I aim to give a new account of picture perception: of the way our visual system functions when we see something in a picture. My argument relies on the functional distinction between the ventral and dorsal visual subsystems. I propose that it is constitutive of picture perception that our ventral subsystem attributes properties to the scene, whereas our dorsal subsystem attributes properties to the surface. Keywords: picture perception; dorsal subsystem;.

Kendall Walton has (in)famously argued that photographs fundamentally differ from handmade pictures such as paintings and drawings in a crucial respect: unlike the latter, photographs are transparent in that looking at them allows one to literally see the objects they depict. Walton’s explanation for this alleged contrast appeals to the different ways in which the depictive content of a photograph and that of a handmade picture counterfactually depend on the depicted scene, and to the similarity between the dependence profiles (...) of photographs and experiences of seeing an object. I argue that, even if photographs are indeed transparent and handmade pictures are not, it is a mistake to think that what grounds the transparency of the former and the non-transparency of the latter concerns the counterfactual dependence profiles of these different pictorial kinds. The dissimilarity between the dependence profiles of photographs and handmade pictures stems from some merely accidental features of certain types of cameras. Further, the dependence profiles of photography and ordinary object-seeing are not at all analogous in the way Walton supposes. Thus, even those who are convinced by photographic transparency need an alternative account of it. (shrink)

In recent papers [1997, in press] I have explored how two seemingly conflicting paradigms inform the conception and study of picture perception. The dominant paradigm, one especially favored by vision theorists, claims that seeing a pictorial representation of an object is, with qualifications, like seeing the object itself. The picture, being a geometrically sanctioned projection of its object, resembles it, or otherwise serves as a mimetic surrogate, “re-presenting” what it depicts [Danto, 1982]. Accordingly, pictorial representation is at (...) its best when, as in trompe l’oeil paintings, viewers can not tell the picture, the stand in or substitute, from the real thing. An alternative paradigm, the symbolic model, championed most forcefully by Nelson Goodman [1968], focuses attention on syntactic and semantic features of pictures. On this account, pictures are importantly allied with other forms of representation, including languages, maps, and music notation, and picture perception is to be understood in this context. (shrink)

How does picture perception work? This paper suggests the outline of an enactivist and pragmatist account of picture perception. After discussing representationalist interpretations of the phenomenon, I claim that picture perception is a form of visuomotor reenactment scaffolded by the picture. In the last part of the paper, I show how this account practically works. This hypothesis might be a theoretical framework for future empirical research.

While there has been a lot of discussion of picture perception both in perceptual psychology and in philosophy, these discussions are driven by very different background assumptions. Nonetheless, it would be mutually beneficial to arrive at an understanding of picture perception that is informed by both the philosophers’ and the psychologists’ story. The aim of this paper is exactly this: to give an account of picture perception that is valid both as a philosophical and (...) as a psychological account. I argue that seeing trompe l’oeil paintings is, just as some philosophers suggested, different from other cases of picture perception. Further, the way our perceptual system functions when seeing trompe l’oeil paintings could be an important piece of the psychological explanation of perceiving pictures. (shrink)

When I am looking at an apple, I perceptually attribute certain properties to certain entities. Two questions arise: what are these entities (what is it that I perceptually represent as having properties) and what are these properties (what properties I perceive this entity as having)? This paper is about the former, less widely explored, question: what does our perceptual system attribute properties to? In other words, what are these ‘sensory individuals’. There have been important debates in philosophy of perception (...) about what sensory individuals would be the most plausible candidates for which sense modalities. The aim of this paper is to ask a related question about picture perception: what is the sensory individual of picture perception? When we look at a picture and see an apple depicted in it, what kind of entity do we see? What do we perceptually attribute properties to? I argue that the most straightforward candidates (ordinary objects, sui generis sensory individuals, no sensory individuals) are all problematic and that the most plausible candidate for the sensory individuals of picture perception are spatiotemporal regions. (shrink)

It is often assumed that there is a perceptual conflict in looking at a picture since one sees both a two-dimensional surface and a three-dimensional scene simultaneously. In this paper, I argue that it is a mistake to think that looking at pictures requires the visual system to perform the special task of reconciling inconsistent impressions of space, or competing information from different depth cues. To the contrary, I suggest that there are good reasons to think that the (...) class='Hi'>perception of depth in pictures is achieved in much the same way as is the perception of depth in any ordinary case. (shrink)

