Understanding Wreltik's Six Cognitive Dimensions: A Deeper Guide
Each of Wreltik's six dimensions maps to a specific neural system. Understanding what each measures — and what it doesn't — helps you read scores accurately.
Understanding Wreltik's Six Cognitive Dimensions: A Deeper Guide
Wreltik evaluates video across six dimensions — not because six is a round number, but because each maps to a distinct neural system that research has shown to be relevant to advertising effectiveness. Understanding which dimension corresponds to which system changes how you read the scores.
Visual Attention
What it measures: the predicted allocation of visual attention across the frame and across time. This is the "where are they looking?" dimension, derived from models of the visual salience system in the occipital and parietal cortex.
High scores mean the visual composition effectively directs attention to the intended focal points. Low scores mean attention is likely scattered — the viewer's gaze is jumping around rather than being guided.
This dimension is most sensitive to: visual complexity, contrast, motion, and face presence. It's least sensitive to: message quality, emotional content, and brand relevance.
Emotional Resonance
What it measures: the predicted intensity of emotional response over the duration of the video. This draws on models of the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex — the brain's emotional salience and evaluation systems.
This dimension measures intensity, not valence. A high score means strong emotional activation — which could be positive, negative, or mixed. A low score means emotional flatness, which is the real enemy of engagement.
This dimension is most sensitive to: faces showing emotion, narrative stakes, music and sound design, and personal relevance cues. It's least sensitive to: factual information, feature lists, and logical arguments.
Reward Response
What it measures: the predicted activation of the brain's reward system — the dopaminergic pathways that respond to anticipation, resolution, and satisfaction.
This is different from emotional intensity. A horror movie can have high Emotional Resonance and low Reward Response. A satisfying tutorial that resolves a specific question can have moderate Emotional Resonance and high Reward Response.
High Reward Response typically comes from content that sets up an expectation and fulfills it. Teasers, reveals, before/after structures, and question/answer formats all engage this system.
Attention Sustainment
What it measures: the predicted ability of the content to maintain attention over time, as opposed to capturing it initially. This maps to the frontoparietal sustained attention network — the system that keeps you focused on a task.
This dimension is sensitive to pacing, variation, and structure. Content that changes visually or topically every 8-12 seconds tends to score higher. Content that's visually or informationally monotonous tends to score lower.
A common pattern: high Visual Attention (the hook works) but low Attention Sustainment (the content can't hold what the hook captured). The fix is usually pacing or structural.
Memory Encoding
What it measures: the predicted likelihood that key moments will be successfully encoded into long-term memory. This draws on models of hippocampal function and the amygdala-hippocampal interaction that tags emotionally significant content for enhanced encoding.
High scores suggest that the content includes "encoding peaks" — moments where emotional intensity, distinctiveness, and brand presence coincide. Low scores suggest the content is either emotionally flat, insufficiently distinctive, or fails to place the brand at encoding peaks.
This is the dimension most directly tied to advertising effectiveness. If no one remembers your ad, nothing else about it matters.
Cognitive Load
What it measures: the predicted processing demand the content places on working memory. This maps to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the brain's executive function systems.
This dimension is inverted relative to the others. Lower is usually better — less cognitive load means easier processing, which means higher engagement and better message comprehension. But "lower is better" has limits. Very low cognitive load can indicate content that's too simple to be interesting. The optimal range is moderate-low: easy to process but not empty.
Reading patterns, not single scores
No single dimension score tells you much. The pattern across dimensions is what matters. Strong Visual Attention with weak Memory Encoding suggests content that's engaging in the moment but not sticky. Strong Emotional Resonance with high Cognitive Load suggests content that's emotionally powerful but too dense to process fully.
The dimensions are designed to be read together, like a panel of diagnostic tests. The pattern tells you where to focus your edit.