PERCEPTION & VISUAL THINKING

Kit Laybournecopyright 2/5/09

Most of us take vision for granted. We seem to do it so effortlessly. Yet perceiving images, objects, color, and motion is a very complicated process.

Artists have long been trying to understand how we perceive, and much of our understanding of vision comes from learning how artists manipulate images into meaningful and realistic scenes. Artists have always created illusions. That's their business.

Over the years, both artists and scientists have produced optical illusions, either by reducing the number of visual cues for interpreting images or by deliberately setting up situations where our perceptual systems come into conflict.

There is an innate ambiguity in our eyeballs. After all, for any given retinal image, there are an infinite variety of possible three-dimensional structures that can give rise to it. Our visual system, however, usually settles for the correct interpretation. When a mistake is made, an illusion occurs.

Illusions can be a wonderful window into process of visual perception.

And they are fun too! That’s because they combine both the element of joy with the element of surprise.

Lets take a quick look at some optical illusions.

Camouflage Illusions

Camouflage Illusions = difficulty in differentiation of figure ground.

Figure Ambiguity

Figure Ambiguity = M.C. Escher -- do you see angels or devils?

Distortion Illusion

Distortion Illusions = Straight Lines #1: the red lines in grid are straight

Distortion Illusion

Distortion Illusions = Straight Lines #2: horizontal lines are straight, not curved.

Size ConsistencySize Consistency = the odd subterran figure is same scale

After Image

After Images = the gray illusion at the intersections. There are also Motion Aftereffects along the same lines.

Impossible Objects

Impossible Objects = the rules of perspective are confounded

Funny Places

Funny Places = Ames Room + twins: rear wall is built to seem parallel to lens

Figure / Ground

Figure/Ground = Try squinting. It's a lack of standard bkg makes reading difficult.

See next pair of slide showing that as the eye recedes (the field becomes smaller) it is easier to read the text.

The info reads: No Sex Causes Bad Eyes.

Facial Illusion

Facial Illusions = Presidential Illusion - Bill Clinton’s face done twice

These images all have come from a web site. This site offers examples within 11 categories of Optical Illusions. And a number of them involve motion and sound illusions.

Optical Illusions http://psylux.psych.tuwww.illusionworks.com/html/hall_of_illusions.html

I have started off with these visual illusions for the purpose of reminding you that….

The eye is not a camera !

Whilst part of what we perceive comes throughour senses from the object before us, anotherpart (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our own mind. - William James

What is Thinking?

Thinking is an almost constant state. It is the mind’s electrical activity; even while sleeping. Thinking is a 24 x 7 phenomenon.

Yet in my years in school (and I suspect yours too) very little time is spent thinking about thinking. Science recognizes two types of thinking: (a) Psychic (mental) functions (which we will be talking about today)(b) Somatic (bodily) functions. (example, you “automatically” move your hand off a burning object). To orient ourselves to how we think. I will give you a mental problem. Listen carefully. There is only time for me to read this once. (In this pdf, you will need to read the “problem”. See next slide and then, if you are game, try to solve it in your mind)

KL read aloud:“One morning, exactly at sunrise, a Buddhist monk began to climb a tall mountain. The narrow path, no more than a foot or two wide, spiraled around the mountain to a glittering temple summit

“The monk ascended the path at varying rates of speed, stopping many times along the way to rest and to eat the dried fruit he carried with him. He reaches the temple shortly before sunset. After several days of fasting and meditation, he began his journey back along the same path, starting at sunrise and again walking at variable speeds with many pauses along the way. His average speed descending was, of course, greater than his average climbing speed.

‘Prove that there is a single spot along the path the monk will occupy on both trips at precisely the same time of day.”

KL give ss 1 min to work the problem

“One morning, exactly at sunrise, a Buddhist monk began to climb a tall mountain. The narrow path, no more than a foot or two wide, spiraled around the mountain to a glittering temple summit

“The monk ascended the path at varying rates of speed, stopping many times along the way to rest and to eat the dried fruit he carried with him. He reaches the temple shortly before sunset. After several days of fasting and meditation, he began his journey back along the same path, starting at sunrise and again walking at variable speeds with many pauses along the way. His average speed descending was, of course, greater than his average climbing speed.

‘Prove that there is a single spot along the path the monk will occupy on both trips at precisely the same time of day.”

Lets begin by making some self-observations about what just happened as you sought to solve the problem.From these observations we will be able to draw 3 basic conclusions about the general nature of the thought process:The first set of observations….(i) maybe you talked to yourself sub vocally, a kind of inner speech. maybe you mentally pictured the monk climbing maybe you drew a mental diagram to clarify the problem.Whichever you did, we can draw this first conclusion about the thought process: observation one -- we think via a mental dialogue of some kind. More self-observation…..(ii) maybe you eliminated extraneous details (dried fruit, glittering temple) maybe you simplified essential elements (possibly by representing mountain path as a line in space) maybe you performed a mental “rotation” in which mountain is viewed from above.