Everyday life suggests that picture seeing is sometimes infused by an emotional charge. However, nobody has addressed the importance of explaining this emotional charge in picture perception. Even our best model of picture perception, the dorsal/ventral account of picture perception, which integrates the most important empirical results coming from our best model on vision in neuroscience, the two visual systems model, lacks a reference to this emotional charge. The aim of the present paper (...) is to offer an account of picture perception that is able to regain and explain this neglected emotional charge. My claim is that, as for face-to-face perception, during picture perception, we are not only in a visual perceptual state, but also in an emotional state, which is directly connected to our visual perceptual state. I also show that it is possible to offer this integration while remaining in the philosophical/empirical framework of the dorsal/ventral account of picture perception, whose explanatory power is confirmed and improved. (shrink)

What is the nature of our perception of pictures? Philosophers intrigued by this question, and adopting a naturalistic perspective, have turned to findings from visual neuroscience to answer it. This perspective seeks to address the question within the framework of the Two Visual Systems Model, which provides a specific anatomo‐functional description of how our visual system operates. According to this model, the visual cortex hosts a specific hodological division between a ventral stream, responsible for visual recognition, and a dorsal (...) stream, responsible for the visual guidance of action. A philosophical account of picture perception based on this model is therefore referred to as the dorsal/ventral account of picture perception. Since its inception, this account has evolved in parallel with the advancements in the Two Visual Systems Model itself. This paper surveys the various interpretations under the different formulations of this account and traces their development within the literature of empirically informed philosophy of cognitive science. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Are face-to-face perception and picture perception different perceptual phenomena? The question is controversial. On the one hand, philosophers have offered several solid arguments showing that, despite some resemblances, they are quite different perceptual phenomena and that pictures are special objects of perception. On the other hand, neuroscientists routinely use pictures in experimental settings as substitutes for normal objects, and this practice is successful in explaining how the human visual system works. But this seems to imply that (...) face-to-face perception and picture perception are very similar, if not actually the same. How can we decide between these two opposite intuitions? Here I offer a regimentation of the notion of picture perception that can reconcile these two apparently conflicting ideas about pictures. It follows that philosophers and neuroscientists can maintain their respective stances without any theoretical conflict. (shrink)

Gibson's ecological approach to depiction is compared with Nelson Goodman's relativist theory of representation. Goodman's commitment to radical relativism and Gibson's to direct realism would make these thinkers unlikely candidates for comparison if Goodman himself had not indicated a substantial body of agreement with Gibson in the area of picture perception. The present study analyzes this agreement through systematic discussion of the following theses: realism in representation is not a function of geometrical optics, physical similarity to what is (...) depicted, or deception; pictures differ in density and articulation from words, so that picturing has no explicit vocabulary; and artists can teach us new ways to see the world. The agreement between Goodman and Gibson has wide-ranging implications for the further development of what might be called a Gibsonian relativism. (shrink)

It has been argued that picture perception is sometimes, but not always, ‘inflected’. Sometimes the picture’s design ‘inflects’, or is ‘recruited’ into the depicted scene. The aim of this paper is to cash out what is meant by these metaphors. Our perceptual state is different when we see an object fact to face or when we see it in a picture. But there is also a further distinction: our perceptual state is very different if we perceive (...) objects in pictures in an inflected or uninflected manner. The question is what this difference amounts to. My answer is that it is a difference of attention. In the case of inflected, but not uninflected, picture perception, we are consciously attending to certain properties: to relational property that cannot be fully characterized without reference to both the picture’s design and to the depicted object. I defend this way of interpreting inflected picture perception from some important objections and emphasize the importance of this, inflected, way of perceiving pictures. (shrink)

