So how good do you think your memory is?

Can’t recall? (Poorly executed joke, but I had to.)

Let’s have a little fun and find out.

Take twenty seconds and try to remember as many of the following words as possible. When you’re finished, jot them all down somewhere. Ready?

Tree

Grass

Leaves

Tulips

Pollen

Bushes

Butterfly

Jim Carrey

Birds

Sand

Branches

Wind

Sunshine

Rain

Birds nest

So here’s the reality; your memory is no better (or worse) than the average person's. (At least exponentially.)

Most of us have a hard time remembering a list of items this long, especially when only given 20 seconds.

Why do you think we carry around grocery lists? And we have all the time in the world to remember that.

It’s a volume issue. We simply find it very hard to remember a laundry list of items.

But I’ll make a bet that you at least remembered two words from the above list: Tulips and Jim Carrey.

Why? Because both of them stood out in different ways. When faced with a high-volume of information, our brain’s natural defense mechanism is to quickly identify items that stand out.

In other words, we notice things that are different. This is referred to in psychology at The Automaticity Trigger.

What’s That?

The Automaticity Trigger is our brain’s way of using sensory cues to quickly sort through information.

It’s instinctive. It’s the mechanism responsible for capturing our immediate attention.

The reason you hear someone call your name in a crowded, noisy room? The Automaticity Trigger.

The reason you jump out of your seat at a loud, unexpected noise? The Automaticity Trigger.

It shocks you into attention. And because of that, it’s incredibly powerful.

How does this relate to content?

The Automaticity Trigger captures our immediate attention in one of two ways: contrast and association.

Both were at work in our above exercise.

The reason why you remembered Tulips is because it was bigger and darker than all the other words. I created contrast, and as a result, it captured your immediate attention and you remembered it.

The reason why you remembered Jim Carrey? While it didn’t contrast in size or color with the other words, it was completely out of place. A bunch of words regarding to the outdoors…and then Jim Carrey?

Association – or lack thereof – is another way The Automaticity Trigger sorts through information.

Contrast

You hear so much about how we’ve reached a saturation point in regards to content creation on the web.

We haven’t. Unique and quality never saturate.

What we have reached is a saturation point of monotony. Most websites – and company blogs – have messaging and language very similar to competitors.

As consumers, our Automaticity Trigger quickly sorts this repetition out in search of something different to capture out attention.

This makes creating contrast – think Tulips above – essential in gaining any sort of traction.

Author and artist Jessica Hagy had what TIME called one of the best blogs on the internet in 2008. Her blog, Indexed, started as a place for her to publish her doodles, like this one: