Eye Movements

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Eye Movements the Perception of Art
Jackson Pollock-Deshaides 02
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Eye Movements

• The eye is the most active of all the sensory
  organs
• it constantly moves because the narrow range of
  foveal vision requires us to move our eyes and/or
  head to see an object clearly.
• Visual acuity is the best for the 2 degrees of
  visual angle that encompass foveal vision and
  next best in the 10 additional degrees of
  para-foveal vision.
• Our eyes move (saccadic movements) to keep the
  object we are viewing in the center of our vision
  if possible.
• The direction is partially automatic however eye
  movements are also under cognitive control

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Eye Movements the Perception of Art

• The Cognitive theory of eye movement and art is
  based on the assumption that complex cognitive
  models of reality (which are already formed in a
  persons mind) consciously or unconsciously
  control the fixation duration of eye movements.
• Our cognitive maps or schemas of the world are
  constantly being tested against current visual
  sensations.
• When our contextual experiences lead us to expect
  to see something, and we actually perceive it,
  our cognitive and physical worlds are in
  agreement.
• However, when there is a discrepancy, we
  experience visual dissonance

Jasper Johns, Three Flags, C. 1958
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Expert Performance of Artists Eye Tracking

• Eye tracking studies have been performed on
  expert artists as they draw a picture based on a
  model, this information is compared to novice
  artists who attempt the same task (Miall
  Tchalenko, 2001).
• This study used an eye camera, a visual scene
  camera, a motion detector which marked hand
  movements.
• This allowed the researchers to examine the eye
  fixations, eye movements, and hand movements, and
  the subjects.
• They discovered that the expert artist had eye
  fixations nearly twice the time of the novice, he
  used special fixations different from his
  ordinary looking pattern, and he would build
  details point by point rather than holistically.

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Eye Movements the Perception of Art

• When we view this famous piece by Rubens, we as
  non-experts tent to view it holistically
• The expert artist would view the piece quite
  differently from the novice
• Where is your eye drawn?

Peter Paul Rubens-Rape of the Daughters of
Leucippus, 1616
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Eye Movements the Perception of Art

• In this famous piece by the renaissance master
  Titian, where is the eye drawn

Titian-Rape of Europa, 1559
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Eye Movements the Perception of Art

• In this famous piece by the renaissance master
  Titian, where is the eye drawn

Titian, Assumption of the Virgin, 1516-1518
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Examples of Eye Movement in the Perception of Art

• In this study five major areas were observed when
  viewers eye movements were tracked (Molnar, 1981)
• This indicate that viewers focus on the head and
  bust, but allocate greater viewing time to the
  head and legs
• Data that are rich in information command
  attention
• Attention tends to be weighted towards the center
  of the piece

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Eye Movements the Perception of Art

• When you ask people to look at different
  cognitive aspects of a piece fixation patterns
  are different

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Eye Movements the Perception of Art

• Fixation patterns are also a function of age,
  probably due to both physiological development
  and cognitive development

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Eye Movements the Perception of Art

• In this famous piece by the renaissance master
  Raphael, where is the eye drawn

Raphael, Transfiguration, 1517
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Eye Movements the Perception of Art

• In this famous piece by the renaissance master
  Raphael, where is the eye drawn

Raphael-Sistine Madonna. 1513
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Eye Movements the Perception of Art
Peter Paul Rubens-The Miracles of St. Francis
Xavier. 1616-1617
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Expert Performance

• -Experts excel mainly in their own domains (e.g.
  experts in mental calculations are not likely to
  excel to medical diagnosis)
• -Experts perceive large meaningful patterns in
  their own domain (e.g. chess masters or x-ray
  diagnosticians are able to see more meaningful
  patterns within their own specialties than
  non-specialists) (
• -Experts are fast (e.g. expert programmers and
  typists are able to work much faster within their
  own specialty than non-specialists.
• -Experts seems to utilize STM and LTM more
  effectively. It seems that they have superior
  memories, but it may just be that they use it
  more effectively.
• -Experts see and represent a problem in their
  domain at a deeper level than novices. When
  experts are asked to sort and analyze problems,
  they tend to deal with deep issues rather than
  superficial ones (e.g. physics professors vs.
  novices Chi, Feltovich, Glazer, 1982)
• -Experts spend a great deal of time analyzing a
  problem qualitatively, They tend to look at a
  problem from several different angles before
  plunging into a solution.
• -Experts have self monitoring skills. They seem
  to be aware of their errors and are able to make
  in course corrections

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Artistic Expertise and Neuroimaging (Solso, 2001)

• Neuroscience evidence also suggests that experts
  spend less effort processing information than do
  novices.
• These fMRI scans were taken from an expert and
  several novice artists as they drew a portrait.
  Both types of individuals show activation in the
  right parietal lobe (an area know to be involved
  during facial recognition), however the expert
  shows far less activation than does the novice.
• This suggests that experts are able to do more
  than a novice with less neural activity,
  indicating more efficient processing of
  information.

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A Final Note on Experts Memory

• Either experts have an entirely different memory
  system than most of us or they are using
  knowledge stored in LTM to expand their working
  memory capacity.
• Chase Ericsson (1981) have proposed three
  principals that propose ways in which experts
  exploit their LTM to perform unusual tasks
• The mnemonic encoding principal-Asserts that
  experts encode information in terms of a large
  existing knowledge base (e.g. using existing
  knowledge to chunk new information).
• Retrieval Structure Principal-Experts use their
  knowledge of a subject to develop abstract,
  highly specialized mechanisms for systematically
  encoding and retrieving meaningful patterns from
  LTM This allows them to anticipate informational
  needs for a familiar task, and to store info in a
  format that will facilitate its retrieval.
• The speed up principal-Practice increases the
  speed with which experts recognize and encode
  patterns. This means they can also retrieve it
  faster than a novice.