Psychological studies (Proffitt, 2006) have demonstrated that what one sees is influenced by one's goals, physiological state, and emotions. These studies demonstrate that there is a positive correlation between the physical demands (energetic cost) and perceived valence (emotional cost) of a task and the appearance of slant and egocentric distance in the environment. The studies are compelling. However, one can question whether their results are due to changes in the way participants perceived the orientation and extent of their environment or (...) are instead artifacts of the way they judged the difficulty of expected tasks in particular contexts. We asked participants to sketch the rough spatial layout of several paintings as accurately as possible. In this type of task participants continuously compare what they have drawn against what they perceive. Therefore, participants performance can be interpreted as a means to directly measure of the spatial metric of perception. We chose two paintings by Andrew Wyeth as target images: “Christina's World” and “Winter, 1946.” Participants were asked to draw the spatial arrangement of the key features of the scene depicted in the target painting twice: prior to being presented with biographical information about the subject of the painting condition; and then again after being told the biographical information that altered the perceived task demands or emotional valence of the events they depicted. We predicted that participants' drawings would differ in the two conditions indicating that: change in the energetic or emotional costs of the depicted action would cause them to perceive the depicted orientation of hills as steeper and distance between key landmarks as longer. Results from the energetic cost condition support this prediction. We will discuss our results and the suggestion that these types of effects reflect a role for motor simulation in perception (Witt, 2005). (shrink)

I aim to give a new account of picture perception: of the way our visual system functions when we see something in a picture. My argument relies on the functional distinction between the ventral and dorsal visual subsystems. I propose that it is constitutive of picture perception that our ventral subsystem attributes properties to the depicted scene, whereas our dorsal subsystem attributes properties to the picture surface. This duality elucidates Richard Wollheim’s concept of the (...) “twofoldness” of our experience of pictures: the “visual awareness not only of what is represented but also of the surface qualities of the representation.” I argue for the following four claims: (a) the depicted scene is represented by ventral perception, (b) the depicted scene is not represented by dorsal perception, (c) the picture surface is represented by dorsal perception, and (d) the picture surface is not necessarily represented by ventral perception. (shrink)

The most important question concerning picture perception is: what perceptual state are we in when we see an object in a picture? In order to answer this question, philosophers have used the results of the two visual systems model, according to which our visual system can be divided into two streams, a ventral stream for object recognition, allowing one to perceive from an allocentric frame of reference, and a dorsal stream for visually guided motor interaction, thus allowing (...) one to perceive from an egocentric frame of reference. Following this model, philosophers denied that we can be in a dorsal perceptual state when perceiving a depicted object. This is because a depicted object is not physically graspable or manipulable and, in turn, it cannot be egocentrically localized, as a normal object, by the dorsal stream. Thus, the impossibility of manipulating depicted objects and of localizing them from an egocentric frame of reference has led some people to be sceptical about the possibility of a representation of action properties in the perception of objects in pictures, which pertains to the dorsal visual system. The aim of the present paper is to show that it is possible for the depicted object to be represented by dorsal perception. That means that we can ascribe action properties to depicted objects as well, even if depicted objects cannot be egocentrically localized—at least, not as much as normal objects can. (shrink)

How are we to understand philosophical claims about sense perception being direct versus indirect? There are multiple relevant notions of perceptual directness, so I argue. Perception of external objects may be direct on some notions, while indirect on others. My interest is with the sense in which ideas count as perceptual mediators in the philosophy of Descartes and Locke. This paper has two broader aims. The first is to clarify four main notions of perceptual directness. The second is (...) to support my contention that in the texts characterizing ideas as immediate objects of perception, Descartes and Locke are invoking the notion of directness I call 'objectual'. This notion is modeled on the way a picture mediates perception of the pictured object. The upshot of my account is that – with respect to the objectual notion of directness – Descartes and Locke each hold an indirect theory of perception. (shrink)

Maps and realist pictures comprise prominent sub-classes of iconic representations. The most basic, most important sub-class is perception. Other types are drawings, photographs, musical notations, diagrams, bar graphs, abacuses, hieroglyphs, and color chits.

