ART AND PERCEPTUAL EXPERTISE

Structure• Applying principles of perception to art-making• Why study representational drawing?• How to quantify drawing ability• Research connecting drawing ability and various

perceptual phenomena

Structure• Applying principles of perception to art-making• Why study representational drawing?• How to quantify drawing ability• Research connecting drawing ability and various

perceptual phenomena

John Ruskin: The Innocent Eye

The whole technical power of painting depends on our recovery of what may be called the innocence of the eye; that is to say, of a sort of childish perception of these flat stains of colour, merely as such, without consciousness of what they might signify

John Ruskin

Art-making is returning to a

‘sensory core’

Seeing through schematic

biases

Gibson – Direct Perception• Sensation is perception• Phenomena like optic flow give unambiguous evidence

about the visual qualities of the environment

Mark Tansey ‘The Innocent Eye Test’

Ernst Gombrich: Schemata

The artists’ dilemma:

That of conjuring up a convincing image despite the fact that not one individual shade corresponds to what we call 'reality’

Ernst Gombrich

Art-making is solving the inverse problem of vision

Gregory – Generative Perception• Perception as hypothesis testing• Unconscious inferences from

sensory data (Von Helmholtz)• Formation of incorrect hypotheses

lead to errors in perception (and artistic effects!)

See through or seeing with schemata?

• Artistic schemata - attention and selection of features sufficient for depiction in a particular medium

• The sets of cues necessary for adequate depiction are culturally specific and not fixed

Art as caricature

Average Stimulus Caricature

Rudolf Arnheim: Evolution of representation

Children perceive the universal more readily than the particular

In the field of art – and this is probably true also for the psychology of thinking – highly abstract forms appear at the most primitive stages

Rudolf Arnheim

Leo, Aged 2½ 

Abstraction

Structure• Applying principles of perception to art-making• Why study representational drawing?• How to quantify drawing ability• Research connecting drawing ability and various

perceptual phenomena

Why study drawing?

Drawing represents a complex but tractable process

Output comparable with original stimulus

Structure• Applying principles of perception to art-making• Why study representational drawing?• How to quantify drawing ability• Research connecting drawing ability and various

perceptual phenomena

How do we measure drawing ability?• ‘Because there is no universal computer algorithm for

comparing the accuracy of renderings with that being rendered, one must resort to using critics to judge the accuracy of a rendering.’(Cohen, 2005)

How do we measure drawing ability?

• Shape Analysis• Determined set of coordinates on an image • Measures shape accuracy but as yet no systematic way

of measuring distortion or effects other than shape

Structure• Applying principles of perception to art-making• Why study representational drawing?• How to quantify drawing ability• Research connecting drawing ability and various

perceptual phenomena

Drawing & Perception

Visual Selection

Visual Integration

Perceptual Constancies

Local Processing

Ostrofsky et al (2011)

Drawing & Perception

Visual Selection

Visual Integration

Perceptual Constancies

Local Processing

Drawing & Perception

Visual Selection

Visual Integration

Perceptual Constancies

Local Processing

Drawing & Perception

Visual Selection

Visual Integration

Perceptual Constancies

Local Processing

Drawing and Perception

Visual Selection

Visual Integration

Perceptual Constancies

Local Processing

Drawing and Perception

Visual Selection

Visual Integration

Perceptual Constancies

Local Processing

Drawing and Perception

Visual Selection

Visual Integration

Perceptual Constancies

Local Processing

Drawing and Attention Shifting

Attention shifting. Local-global levels of processing

GL switch

LG switch

A link to visual flexibility?

Ambiguity and attention shifts

Art-making is embodied• Perception does not function in isolation• Motor imagery used in patient DF in lieu of visual form

recognition• Anticipatory motor planning could be used by expert

artists• Changes in holistic processing may be related to

sensorimotor experience

Conclusions• Drawing and art-making a process of both seeing through

and see with biases in perception• Drawing ability linked to enhancements in perceptual

processing, namely: visual selection, visual integration, perceptual constancies, local processing and attention switching

• Integrate this into an embodied framework – how does it relate to perceptual/sensorimotor expertise

• Chart the development of perceptual and conceptual skills throughout the lifetime of the artist to understand the role of innate ability and training