Philosophy of the process of visual perception of design objects. Meaning in design

Insects

The visual apparatus of birds has features that are not preserved in human vision. Thus, bird receptors contain microspheres containing lipids and carotenoids. It is believed that these microspheres - colorless, and also colored yellow or orange - act as specific light filters that form a “visibility curve”.

Human eye

Stereoscopic vision

In many species whose lifestyle requires a good estimate of the distance to an object, the eyes look forward rather than to the sides. Thus, mountain sheep, leopards, and monkeys have better stereoscopic vision, which helps assess the distance before jumping. Humans also have good stereoscopic vision (see below, section ).

An alternative mechanism for estimating the distance to an object is implemented in some birds, whose eyes are located on different sides of the head and the field of three-dimensional vision is small. Thus, chickens make constant oscillatory movements with their heads, while the image on the retina quickly shifts, inversely proportional to the distance to the object. The brain processes the signal, which allows it to catch small prey with its beak with high accuracy.

Each person's eyes appear identical, but are still somewhat different, so they distinguish between the leading and trailing eyes. Determining the dominant eye is important for hunters, videographers and other professions. If you look through a hole in an opaque screen (a hole in a sheet of paper at a distance of 20-30 cm) at a distant object, and then, without moving your head, alternately close your right and left eyes, then for the dominant eye the image will not shift.

Physiology of human vision

Color vision

The human eye contains two types of light-sensitive cells (receptors): highly sensitive rods, responsible for twilight (night) vision, and less sensitive cones, responsible for color vision.

Uniform stimulation of all three elements, corresponding to the weighted average daylight, also causes the sensation of white (See Psychology of color perception). The three-component theory of color vision was first expressed in 1756 by M. V. Lomonosov, when he wrote “about the three matters of the bottom of the eye.” A hundred years later it was developed by the German scientist G. Helmholtz, who does not mention famous work Lomonosov "On the Origin of Light", although it was published and summarized in German.

At the same time, there was an opposing color theory by Ewald Goering. It was developed by David H. Hubel and Torsten N. Wiesel. They received the 1981 Nobel Prize for their discovery. They suggested that the information that enters the brain is not about red (R), green (G) and blue (B) colors (Jung-Helmholtz color theory). The brain receives information about the difference in brightness - about the difference in brightness of white (Y max) and black (Y min), about the difference between green and red colors (G-R), about the difference between blue and yellow colors (B-yellow), and yellow color (yellow = R+G) is the sum of red and green flowers, where R, G and B are the brightness of the color components - red, R, green, G, and blue, B.

Despite the apparent contradiction of the two theories, according to modern ideas, both are correct. At the level of the retina, the three-stimulus theory operates; however, the information is processed and data that is already consistent with the opponent theory arrives in the brain.

Three genes encoding light-sensitive opsin proteins are responsible for color vision in humans and monkeys. The presence of three different proteins that respond to different wavelengths is sufficient for color perception. Most mammals have only two of these genes, which is why they have non-color vision. If a person has two proteins encoded by different genes that are too similar, color blindness develops.

Binocular and stereoscopic vision

Number of non-crossed and crossed fibers in the optic nerve in a number of mammals

Kind of animal	The ratio of the number of non-crossed fibers to the number of crossed fibers
Sheep	1 : 9
Horse	1 : 8
Dog	1 : 4.5
Opossum	1 : 4
Guinea pig	1 : 3
Cat	1 : 3
Ferret	1 : 3
Toque	1 : 1.5
Human	1 : 2; 1 : 1.5; 1 : 1*

- data from different authors

Most features of human binocular vision are determined by the characteristics of neurons and neural connections. Using neurophysiological methods, it has been shown that binocular neurons of the primary visual cortex begin to decode the depth of the image, specified on the retinas by a set of disparities. It has been shown that the most important requirement for stereoscopic vision is differences in the retinal images of the two eyes.

Due to the fact that the visual fields of both eyes of humans and higher primates overlap to a large extent, humans are better able than many mammals to determine appearance and the distance (the accommodation mechanism also helps here) to close objects, mainly due to the effect of stereoscopic vision. The stereoscopic effect remains at a distance of approximately 0.1-100 meters. In humans, spatial-visual abilities and three-dimensional imagination are closely related to stereoscopy and ipsi-connections.