In this paper, I will present an argument against Husserl’s analysis of picture consciousness. Husserl’s analysis of picture consciousness (as it can be found primarily in the recently translated volume Husserliana 23) moves from a theory of depiction in general to a theory of perceptual imagination. Though, I think that Husserl’s thesis that picture consciousness is different from depictive and linguistic consciousness is legitimate, and that Husserl’s phenomenology avoids the errors of linguistic theories, such as Goodman’s, I (...) submit that his overall theory is unacceptable, especially when it is applied to works of art. Regarding art, the main problem of Husserl’s theory is the assumption that pictures are constituted primarily as a conflict between perception/physical picture thing and imagination/picture object. Against this mentalist claim, I maintain, from a hermeneutic point of view, that pictures are the result of perceptual formations [Bildungen]. I then claim that Husserl’s theory fails, since it does not take into account what I call “plastic perception” [Bildliches Sehen], which plays a prominent role not only within the German tradition of art education but also within German art itself. In this connection, “plastic thinking” [Bildliches Denken] was prominent especially in Klee, in Kandinsky, and in Beuys, as well as in the overall doctrine of the Bauhaus. Ultimately, I argue that Husserl’s notion of picture consciousness and general perceptive imaginary consciousness must be replaced with a more dynamic model of the perception of pictures and art work that takes into account (a) the constructive and plastic moment, (b) the social dimension and (c) the genetic dimension of what it means to see something in something (Wollheim). (shrink)

Service and education organizations such as the ASPCA claim a connection between family violence against children and companion animals, but to what extent does the general public share this perception? Sixty-three undergraduates rated their certainty about perceiving family violence using 60 pictures with differing potential targets of family violence. Participants showed stronger certainty when the target was a child than when the target was a companion animal, but ratings for companion animals averaged above the midpoint of the scale used. (...) Interview questions were used to obtain information about childhood recollections of joint discipline situations in which children received punishment for what companion animals did, or vice versa. Thirty-four participants recalled such situations, some of which resulted in the death or discarding of a family's companion animal. The majority of participants affirmed a connection between violence against children and companion animals in the family, with some giving credit for that insight to their taking part in the study. (shrink)

We addressed the questions whether stimuli presented below the threshold of verbal awareness are nevertheless perceived and whether there are perceptual differences between the two cerebral hemispheres. Pictures of line drawn objects and animals were subliminally presented to each visual half-field for subsequent identification in a form as fragmented as possible. The performance of 40 healthy subjects was compared to that of 63 controls. Whereas identification performance after blank presentation in the experimental group did not differ from that of controls, (...) identification in a significantly more fragmented form was achieved after the presentation of the complete picture. This effect, however, occurred only after subliminal stimulation in the left visual field, i.e., of the right hemisphere. Our results show that pictures presented below the threshold of verbal awareness can be perceived, and that only the right hemisphere can perceive them and make use of the perception. It remains an open question whether this kind of hemispheric specialization represents a right hemisphere dominance for subliminal perception or reflects an inability of the left hemisphere to access and behaviorally use unaware percepts via fragmented picture identification, for which a right hemisphere advantage is known. (shrink)

This paper addresses the visual culture of late-19th-century experimental physiology. Taking the case of Johann Nepomuk Czermak as a key example, it argues that images played a crucial role in acquiring experimental physiological skills. Czermak, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and other late-19th-century physiologists sought to present the achievements and perspective of their discipline by way of "immediate visual perception." However, the images they produced and presented for this purpose were strongly mediated. By means of specifically designed instruments, such as the (...) "cardioscope," the "contraction telegraph," and the "frog pistol," and of specifically constructed rooms, so-called "spectatoriums," physiologists trained and controlled the perception of their students before allowing them to conduct experiments on their own. Studying the material culture of physiological image production reveals that technological resources such as telegraphy, photography, and even railways contributed to making physiological facts anschaulich. At the same time, it shows that the more traditional image techniques of anatomy played an important role in physiological lecture halls, especially when it came to displaying the details of vivisection experiments to the public. Thus, the images of late 19th century physiology stood half-way between machines and organisms, between books and instruments. (shrink)

According to the received view in the philosophical literature on pictorial perception, when perceiving an object in a picture, we perceive both the picture’s surface and the depicted object, but the surface is only unconsciously represented. Furthermore, it is suggested, such unconscious representation does not need attention. This poses a crucial problem, as empirical research on visual attention shows that there can hardly be any visual representation, conscious or unconscious, without attention. Secondly, according to such a received (...) view, when looking at a picture aesthetically, one both consciously represents and visually attends to both the depicted object and the picture’s surface simultaneously. Thus, contra the empirical research on attention, only conscious visual representations are coupled, by such current view, with attention. And this clearly poses a second problem, as this philosophical account is not in tune with what vision science tells us about the functioning of our visual system. Furthermore, this raises another crucial problem, namely, that of explaining why aesthetic experience of pictures does not feel odd or conflicting, since, as previously noted in the philosophical literature, and contra the received view, if we are simultaneously consciously perceiving both the picture’s surface and the depicted object, there seems to be two things, at the same time, in the foreground of one’s visual consciousness. But, if so, as suggested, this would lead to a conflicting spatial visual experience. This paper offers a new description of the role of visual attention in picture perception, which explains the difference between the usual and the aesthetic way of perceiving a depicted object, without facing the problems reported above. A crucial role in our new account is played by the notion of unconscious attention, the distinction between focal and distributed, as well as top-down and bottom-up visual attention and the relationship between visual attention and visual consciousness. The paper, thus, offers the first theory concerning the exercise of visual attention in pictorial perception that is both philosophically rigorous and empirically reliable. (shrink)