One way or another, each of you acted upon your thoughts in reformulating what I read aloud to you.

The second conclusion about “thinking generally” is that we think by performing a number of active mental operations.

The operation that solves the problem is superimposition: See next slide for the solution.....

Superimposition

an image of the monk on the first day is superimposed on an image of the monk on the second day, revealing that the ascending monk must confront the descending monk on a single spot on the path, obviously at the same time of day.

Monk Solution is accomplished by Superimposition.Here are other kinds of “mental operations”:

other kinds of mental operations

• analysis• synthesis• induction• deduction

! analysis = where one dissects the object of thinking into parts

! synthesis = where one combines two ideas into a new entity

! induction = where particular observations lead to a general concept

! deduction = where the general leads to the particular

(iii) a third conclusion about the general condition of thinking comes from the observation that we didn’t consciously choose how to respond to the puzzle.

The ways we think are usually chosen and performed below the level of conscious awareness.

Indeed most of our thinking occurs at a subconscious level, which makes thinking extremely difficult to study.

One of my fundamental goals in teaching has been to help students understand how to think when solving creative problems of media design.

So an important first step is to recognize that there are unique forms of visual thinking

What is Visual Thinking ?

Visual thinking pervades all human activity. Astronomers, nurses, football coach, carpenters, surgeons, TV schedulers, -- workers of all kinds regularly engage in thinking by visual images..

This is not the realm of artists.

Experiences in Visual Thinking, Robert H. McKim,PWS Publishing, Boston, 1980

In the 1960’s, Robert McKim began to develop a course at Stanford University that was eventual called Visual Thinking. The book jacket you see is a product of McKim’s work over many years.This is a powerful book, if it is a book at all. The volume takes very seriously an observation first attributed to Galileo: “You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself.”

About his book, McKim writes, “One way to use this book is to view it as a manual of alternative strategies for expanding the power and range of your thinking. Every exercise in every chapter is a strategy that can be applied to any problem.” He continues…“You may also approach this book as a series of experiences with your own thinking -- experiences that will expand your awareness of your ability to think productively. An experiential approach is especially relevant to the study of thinking because you always have the subject of your study, in the form of your own thinking, immediately available.“(The book) is primarily a challenge to learn new thinking skills. ( Such) skills can be acquired only by active and informed experience.”-

Okay. In the next set of slides my goal is to help you experience that how a designer thinks visually is different than how a theoretician thinks verbally. ! - Psychologists who study and test mental ability have discovered that visual thinking involves a number of operations.! - Sit back and take on the following problems as an introductory exploration of the mental operations that do the active work of visual thinking.! - Lets begin with a warm up. Source Attribution: Robert McKim- lecture based on Experiences in Visual Thinking, Robert H. McKim, PWS Publishing, , Boston, 1980

a warm up .....

Cards & Discards

“In the row of five cards shown on the screen, there is only one card correctly printed, there being some mistake in each of the other four. How quickly can you find the mistakes?

- This is not a psychological test, but an exercise in hard looking….. please raise your hand when you think you have the answer (don’t shout it out)

- answer: 2nd card from right is the only correct one

- Here come examples for 6 different kinds of visual/spatial operations.

Pattern Seeking: Filling in

Pattern Seeking: Filling in

- look at the picture on the left. It is a picture of a violin. What is the figure in the picture on the right? ( Please raise hands)- a camel.These are incomplete graphic images. So active is the pattern-seeking nature of perception that these partial images are “closed” into meaningful patterns.

Pattern Seeking: Finding

Pattern Seeking: Finding

- The left-hand design is the figure. You are to decide whether or not this figure is concealed in any of the four drawings to the right.

- The desired figure is embedded in drawings B and D.

- The next visual operation involves pattern perception. It is extremely common and fundamental to all thinking.

Pattern Seeking: Matching

- The first figure in each line below is duplicated in one of the five figures that follow. Pick out the duplicate figure.

- You recognized the desired patterns correctly if you checked D, A, B.

- When this problem is given in a psychological test, it is called “perceptual speed” and the score is the number of correct matchings completed in a given time.

- Why does the test emphasize speed?

- Did you notice that there is a “quick” and a “long” way to perform the matching? The long way involves detail-by-detail matching and, perhaps, even a bit of verbal talking to oneself. The quick way involves seeing the desired pattern as a whole and matching it without hesitation. The desired operation is the quick way – thus the emphasis on speed in the test.

Please grab a pen and paper for the next one.

Visual Memory

Visual Memory

Inspect the designs for 60 seconds. Then I will switch to a blank slide and you should draw the shapes on a piece of paper, reproducing them in any order.

Coaching: Vigorous perception and faithful remembering are closely aligned. The more actively you perceive the designs, the more likely you will be able to reproduce them from memory. Film and video editors generally have excellent visual memory.

KL after 60 seconds click to gray empty slide.

