How does art affect the cognitive, affective and behavioral aspects of children?

pictorial art , vision
pictorial art attempts capture three-dimensional structure
of scene—some chosen view of particular objects,
people, or landscape. artist’s goal convey message
world around us, can find in art
message workings of brain. many art
examples of pictorial depth cues—perspective, occlusion,
texture gradients, , on—as these
cues available depth in pictures. depth perception
based on binocular disparity, vergence, , accommodation
inappropriate depths depicted, , head movements
no longer provide new views of scene. however,
pictorial cues abundant in real scenes—that why
work in pictures—and there no obvious benefit in studying
effectiveness in art opposed effectiveness
in natural scenes.
, yet pictorial art can tell great deal vision
, brain if pay attention ways in paintings
differ scenes depict. first of all, learn
artists away great deal—impossible colors,
inconsistent shading , shadows, inaccurate perspective,
use of lines stand sharp discontinuities in depth or
brightness. these representational “errors” not prevent
human observers perceiving robust three-dimensional
forms. art captures three-dimensional structure of
world without merely recreating or copying offers revealing glimpse of short cuts , economies of
inner codes of vision. nonveridicality of representation
in art commonplace seldom question reason why works.
line drawing of building or elephant can convey
3-d structure convincingly, remember
there no lines in real world corresponding
lines used in drawings. surface occlusions, folds, or creases represented lines in drawings
revealed changes in, say, brightness or texture in real
world, , these changes have 1 value extending on 1
side , different value on other. not line.
not obvious why lines should work @ all. effectiveness
of line drawings not based on learned convention,
passed on through our culture. point has been
controversial (kennedy 1975; see deregowski 1989, ,
following comments), recent evidence suggests
line drawings universally interpreted in same
way—infants (yonas , arterberry 1994), stone-age
tribesmen (kennedy , ross 1975), , monkeys
(itakura 1994) appear capable of interpreting line
drawings do. nor case lines in line
drawings trace brightness discontinuities in
image, because type of representation rendered
meaningless inclusion of cast shadow , pigment
contours. quirk of design or economy of encoding,
lines may directly activating internal code object
structure, object contours can present in
drawing shortcut work. shortcut, discovered
, exploited artists, hints @ simplicity of internal
code underlies vision of 3-d structures.
code both simpler 2 ½-d sketch of david marr
, sparser compact, reversible codes (olshausen
, field 1996) may reflect workings of areas
of visual cortex. both artists , brains have found out
key contours necessary represent
essential structure of object. studying nature of
lines used in line drawings, scientists may
join group.
aspect commonplace , informative
effectiveness of lines pictures flat , yet
provide consistent, apparently 3-d interpretations
wide range of viewpoints. not convenient
artist, prime evidence our impressions
of 3-d world not supported true, 3-d internal
representations. if had real 3-d vision, scene
depicted in flat picture have distort grotesquely
in 3-d space moved picture. contrary,
however, objects in pictures seem reassuringly
same change our vantage point (with interesting
exceptions; see gregory 1994). don’t experience
distortions because visual system not
generate true 3-d representation of object. has
qualities of 3 dimensions far euclidean.
may follow other geometry, affine or nonmetric in
nature (todd , reichel 1989; busey, brady, , cutting
1990). effectiveness of flat images of course boon
artists not have worry special vantage
points , film makers can have theaters more
1 seat in them. of great importance
understanding internal representations of objects ,
space.
finally, consider enormous range of discrepancies
between light , shade in world , renditions
in art. when light , shade introduced art
2,200 years ago, through use of local
techniques such lightening surface fold make
come forward (a greek technique described pliny
elder; see gombrich 1976 beautiful reinterpretation
of ancient presentation of painting techniques). these
local techniques of shading, shadows, , highlights
applied little thought making them consistent
given light source—and yet work well.
500 years ago, when geometry of perspective
understood, geometry of light still
ignored. resulting errors in light , shadow
caught analysis based on physical
optics, pass unnoticed human observers. modern
artists full understanding of physics of light ,
shade available them still choose inconsistencies
in lighting either because never matters much, or perhaps
because looks better.
evidently, observers not reconstruct light
source in order recover depth shading ,
shadow, not act optical geometers in way
computer graphics programs can. not notice inconsistencies
across different portions of painting recover
depth cues locally. message here in real
world, information rich , redundant, not
have analyze image beyond local region
resolve ambiguities. when faced sparser cues
of pictorial art, not adopt larger region of analysis—
local cues meaningful, albeit inconsistent cues
in other areas of painting. advantage of artist,
inconsistencies go unnoticed. , again, many
aspects of art, discrepancy between art , scene
depicts informs brain within as
world around us.

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