Word: visual
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...going on inside, the Vision Sciences Laboratory conducts tests on individual subjects in order to ascertain when and how their powers of perception fall short. By presenting subjects with pictures, actions, and events, the researchers hone in—be it through brain scanning or more simple tests of visual judgments—on perceptual errors, and induce the workings of the brain...
...Livingstone, that Impressionist art is so appealing because intentional blurring may connect representations more directly to emotional centers in the brain rather than to conscious image-recognition areas. Cavanagh has even offered an explanation why flat, two-dimensional representations are effective, arguing that we do not experience the visual world as truly three-dimensional...
Implicit in all these findings is the understanding that the artists themselves must have had some knowledge of these very rules in order to replicate them in their works. And their comprehension of the weak points in human visual perception has become a boon to modern researchers. “You can figure out from artists and what they do just what the simple rules of vision are,” Cavanagh says. “And that’s a real advantage, it’s like lots of research done for free...
Even while artists act like scientists and scientists like art historians, it is not easy to decipher the role the sciences should play in the expansive field of art history. While Cavanagh maintains that an understanding of human visual perception is helpful and informative in—if not essential to—the study of art, Livingstone understands that barriers do exist. While some scientific developments, like fractal analysis, have already swept the world of art history, she claims, others may not be accepted so easily by art historians. “Anything innovative takes time to be understood...
...understand the membrane between art and science—the liminal area between art and science that has spawned many a discussion, particularly as the sciences continue to grow beyond the confines of their laboratories and into the cultural mainstream. Cavanagh, in discussing whether a background understanding of visual perception can inform the study of art, acknowledges that it certainly depends upon what the individual in question is interested in studying. He gives precedence to an understanding through symbolism and cultural context in many instances. Fehrenbach, too, occupies a bit of this middle ground...