Raise your hand if you remembered six…… 9?…….all 12?

In the next two tests problems, you will experience the operation of mentally rotating images in space. First, experience rotating a flat image through 180 degrees.

Rotations: Inverse Drawing

Rotations: Inverse Drawing

The top drawing on the left is the top right drawing seen reversed. In the remaining squares, draw in your mind, or on paper, the inverse of the drawings on the right.

Rotations: Rotating Dice

Rotations: Rotating Dice

Examine each pair of dice. Figure out if, insofar as the dots indicate, the first die of the pair can be turned into the position of the second one.

The middle pair is the only “correct” pair.

Orthographic Imagination: From Another Viewpoint

Orthographic Imagination: From Another Viewpoint

The left-hand drawing represents a solid object. One of the drawings in the right-hand column shows the same object viewed from a different position. Can you figure out which?

The correct drawing is C.

In the following visual-spatial operations, the structure of a three-dimensional object is manipulated in some way.

Dynamic Structures: Knots

Dynamic Structures: Knots

Which of the drawings of a piece of string would form a knot if the ends were pulled straight?

You correctly performed the required operation if you visualized the loops of string B, C and E as knots.

Dynamic Structures: Pulleys

Dynamic Structures: Pulleys

Which way (A or B?) will the pulley “X” turn?

Did you trace the motions of the pulleys with your finger, or feel some sort of inner muscular involvement, as you cane to the correct conclusion that pulley “X” goes in the direction “B”?

If so, you were experiencing the importance of kinesthetic imagery to active thinking operations.

Here is a final test….

Visual Reasoning: Spatial Analogy

The first three designs are part of an analogy. Which of the designs on the right completes the analogy?

The small vertically standing rectangle is the answer to the top analogy

The middle shape is the answer to the bottom analogy.

Logical reasoning, on the concrete level of this example, works much the same way in visual thinking as it does in verbal and mathematical thinking.

Visual / Spatial Operations Pattern SeekingVisual MemoryRotationsOrthographic ImaginationDynamic Structures

! ! Visual Reasoning! ! Dreaming! ! Fantasy

To review: you have just experienced examples for 6 different kinds of visual/spatial operations.

Remember than this is not an exhaustive list. For example, some visual thinking operates subconsciously -- as in dreaming and fantasy.

According to Robert McKim, all visual thinking is carried on by three kinds of visual imagery

- Images we see (not the things we see)- Images we imagine (and dream)- Images we draw & doodle

Left side Right side

Filmmakers, Web Designers, TV Directors, and others who create media utilize seeing, imagining and drawing in a fluid and dynamic way, moving from one kind of image to another. They use their eyes and they use their hands. And they use the two sides of their brains……

There is ancient symbolism for the right and left hands.

The right is order and lawfulness, le droit. Its beauties are those of geometry and taught implication. The right hand represents discipline, logic, objectivity, reason, judgment, knowledge, and language. The symbolic right hand holds the tools necessary to develop, express and realize ideas, to bring them to the world of action. The right hand is the world of science.

The left is hand is sentiment and intuition. Its beauties are those of invention and imagination. The symbolic left is open to fresh impressions, hunches and subconscious levels of thinking. The left hand represents openness, receptivity, subjectivity, playfulness, feeling, motivation, and sensory and imaginative processes. The left hand is the world of art.

- Lets switch from ancient symbolism to contemporary science. Neurologists and psychologists have discovered specialized brain functions that confirm the insights of the ancients who created the lore of the left and right hands.

Left side Right side

dreamerintuitionpatternradical

political leftsubjective insight

artist

doerthinkinglanguage

conservativepolitical right

objective analysisscientist

This image depicts the neurological crossover : the left hemisphere of the brain crosses over to control the right side of the body and the right hemisphere crosses over to control the left side. In other words. Left hemisphere leads to Right Hand. Right hemisphere leads to Left Hand. This slide lists some paired contrasting qualities.

Robert McKim’s book makes a compelling case about the bias in education and culture towards the Left Side: empirical, logical, word-based. To quote McKim….. “A major purpose of experiences in visual thinking is to gently take the symbolic left hand out of the cast in which society and education has immobilized it, to give it some exercise, and to put it to work in unity with the right.

- McKim observes …. “Computers cannot see or dream, nor can they create: computers are language-bound. Similarly, thinkers who cannot escape the structure of language, who are unaware that thinking can occur in ways having little to do with language, are often utilizing only that small port of their brain that is indeed like a computer.

Creative thinkers do what computers cannot. They abandon language when occasion demands and enter into other modes of thought. Specifically, creative thinkers are ambidextrous: they use the symbolic left hand as well as the right, the right brain as well as the left. Learning to think visually is vital to this integrated kind of mental activity. “

The point I am trying to make tonight is that your study of media will fail you if it provides knowledge of tools, of vocabulary, of precepts and procedures, and yet does not provide you with broadened skills and deepened awareness of Visual Thinking.

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