Properties of vision

Light sensitivity of the human eye

Light sensitivity is assessed by the threshold value of the light stimulus.

A person with good eyesight can see the light from a candle at a distance of several kilometers at night. However, the light sensitivity of vision of many nocturnal animals (owls, rodents) is much higher.

The maximum light sensitivity of the rods of the eye is achieved after a sufficiently long dark adaptation. It is determined under the influence of light flux in a solid angle of 50° at a wavelength of 500 nm (maximum sensitivity of the eye). Under these conditions, the threshold light energy is on the order of 10 -9 erg/s, which is equivalent to the flux of several quanta of the optical range per second through the pupil.

The sensitivity of the eye depends on the completeness of adaptation, on the intensity of the light source, the wavelength and angular dimensions of the source, as well as on the duration of the stimulus. The sensitivity of the eye decreases with age due to the deterioration of the optical properties of the sclera and pupil, as well as the receptor component of perception.

Visual acuity

Ability different people seeing larger or smaller details of an object from the same distance with the same shape of the eyeball and the same refractive power of the dioptric eye system is determined by the difference in the distance between the cylinders and cones of the retina and is called visual acuity. The Snellen chart is used to test visual acuity.

Binocularity

Looking at an object with both eyes, we see it only when the axes of vision of the eyes form such an angle of convergence (convergence), at which symmetrical, clear images on the retinas are obtained in certain corresponding places of the sensitive macular spot(fovea centralis). Thanks to this binocular vision, we not only judge the relative position and distance of objects, but also perceive impressions of relief and volume.

The main characteristics of binocular vision are the presence of elementary binocular, depth and stereoscopic vision, stereo visual acuity and fusional reserves.

The presence of elementary binocular vision is checked by dividing a certain image into fragments, some of which are presented to the left eye, and some to the right eye. An observer has elementary binocular vision if he is able to compose a single original image from fragments.

The presence of depth vision is tested by presenting silhouette vision, and stereoscopic vision - random dot stereograms, which should evoke in the observer a specific experience of depth, different from the impression of spatiality based on monocular features.

Stereo visual acuity is the reciprocal of the stereoscopic perception threshold. The stereoscopic threshold is the minimum detectable disparity (angular displacement) between parts of the stereogram. To measure it, the following principle is used. Three pairs of figures are presented separately to the observer's left and right eyes. In one of the pairs the position of the figures coincides, in the other two one of the figures is displaced horizontally by a certain distance. The subject is asked to indicate figures arranged in increasing order of relative distance. If the figures are indicated in the correct sequence, then the test level increases (disparity decreases); if not, the disparity increases.

Fusion reserves are conditions under which motor fusion of the stereogram is possible. Fusion reserves are determined by the maximum disparity between parts of the stereogram, at which it is still perceived as a three-dimensional image. To measure fusion reserves, the principle opposite to that used in the study of stereo visual acuity is used. For example, a subject is asked to combine (fuse) two vertical stripes into one image, one of which is visible to the left eye and the other to the right eye. At the same time, the experimenter begins to slowly separate the stripes, first with convergent and then with divergent disparity. The image begins to “fall apart” at the disparity value , which characterizes the fusion reserve of the observer.

Binocularity may be impaired with strabismus and some other eye diseases. If you are very tired, you may experience temporary strabismus caused by the non-dominant eye switching off.

See also Binocular, Stereoscope.

Contrast sensitivity

Contrast sensitivity is a person’s ability to see objects that differ slightly in brightness from the background. Contrast sensitivity is assessed using sinusoidal gratings. An increase in the contrast sensitivity threshold can be a sign of a number of eye diseases, and therefore its study can be used in diagnosis.

Vision adaptation

The above properties of vision are closely related to the ability of the eye to adapt. Adaptation occurs to changes in illumination (dark adaptation), color characteristics of lighting (the ability to perceive white objects as white even with a significant change in the spectrum of incident light, see also White Balance).

Adaptation is also manifested in the ability of vision to partially compensate for defects in the visual apparatus itself (optical defects of the lens, retinal defects, scotomas, etc.)

Vision defects

The most widespread drawback is fuzzy, unclear visibility of close or distant objects.

