theconversation.com: Perception is utterly baffling. We can precisely describe the biological structure of eyes and brains. We can measure the electrochemical impulses and electrical fields generated by neurons. But reason fails us when we attempt to explain how these physical processes cause all the vivid colours, textures and objects that appear in visual perception. In fact, perception is so perplexing that we can find ourselves pushed to the edge of rational thought – and beyond – when we try to understand it.
4 comments:
Today in Intro to Psychology we were talking about perception and how our brain examen the world. The lecture in Intro to Psych was fascinating and so was this article. We are constructing a world and filling in the blanks. We perceive the world in different ways than they actually "are". Light is detected by cells in your eye and the optic nerve send that information (what we perceive) to the visual cortex (located in the lower back section of your brain). Articles like this just remind me how important lighting is. To perceive and visualize the world YOU NEED LIGHT. Sorry, I'm quite biased when it comes to lighting, I think everything about it is fascinating.
I took into to Psych this year because I hoped that I would learn more about the brain and how we as humans perceive things. In the end, we are majoring in Art and understanding how the human mind perceives and understands the world around us is such a crucial part of the craft. Hopefully, I learn more about this type of stuff in psych and in different design classes this year.
Articles like this one are quite possibly my favorite kind of article: the kind that creates a dialogue between art and science. This article, which discusses contradictions, can be called a contradiction; it talks more on how science enhances our art rather than restricting it, which is not a popular belief. The topic of perception and neuroscience made me think of a lecture from the art history class I am taking this semester. We looked at the basic geometric forms of art that are used create a physical reality: leading lines, focal points, proportions. My professor noted that the popular style of realistic painting and drawing that most of us are used to does not actually show objects in their true form. When we draw a picture of a long straight road, we typically draw a focal point on the horizon line, and then we draw leading lines that intersect at that focal point. However, the road isn't actually getting narrower; the lines stay parallel for as long as the road exists. Why, then, does that look the most natural to us? Like the examples in this article, it occurs because of perception. This depth is a trick to our eyes--a trompe l'oeil--and it's all plausible because of neurology.
The intersection of art and science is where I prefer to live. The greatest pieces of art and the most influential pieces of science are in dialogue with the other discipline
I believe that it’s unwise to try and draw a divide between the two, even though that is how the modern school system chooses to chunk the information. The greatest scientists of antiquity were also artists, and vice versa. Michaelangelo produced some of the most-studied works of art in the history of the world, and he also experimented with nearly every discipline of science. Philosophy is also an integral part of understanding the natural world, and science and philosophy have been in even greater conversation, from Plato and Aristotle to modern ethics dialogue as it relates to biotechnology. In my philosophy class, we’ve been having the same discussions that the article hints at. How do we know that objects exist? How do we process traits of an object so that we recognize a representation of it? The ‘this is not a pipe’ image is included in the article; the image is right, that is only a representation of a pipe and representations are imperfect views of an object. Creating art and sensory experiences is one thing, but considering the psychological implications of the viewing experience is another.
The intersection of art and science and how one contributes to the other is a conversation that I have been having with many of my friends here at CMU who are in STEM majors, because it is a really complex but interesting merging point. I remember last year when I was working on projects for Design for the Stage some of my more analytically minded friends were coming at me with the logic of everything I was doing, which was a lot to conceptualize at the time but also brought up discussions that were really thought-provoking. Behind every piece of art is a psychological statement and scientific analysis that could be performed to help explain why it makes us feel the way we do. I think ultimately, it can be really overwhelming to look at the paradox of why we perceive things the way we do, but it is also crucial when it comes to analysis of the work that you are doing when it get’s down to a fundamental level. This world is made up of contradictions, paradoxes, and anomalies that, when looking at on even the simplest level, can become both incredibly focused and also incredibly meta at the same time (hence the contradiction I just presented).
Post a Comment