Visual Intelligence

How we create what we see.

Brett Jackson

Reference

This is mainly from a great book called

Visual Intelligence by Donald Hoffman

that I first encountered about 8 years ago.

the Visual Brain

• What you see is created on the fly by your brain

• Some of this processing is learned and some is instinctual

• Many animals and some humans see the world very differently

• Visual processes are the fastest processes of the brain

some exercises

you create shapes that don’t exist

If 3 or more curves intersect at a common point, assume they

intersect at a common point in space

you create colours that don’t exist

you create forms that don’t exist

The eye aligns the depth of proximate objects

In defining a shape, the eye favours greater curvature

Assume parallel lines exist on the plane.Assume 3 or more intersecting lines meet

at one point in space.

When things go wrong

A number of visual neuropsychological conditions give us insight into what the visual mind is doing,

by showing what happens when things don’t work properly....

• Visual Form Agnosia - the inability to create form out of visual input. These people cannot create form from visual input. they see perfectly well but cannot construct objects.

• Charles Bonnet Syndrome - The inability to control the creation of objects - some are real and some are false. Whole streets of non existent buildings and traffic can be created in some cases. Imagine your whole life was like Inception.

• Bathosmigia - a reversal or scrambling of pictorial depth perception. Train tracks appear to get closer together as the are nearer. These people actively construct parts of objects that are hidden behind others as their visual mind reorders the relative distance of a range of objects

• Hemi - Akinetopsia - the inability to process motion. These people see movement as a series of still images. Their world is like a motor drive camera. Some are only affected in one hemisphere and can perceive motion in one side of their field of vision only.

• Colour Blindness & Hetrochromatopsic - the inability to see colour & the perception of colour where there is none. There is speculation that Van Gogh suffered from this.

Why it’s important

• The visual brain is processing all the time to make sense of visual inputs. Don’t overwork it or it will fatigue and in the extreme it can be overloaded. This is called Spiralepsy

• Explore the rules and ways the visual brain works so when you know when to use them and when to flaunt them.

• Small incorrect details can amplify over time. Sometimes this works in a quirky way to build character, sometimes it will distract and disconcert the player.

• Consider both the close up and far away view of your visuals. Elements that look great up close can be ambiguous or misleading at a distance.

Thanks