Lens defects

Retinal defects

Literature

A. Nagel “Anomalies, refraction and accommodation of the eye” (1881, translation from German by Dr. Dobrovolsky);
Longmore, “Guide to the study of vision for military doctors” (revised by Lavrentiev, 1894);
A. Imbert, “Les anomalies de la vision” (1889).

In 1910, psychologist Max Wertheimer, observing the flashing of signal lights at a railway crossing, experienced a sudden insight, which later served as the basis for the development of the concept of Gestalt (from the German Gestalt - holistic structure, image, form) and the formulation of the principles of visual perception of objects.

The psychologist’s chain of reasoning was approximately the following: in fact, the light signal does not move left and right - it’s just 2 separate lamps turning on and off sequentially. An even more inclination of the human brain to “complete” the observed object to a completed, “complete” structure is noticeable when looking at the “running lights” created by electric lamps surrounding the perimeter of signs and roof canopies of cinemas.

To the observer, everything looks as if an individual light is moving along a certain trajectory, periodically changing the direction of movement, although in reality there is a sequential switching on and off of individual lamps. It is the human brain that combines individual objects into a holistic image, categorically different from the sum of its parts - like fixed light bulbs qualitatively differ from the “running light” perceived by the observer of this electrical illumination.

Key Ideas Behind Gestalt Theory

“The whole is something other than the sum of its parts,” - Kurt Koffka, German-American psychologist, one of the founders of Gestalt psychology.

The above quote is the shortest summary of the Gestalt theory. In the example of Wertheimer’s sudden guess, a holistic structure (gestalt, perceived image) - a “running light” - in principle cannot be obtained by simply adding up its constituent elements (individual electric lamps).

In other words, people visually perceive a group of objects as a whole before they recognize the individual objects that make up the group. We see the whole as something greater than the sum of its parts, and even when the details of the overall picture are completely separate objects, when we look at them, we group them into a complete spatially visual form (another definition of Gestalt).

There are 4 key ideas that form the principles of Gestalt:

Emergence - the whole is recognized before its components.

Emergence is the process of forming a complex, coherent image from simple visual patterns. When trying to identify an object, we first determine its contour, its outline. We then compare the selected outline with perceptual patterns (familiar shapes and objects) already stored in our visual memory, looking for a match. Only after the outline of the observed whole matches the existing one in memory will we begin to identify the parts that make up the said whole.

When designing your landing page, keep in mind that visitors will first recognize landing page elements in their most basic form. A simple object that is clearly visible to the eye will quickly involve the user in the conversion action than complex object, consisting of many small parts and with a difficult-to-define contour.

Embodiment/socialization (Reification, “concretization”) is an aspect of perception in which an object is perceived as containing more spatial-visual information than is actually present in the sensory stimulus from the observed object.

In order for the observed object to coincide as much as possible with the stereotypes of perception stored in visual memory, the human brain generates Additional information, which allows you to fill in the “gaps” due to which there is a discrepancy between the contour of the object and the existing pattern of perception. In other words, we select an almost complete match of the perceived image and “add” it to the existing visual stereotype.

Socialization allows the designer not to complete the outline of the object in order for the user to see the object itself. It is enough to leave so many parts of the contour so that the viewer can compare it with existing perception patterns.

Multiple stability (Multi-stability, multistability) is a property that allows you to switch between stable alternative interpretations in case of ambiguous experience of perceiving an object (ambiguous perceptual experience).

Simply put, some objects can be interpreted by consciousness in more than one way. Many spatial illusions are based on this property of visual perception. Below is an example that you are likely already familiar with: In this picture you can see either two faces in profile or a vase (see the left illustration in the "Figure and Ground" section).

You cannot be in two stable states of object perception at the same time, seeing a vase and faces at the same time. Instead, you will quickly move back and forth between two stable alternatives for the semantic interpretation of the image, with one of them being the dominant way of perceiving the object, and the longer you stick with this interpretation, the more difficult it will be for you to see the “alternate reality” available on that one. same picture.

From the point of view of the practical application of the mentioned effect in design: if you want to change someone's perception of a certain object, then do not try to change everything at once. Find a way to provide the viewer with an alternative point of view, and this will automatically strengthen the new interpretation of the visual object while weakening its original perception.