Pain perception arises from a complex interaction between a nociceptive stimulus and different emotional and cognitive factors, which appear to be mediated by both automatic and controlled systems. Previous evidence has shown that whereas conscious processing of unpleasant stimuli enhances pain perception, emotional influences on pain under unaware conditions are much less known. The aim of the present study was to investigate the modulation of pain perception by unconscious emotional pictures through an emotional masking paradigm. Two kinds (...) of both somatosensory (painful and non-painful) and emotional stimulation (negative and neutral pictures) were employed. Fifty pain-free participants were asked to rate the perception of pain they were feeling in response to laser-induced somatosensory stimuli as faster as they can. Data from pain intensity and reaction times were measured. Statistical analyses revealed a significant effect for the interaction between pain and emotional stimulation, but surprisingly this relationship was opposite to expected. In particular, lower pain intensity scores and longer reaction times were found in response to negative images being strengthened this effect for painful stimulation. Present findings suggest a clear pain perception modulation by unconscious emotional contexts. Attentional capture mechanisms triggered by unaware negative stimulation could explain this phenomenon leading to a withdrawal of processing resources from pain. (shrink)

Kendall Walton explains pictures in terms of games of perceptual make-believe. Pictures or depictions are props that draw us to participate in games of make-believe where we imagine seeing what a picture depicts. Walton proposes that one imagines of one’s perceptual experience of the coloured canvas that it is a different perceptual experience. The issue is whether perception and imagination can combine the way Walton suggests. Can one imagine a perception to be different? To get a clearer (...) understanding of the unified perceptual-imaginative experience Walton posits, the paper turns to competing theories that explain perceptual experience in terms of contents, relations to objects, or both contents and relations. Walton appeals to theories of perceptual content and cognitive penetration. But it is also important to examine whether his view fits with recent theories that explain perception only in terms of relations or in terms of both contents and relations. The paper argues that Walton’s view is compatible with content theories of perception and can be defended from some objection once we look at the detail these theories offer. Walton’s view is not compatible with pure relational theories of perception but it can be explained by hybrid content-relational theories of perception that posit de re senses. (shrink)

We already have a distinction between the intension and extension of terms. This is not simply the distinction that is operative in philosophy of mind, body, and action. There, the concern is with things, and with a physicalistic or a mentalistic account of them. The physicalist says he supports an ‘extensional’ analysis of things, the mentalist an ‘intensional’. So, the physicalist says that, in the end, only ‘the extensional language of physical science’ will do in ontology. But, associating this physical-mental (...) dichotomy with the intension-extension distinction as applied to terms is misleading. The ontological issue is obscured by the association. An ontologist wants, like Spinoza or Berkeley, to know whetherthingsare extended or not, and in what respects. This question makes central the concept of space, or more generally of ‘field’, ‘domain’. Unfortunately, the same word ‘extension’ is used also for the spread or location of athingin space. To dissociate the extension of a term, a logical notion, from the ontological notion of the spatial status of a thing, I introduce the new word ‘extention’. This coinage correlates, not with the ‘intension’ of terms—the logical correlate of ‘extension’—but with ‘intention’, a word that fortunately already has common currency, and reeks with connotations that have logical ties with ‘consciousness’. So, from here on, we have two dichotomies: intension-extension applying to terms, and intention-extention applying to things. Since terms are things, both sorts of considerations are relevant to them, the logical one and the ontological. Only the latter applies to, say, stones or persons, since these are not linguistic terms. (shrink)

