Lesson 7: The Basic Elements of Perception
The power of art is enabled by the interaction of our physical chemistry, the physical properties of art object in context, and a lifetime of accumulated knowledge and experience. To illustrate these complex interactions, let's look at this piece from the great surrealist painter Rene Magritte.
Rene Magritte, The Human Condition, https://mcachicago.org/Collection/Items/1953/Rene-Magritte-Les-Merveilles-De-La-Nature-The-1953 Links to an external site.
Take a minute to take some notes: Look at the Magritte painting above. What do you see? What is your first impression of it? Do you like the piece? Are you drawn to it? Unmoved? Or do you have an aversive reaction?
The following collectively contributes to your aesthetic experience of Magritte (or anything else).
Sensation is the experience of neural stimulation initiated by the environment; it is the process by which we receive and represent physical energy from our world. In vision, for example, it is the eye detecting the pattern of energy bouncing off a tree. Sensation is the pure experience of the object, without the benefit of memory or knowledge.
Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information; it is the process of creating meaningful patterns from raw sensory information. Through this process we recognize meaningful objects and events. This is where we identify the pattern of energy as "painting" or "tree."
Cognition: The process of representing the object in awareness, including thought, memory, reasoning, and labeling. For example, "this is an oak tree," "this is a van Gogh, "this reminds me of home," "this represents Eve in the Garden" "this painting demonstrates perfect form, and balance." Unlike sensation and perception, cognition can be either be automatic or under conscious control. For example, you may look at a Monet and automatically generate knowledge and memories associated with it (automatic) but you can also think "I am going to compare those brush strokes to other impressions for comparison" (controlled).
Emotion: This is your visceral, gut reaction to viewing the art object. The initial response may differ from subsequent responses. In addition, the response may be simple or complex. Reactions like "I feel warm peaceful;" "I like it / dislike it;" "I want to touch it," "I want to look away," "I empathize with the sense of despondency" etc.
Here we will explore art as a physical entity in the world and the transaction between that and the construction of it in the individual body and mind.
Individuals not only react emotionally to each piece – they often actually see the same piece differently, The physical properties of the viewer; for example, someone who is colorblind would see something different from someone who is not or with other visual idiosyncrasies would see a 'different' painting. Check out this beautiful poem by Lisel Mueller entitled, Monet Refuses the Operation Links to an external site..
In addition, the physical properties of the object in space influence our perception. The piece will look different in dark room vs. light room vs. candlelight vs. florescent lights vs. on a computer screen vs. an image in a printed book, in a blue frame vs. a white one etc., etc., etc. Also, the association it has with other objects in the same space or collection makes a difference: are you viewing Magritte's entire collection together, or as part of a collection of famous artists from different periods or learning about perception from a textbook on perception? In each of these different contexts, you are likely to pay attention to different aspects of the piece while ignoring others on the basis of context. Further, the personal history of viewer also contributes to how the work is seen. For example, the viewer's experience with art and life, personality, intelligence, interest and emotional baggage are all factors in both the impact of the piece and often literally what the person sees. For example, how old you are may determine what you see here:
Also, what you just saw may influence what you see next, for example: Rat Man Illusion
Links to an external site.
For the most part, the way physical energy is detected is more or less uniform across individuals so let's start with looking at the properties of the physical energy in the world and how humans are can detect that energy. Our focus will be limited to visual perception, but many of these principles also apply to auditory and other perceptual experiences.
Out of educational necessity we will break the process down into the perceptual and the cognitive and each of those into components. But let’s remember also what Rudolf Arnheim said “… the collaboration of perceiving and thinking in cognition would be incomprehensible if such a division existed” (p. 1).
Sensation: Detection of Energy
Obviously, to experience the Magritte you must first see the Magritte - literally. Your visual system is not only adept at detecting variations within a certain range of photopic (light) energy emitted from the art object; it is also adept at stabilizing some areas and enhancing contrasts in other areas. So, before the image even hits your brain, your eyes are working to make the gray variations in blue sky more "bluey" and sharpen the edges of the canvas in contrast to the curtain.
The visual system detects variations in photopic energy bouncing off of the distal stimulus, or the physical entity in the environment. In this case the distal stimulus is the Magritte piece in this context, the pattern of photopic energy being emitted from your screen. In contrast, the proximal stimulus is the pattern of activity this creates across the receptor cells, in other words, the image on the retina in visual perception.
Take a minute to take some notes: Distinguish the proximal stimulus from distal stimulus in reference to looking at Magritte's "The Human Condition," above.