Invariance is a property of perception that allows you to recognize objects regardless of their rotation, movement, scaling, changes in lighting conditions, etc.

Because we most often look at objects in the external world from different visual perspectives, we have developed the ability to recognize these objects regardless of our point of view.

Let's imagine a picture that you could recognize a familiar person strictly when looking at him from the front - turning in profile, he appeared before you as an absolute stranger. However, we can still recognize loved ones and friends - despite the possible diversity of the trajectories of our views on the people we know. :)

You can see these ideas implemented in the principles below. The basic concept of the material presented comes down to the fact that the principles of Gestalt describe mechanisms of perception And visual language core, with which designers work.

Gestalt principles

Most of these principles are relatively easy to understand, especially since they have one thing in common: common topic, a “red thread” running through many of them:

“All other things being equal, related elements in perception are grouped into units of higher order,” Stephen Palmer, American psychologist.

“People will perceive and interpret ambiguous and complex images as the simplest possible form or combination of the simplest forms."

This is the fundamental principle of Gestalt. People prefer to deal with simple, understandable and orderly things, which are instinctively perceived as safer than complex and incomprehensible objects.

Simple things do not require intense mental effort from a person and do not threaten him with unpleasant surprises. This is why, when we perceive complex shapes, we tend to “reorganize” them into a set of simple components or into a simple whole shape.

In the illustration above, you are more likely to see the image on the left as a combination of the simplest shapes - circle, square and triangle - as shown in the image on the right, rather than as a complex and ambiguous whole shape to interpret.

In this case, it is easier for us to see three different objects rather than one complex one. Sometimes it is easier to perceive one object by supplementing it with the help of closure.

“When we look at complex elements, we tend to see them as simple, recognizable forms.”

Like the previous law of content, the principle of closure is based on a person’s desire to simplify perceived images. But isolation is the opposite meaningfulness, allowing - as in the example above - to simplify visual perception through the representation of one object as a combination of three.

At completion we combine parts to see a simple whole. Our brain fills in the missing information to form a complete figure.

In the left image above you will see a white triangle, although the image is actually made up of three black Pac-Man-like shapes. In the picture on the right you will see a panda in a combination of several random shapes. This happens because seeing the triangle and the panda is easier than trying to understand what each individual part of the picture means.

Closure can be simplistically viewed as a “glue” that connects elements together, although we are talking here about a more global concept - about a person’s tendency to seek and find complete structures.

Key to use principle of closure- provide the user with enough information so that he can “complete” his perception missing elements. If there is little information, then the elements will be considered as separate objects, and not parts of the whole; if there is too much of it, then there is no need for it to happen in the process of perception completion.

Symmetry and Order

“People tend to perceive objects as symmetrical shapes formed around conventional centers.”

Symmetry gives people a sense of security and order, which we tend to seek due to the eternal human desire to transform chaos into order. This principle leads us to the concept of balance in the composition of a painting, drawing, or web page, although the composition may not be perfectly symmetrical to be in balance.

In the illustration above you can see three pairs of opening and closing parentheses. Principle of Proximity(The principle of proximity), which will be discussed a little later, allows us to assume that we should see something else. The obvious incompleteness of the image - it seems that one more bracket is missing on both sides - indicates that in human perception symmetry takes precedence over proximity.

Because our eyes are quick to detect symmetry and order, then these principles can be used to effectively disseminate time-sensitive information.

Figure and Ground

“An element is perceived either as a figure/object (the element in the focus of attention) or as a background (the surface on which the figure/object is located).”

The principle of “figure and ground” refers to the relationship between the “positive” (meaningful, contextual) elements of any composition and the “negative” background (lacking context). The perception of any image begins with the eye separating figures (objects) from the background.

The figure-ground relationship can be stable or unstable depending on how easy it is to determine what is a figure and what is a background. Classic example unstable relationship is presented in the left figure above. You either see a vase or two faces, depending on whether you perceive black as the object color and white as the background color, or vice versa.

The fact that you move easily from one image perception to another clearly demonstrates the instability of the figure-ground relationship.