It has been argued that picture perception is sometimes, but not always, ‘inflected’. Sometimes each of the two aspects of the twofold experience of seeing‐in influences the other such that the picture's design ‘inflects’, or is ‘recruited’ into, the depicted scene. The aim of this chapter is to cash out what is meant by these metaphors. Our perceptual state is different when we see an object face to face or when we see it in a picture. (...) But there is also a further distinction: our perceptual state is very different if we perceive objects in pictures in an inflected or uninflected manner. The question is what this difference amounts to. The answer put forward in this chapter is that it is a difference of attention. In the case of inflected, but not uninflected, picture perception, we are consciously attending to certain properties: to ‘design‐scene properties’: relational property that cannot be fully characterized without reference to both the picture's design and the depicted object. I defend this way of interpreting inflected picture perception from some important objections and emphasize the importance of this, inflected, way of perceiving pictures. (shrink)

How do pictures represent? In this book Robert Hopkins casts new light on an ancient question by connecting it to issues in the philosophies of mind and perception. He starts by describing several striking features of picturing that demand explanation. These features strongly suggest that our experience of pictures is central to the way they represent, and Hopkins characterizes that experience as one of resemblance in a particular respect. He deals convincingly with the objections traditionally assumed to be fatal (...) to resemblance views, and shows how his own account is uniquely well placed to explain picturing's key features. His discussion engages in detail with issues concerning perception in general, including how to describe phenomena that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists, and the book concludes with an attempt to see what a proper understanding of picturing can tell us about that deeply mysterious phenomenon, the visual imagination. (shrink)

This paper focuses on whether static images can depict motion. It is natural to say that pictures depicting objects caught in the middle of a dynamic action—such as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s (1932) Behind the Gare St. Lazare—are pictures of movement, but, given that pictures themselves do not move, can we make sense of such an idea? Drawing on results from experimental psychology and cognitive sciences, I show that we can. Psychological studies on implicit motion and representational momentum indicate that motion is (...) really perceived in some static images: our visual system is built in order to detect motion, even where it is only implied, and to anticipate the probable outcomes of others’ actions—even when the ‘others’ are only the subject matters of pictures’. I argue that, consequently, a range of popular depiction theories—perceptualist theories of depiction—can accommodate depicted motion. (shrink)

This paper is about visual narratives. Most of the examples used in the philosophical literature on narratives are literary ones. But a general account of narrative needs to be able to cover both pictorial and literary cases. In the first part of the paper, I will argue that none of the most influential accounts of narrative are capable of this. In the second part, I outline an account of visual narratives, or, rather, of our engagement with visual narratives.

How do we acquire thoughts and beliefs about particulars by looking at pictures? One kind of reply essentially compares depiction to perception, holding that picture-perception is a form of remote object-perception. Lopes’s theory that pictures refer by demonstrative identification, and Walton’s transparency theory for photographs, constitute such remote acquaintance theories of depiction. The main purpose of this paper is to defend an alternative conception of pictures, on which they are not suitable for acquainting us with particulars (...) but for acquainting us with certain kinds of properties. This conception is outlined in §4, where it is argued that pictures are useful devices for what Heal has called indexical predication. In §2 and §3, I explain why I believe that remote acquaintance theories are false, and why picture-perception cannot function as a form of extended or remote object-perception. The main reason is that the contents of picture-perceptions do not themselves provide the kind of numerical and contextual information required for singular thought. Picture-reference is instead secured by independent beliefs or linguistic communication about the causal history of pictures as objects. In other words, it is beliefs about the numerical identity of pictures as objects that anchors the reference of the representational contents of pictures. (shrink)

AI is becoming increasingly prevalent in creative fields that were thought to be exclusively human. Thus, it is non-surprising that a negative bias toward AI-generated artwork has been proclaimed. However, results are mixed. Studies that have presented AI-generated and human-created images simultaneously have detected a bias, but most studies in which participants saw either AI-generated or human-created images have not. Therefore, we propose that the bias arises foremost in a competitive situation between AI and humans. In a sample of N (...) = 952 participants, we show that different evaluations emerge only when AI-generated and human-created pieces of art are presented simultaneously. Importantly, we demonstrate that AI art is not devalued, but rather, human art is upvalued, indicating the existence of a positive bias toward humans, rather than a negative bias. Further, we show that attitudes toward AI and empathy partially explain the different valuations of AI and human art in competitive situations. (shrink)

