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