The more stable the figure-to-ground ratio is, the easier it is for us to focus the attention of our target audience on exactly what we want to show them (call to action button, main landing page headline, and other converting elements).

Two interrelated principles of perception can help us increase stability:

Square- of two overlapping objects, the one whose area is smaller is perceived as a figure (regardless of color).
Convex- not concave, but convex shapes are usually perceived as figures.

Uniform Connectedness

“Items that are visually connected are perceived as more closely connected than elements that are not.”

In the figure below, lines connect two pairs of elements, which creates the perception that the connected elements are in some kind of relationship.

Of all the principles of designing objects as interconnected uniform connectivity- the strongest. In the image we see 2 squares and 2 circles forming closely interconnected circle-square pairs because they are connected visually.

Please note that the lines may not touch the connected objects in order for the latter to be perceived as interconnected.

“Elements are perceived as part of a group if they are in the same closed region.”

Another way to show the relationship between elements is to arrange them in a special way. Everything that is inside a closed area is perceived as connected to each other. Everything beyond its limits is considered as a set of separate objects.
The circles in the illustration below are the same, but we see two various groups, and objects in each group are perceived as related to each other.

Typical way to show general area— draw a rectangle around elements connected to each other. This method will also work for elements placed on background areas that differ in color.

“Objects that are closer together are perceived as interconnected compared to those that are further apart.”

Principle of Proximity similar the principle of common areas, but uses space like the one we mentioned earlier isolation.

If elements are located close to each other, then they are treated as part of a group rather than as individual elements. This is especially true when elements in a group are located closer to each other than to any elements outside.

Objects should not be similar in any way (for example, color, size, shape) so that they can be located in space close to each other and they are perceived as interrelated.

Continuation

“Elements located on a line or curve are perceived as more closely related than elements not on a line or curve.”

It's an instinct to stick to a certain direction. Once you look or walk in a chosen direction, you will continue to do so until you see something significant or you determine that there is nothing interesting to look at.

Another interpretation of this principle is that we will continue our perception of forms beyond their end points. In the picture above we see a straight line and a curved line intersecting instead of two line segments and two curve segments meeting at one point.

Common Fate/Synchrony

“Items moving in the same direction are perceived as more connected than items that are stationary or moving in different directions.”

No matter how far apart elements are placed or how dissimilar they are, if they appear to be moving or changing in sync, they will be perceived as related to each other.

To implement the principle of common fate, the elements do not even need to move. More importantly, they look as having general purpose. Suppose 4 people are standing motionless next to each other, but two of them are watching something, synchronously turning their heads to the right. These two will be considered as having general purpose.

In the illustration above, the arrows point to general purpose elements. The actual movement or change is not even necessary - most of all common purpose/synchronicity indicate arrows or , only implying movement as such.

Parallelism

“Elements that are parallel to each other are considered more related than elements that are not parallel.”

This principle is similar to the general purpose described above. Lines are often used as a symbol of indicating a direction or moving somewhere.

Parallel lines are perceived as indicating the same direction or moving in the same direction, which is interpreted visually as the relationship of these lines.

It should be noted that the principle of parallelism is also applicable to curves or shapes, although for the latter - with reservations: several parallel lines must be located on them.

Similarity

“Items that share similar general characteristics are perceived as related—in contrast to items that do not share those characteristics.”

Any number of characteristics of objects can be similar: color, shape, size, textures, etc. When the user sees these similar characteristics, he perceives the elements as related due to their shared characteristics.

In the picture below, the red circles are considered to be related to other red circles due to the similarity of color. The same statement is true for black circles. Red and black circles are perceived as different from each other, although they are all circles in shape.

An obvious application of the similarity principle in web design is link color. As a rule, links in page content are designed the same, most often blue and underlined. This helps the visitor, who has empirically determined that there is a link in front of him, to use all words/phrases in a similar way, highlighted with similar characteristics: color and underlining.

Focal Points

“Focus points are elements that, due to their difference from others, can capture and hold the attention of a landing page/site visitor.”

This principle assumes that the visitor's attention will be focused on an element that is somehow different from the others. In the figure below, the focal point is highlighted by shape, color and cast “shadow” (pseudo-volume).

The Principle of Focus Points is based on our ability to quickly identify unknown objects as potential sources of danger.