Theories of picture perception aim to understand our perceptual relation to both the picture surface and the depicted object. I argue that we should talk about not two, but three entities when understanding picture perception: (A) the picture surface, (B) the three-dimensional object the picture surface visually encodes, and (C) the three-dimensional depicted object. As (B) and (C) can come apart, we get a more complex picture of picture perception than (...) normally assumed and one where the notion of twofoldness, which has played an important albeit controversial role in understanding picture perception is replaced by the concept of threefoldness. This framework also allows for a more nuanced account of how our attention can be distributed between various features of A, B, and C when aesthetically appreciating pictures. (shrink)

Winning essay of the American Society for Aesthetics' inaugural Peter Kivy Prize. Extends Kivy's notion of sonic picturing through engagement with recent work in philosophy of perception. Argues that sonic pictures are more widespread and more aesthetically and artistically important than even Kivy envisioned. Topics discussed include: the nature of sonic pictures; the nature of sounds; what we can (and more importantly, cannot) conclude from musical listening; sonic pictures in film; beatboxing as an art of sonic picturing; and cover (...) songs as sonic pictures. To be published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. (shrink)

Over the last fifteen years, communication has become pictorial in a manner that it never was before. Billions of people have smart phones that enable them to take, edit, and share pictures easily whenever they choose to do so. This has created expressive niches within which new activities, with their own norms, continue to develop. Ready availability of these pictorial modes of communication, we claim, not only constitutes a change in the range of our communicative practices, but also changes the (...) world about which we communicate. Increasingly, we are making a world that’s worth depicting, using the tools we now possess. This paper will unpack one example of this phenomenon, trompe l’oeil street art. More and more of this seems to be produced with the intention that it is seen primarily in pictures. It makes sense that anything someone makes, and wants to be seen, would be made with decent photography potential in mind. You want photos to be able to, as they say, do justice to your work no matter what kind of visual work you make. In these cases, however, the pictures of the work are reliably more interesting than the pieces seen in the flesh. (shrink)

Theories of picture perception aim to understand our perceptual relation to both the picture surface and the depicted object. I argue that we should talk about not two, but three entities when understanding picture perception: the picture surface, the three dimensional object the picture surface visually encodes and the three dimensional depicted object. As and can come apart, we get a more complex picture of picture perception than normally assumed and (...) one where the notion of twofoldness, which has played an important albeit controversial role in understanding picture perception is replaced by the concept of threefoldness. (shrink)

The chapter outlines an abstract theoretical framework that is currently (re-)emerging in the course of a theoretical convergence of several disciplines. In the first section, the fundamental problem of perception theory is formulated, namely, the generation, by the perceptual system, of meaningful categories from physicogeometric energy patterns. In the second section, it deals with basic intuitions and assumptions underlying what can be regarded as the current Standard Model of Perceptual Psychology and points out why this model is profoundly inadequate (...) for dealing with the fundamental problem of perception theory. In the third section, it discusses a level of analysis that promises to be fruitful for dealing, in conformity with established procedures of the natural sciences, with the problem of perceptual “meaning” and the problem of what constitutes a “perceptual object.” In the fourth section, it outlines a theoretical perspective on basic principles of the perceptual system which centers on the notions of complex data types and conceptual forms, and draws an entirely different theoretical picture of the role of the sensory input than traditional accounts. The final section focusses on the issue of material qualities and discusses, within the general theoretical framework outlined, some observations and results on the perception of certain material properties, namely, lustrous and glassy appearances. (shrink)

This essay explores the prospects of grounding an account of pictorial experience or ‘seeing-in’ on a theory of presence in ordinary perception. Even though worldly objects can be perceptually recognized in a picture, they do not feel present as when they are perceived face to face. I defend a dual view of perceptual phenomenology according to which the sense of presence is dissociated from the contents of perception. On the one hand, the sense of presence is best (...) conceived as a non-sensory feeling. Ordinary objects are felt but not seen to be present. On the other hand, the contents of perception are determined by the actualization of perceptual-recognitional abilities. Unlike current versions of the feeling-based account of the sense of presence, I claim that these abilities enable us to perceive worldly (partial or overall) appearances. This claim justifies the strongest interpretation of recognition theories which does not fall back on the view that pictorial experience involves a kind of perceptual illusion. (shrink)