises. Subsequently, study subjects completed a questionnaire that asked them about their first impressions when they saw a shape or a puzzle piece.

Researchers found that study participants were much faster and more accurate when they were asked to categorize puzzle pieces in a way that was associated with negative connotations. Moreover, both generic puzzle pieces and those used as autism logos evoked adverse associations, the study found.

Abstract
Puzzle pieces have become ubiquitous symbols for autism. However, puzzle-piece imagery stirs debate between those who support and those who object to its use because they believe puzzle-piece imagery evokes negative associations. Our study empirically investigated whether puzzle pieces evoke negative associations in the general public. Participants’ (N = 400) implicit negative associations were measured with an Implicit Association Task, which is a speeded categorization task, and participants’ explicit associations were measured with an Explicit Association Task, which is a standard task for assessing consumers’ explicit associations with brands (and images of those brands). Puzzle pieces, both those used as autism logos and those used more generically, evoked negative implicit associations (t(399) = –5.357, p < 0.001) and negative explicit associations (z = 4.693, p < 0.001, d = 0.491). Participants explicitly associated puzzle pieces, even generic puzzle pieces, with incompleteness, imperfection, and oddity. Our results bear public policy implications. If an organization’s intention for using puzzle-piece imagery is to evoke negative associations, our results suggest the organization’s use of puzzle-piece imagery is apt. However, if the organization’s intention is to evoke positive associations, our results suggest that puzzle-piece imagery should probably be avoided.

People these days care way to much about media portrayal.

Media portray can affect how someone is seen for hundreds of years.

What is Marie Antoinette most famous for saying?




Something she never actually said, but the media portrayed her as an uncaring queen who said "let them eat cake."

Hundreds of years later people still associate that saying with her. Many don't know she didn't say it.

Media representation can affect how people view other people. It can encourage prejudice or it can break down prejudice.

People these days care way to much about media portrayal.

Maybe. But since this is the media representation section I would assume most posters here care about it.

I always thought the puzzle piece was a crummy logo.

It implies something that's out of kilter, with no appropriate place to be - an irrelevant bit of junk that's best thrown away, before it necessitates a long pointless search, to figure out what to do with it.