Principles similarities and points focusing related in the sense that Focal Point must not be similar to any other element on the landing page in order to attract the visitor's attention. On landing pages/sites, conversion-critical elements, such as CTAs, are usually placed at focal points.

Past Experiences

“Items tend to be perceived in accordance with the user's past experiences.”

It is perhaps the weakest Gestalt principle. When compared to any of the previously listed principles, each will dominate the principle of past experience.

Past experiences are unique to each individual, so it is difficult to make plausible assumptions about how new ones will be perceived. visual element arbitrarily chosen by the user.

Nevertheless, there is a certain universal experience, with certain reservations inherent in every person: when we see a traffic light, we will expect that the red light will indicate the need to stop, and the green light will “allow” us to go. This is how the principle of past experience works.

Many of our interpretations of visual stimuli are determined by cultural attitudes that dominate society (think of “color psychology”). In some countries, white is the color of purity and innocence, and black is the color of evil and death. In other regions of the world, interpretations of these two colors can be radically different.

And in general, the concept of “generally accepted experience” in itself is very conditional - not all people during their lives can experience similar events to acquire a similar past experience.

Instead of a conclusion

It is important for both marketers and web designers to understand the principles of gestalt, because they form the basis of the graphical display of an offer; they describe how people perceive visual objects, which includes the landing page on the user’s monitor.

The principles outlined above are relatively easy to understand: definitions and illustrations are sufficient to understand most of them. It is much more difficult to understand how exactly the principles of Gestalt in practice affect the visitor’s readiness to convert and the most important business metrics.

In the following, we'll take a closer look at the influence of Gestalt on design: we'll see how symmetry helps us balance the visual and textual content of a landing page, and how the combined application of the principles of similarity and focal points allows us to create a visual hierarchy on a landing page.

The ability to read text seems to be a simple process: we direct our eyes to the letters, see them, and know what they say. But in fact, it is an extremely complex process that relies on a series of brain structures that specialize in visual perception, as well as in recognizing the various subcomponents of vision.

To perceive means to interpret information about the environment received through the senses. This interpretation depends on our cognitive processes and existing knowledge. Visual or visual perception can be defined as the ability to interpret information reaching the eyes through light in the visible region of the spectrum. The result of the interpretation our brain makes based on this information is what is known as visual perception or vision. Thus, visual perception is a process that begins in our eyes:

Photoreception: light rays pass through the pupils of the eyes and excite cellular receptors in the retina.
Transfer and basic processing: The signals these cells create are transmitted through the optic nerve to the brain. The signal first passes through the optical chiasmata (where information from the right visual field is sent to the left hemisphere, and from the left visual field to the right hemisphere), then the information travels to the lateral geniculate body and the thalamus.
Information processing and perception: Visual information received through the eyes is then sent to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe of the brain. These brain structures process information and send it to the rest of the brain so we can use it.

Characteristics that shape visual perception

To get an idea of how complex this function is, let's try to imagine what our brain does when we see a simple soccer ball. How many factors does he have to determine? For example:

lighting and contrast: we see that there is a concentration of lines, more or less illuminated and having its own diameter, which distinguishes it from other objects in the environment and background.
Size: This is a circle about 70 cm in diameter.
Form: Shaped like a circle.
Location: is in three meters from me, to the right. I can reach it easily.
Color: white with black pentagons. In addition, if the lighting suddenly changed, we would know that its colors were black and white.
Measurements: Exists in three dimensions as it is a sphere.
Movement: V currently without movement, but you can give it movement.
Unit: There is one, and it is different from the environment.
Usage: used for playing football, intended for kicking.
Personal relationship with the object: Similar to the one we use in training.
Name: soccer ball. This last process is also known as .

If this seems like a lot of steps, consider that our brains perform this process constantly and at incredible speed. Additionally, our brains do not passively perceive information, but rather use existing knowledge to "package" information about what it perceives (which is why we know that a ball is a sphere even when we see it as flat in a photo). IN occipital lobe brain and adjacent parts ( temporal and parietal lobes) there are several areas specializing in each of the previously described processes. Correct perception requires coordinated work of all these departments.

When we look at our desktop, our brain instantly identifies all the objects on it, allowing us to quickly interact with them. Knowing this, it is easy to understand the enormous importance of this process in our daily lives and how important it is for normal functioning in any life situation.

Examples of visual perception

Driving is one of the most complex everyday tasks involving multiple cognitive functions. Visual perception is one of the fundamentals of driving. If one of the processes of visual perception is disrupted, the driver puts his life and the lives of other people at risk. It is important to quickly determine the position of the vehicle relative to the road and other Vehicle, the speed at which they move, etc.
When a child is in a lesson, his visual acuity and perception must be optimal so as not to lose sight of the details of the material being explained. Violations of this ability can lead to a decrease in the child's academic performance.
In visual arts, such as painting, visual perception is everything. When we want to paint a picture and dream of making it realistic and attractive, we must test our visual perception and work out every detail, shade of color, perspective... Of course, to appreciate works of art, we also need good visual perception, it is not enough just to see.
Visual perception is essential for any monitoring or surveillance activity. A security guard who, due to impaired perception, cannot correctly assess what is happening on surveillance cameras, will not be able to properly do your job.
Of course, in everyday life we constantly use visual perception. If we see an approaching bus on the road, its image becomes larger in our mind. However, our brains are capable of interpreting changes that are not real. We continue to see a regular-sized bus no matter how close or far it is from us. We also need visual perception to move through space, not to mix up medications, prepare food, clean the house, etc.

Pathologies and disorders associated with problems in visual perception

Visual perception disorders can be accompanied by various problems and difficulties at different levels.

Complete or partial loss of vision as a result of damage to the sensory organs leads to inability to perceive (blindness). This may be caused damage to the eye itself(for example, eye injury), damage to information transmission paths from the eyes to the brain (eg glaucoma) or damage to parts of the brain responsible for analyzing this information (for example, as a result of stroke or traumatic brain injury).

However, perception is not a unitary process. There are specific damages that can disrupt each of the above processes. Disorders of this type are characterized by damage to areas of the brain responsible for certain processes. These disorders are known as visual agnosia. Visual agnosia defined as inability to recognize known objects despite maintaining visual acuity. Classically, agnosia is divided into two types: perceptual agnosia (the patient can see parts of an object, but is not able to understand the object as a whole) and associative agnosia (the patient can recognize the object as a whole, but cannot understand which object is being referred to). It is difficult to imagine how perception functions in people with these disorders. Even though they can see, their sensations are similar to those experienced by those suffering from blindness. In addition, there are even more specific disorders, such as, for example, akinetopsia (inability to see movement), color blindness (inability to distinguish colors), prosopagnosia (inability to recognize familiar faces), alexia (acquired inability to read), etc.

In addition to these disorders, in which the ability to perceive visual information (or part of it) is lost, disorders are also possible in which the received information is distorted or does not exist at all. This may be the case hallucinations in schizophrenia or other syndromes. In addition, scientists have described a type visual illusions in people who have lost their vision: Charles Bonnet syndrome. In this case, a person who has lost his sight, after a long period during which his brain does not receive visual activity, experiences self-activation of the brain, provoking visual illusions in which the patient sees geometric figures or people. However, unlike the hallucinations of schizophrenia, people with this syndrome know that the things they see are not real.

How to measure and evaluate visual perception?

Visual perception helps us perform many daily activities. Our ability to move and interact with environment, full of obstacles, directly depends on the quality of visual perception. Thus, perceptual assessment can be useful in various areas of life: in education (to know whether the child can see school board or read books), in the medical field (to know that the patient may mix up medications or needs constant supervision), in professional circles (almost any job requires reading, observation or supervision skills).

With it, we can effectively and reliably assess various cognitive abilities, including visual perception. The test offered by CogniFit to assess visual perception is based on classic test NEPSY (Corkman, Kirk, & Kemp, 1998). Through this task, one can be able to decode the elements presented in the exercise and the amount of cognitive resources the user has to understand and complete the task in the most efficient manner. In addition to visual perception, the test also measures memory for names, response time and processing speed.

: Images of objects appear on the screen for a short period of time and then disappear. Following this, four letters appear, and only one of them corresponds to the first letter of the object's name. The task is to choose this letter correctly. You need to complete the test as quickly as possible.

How to restore or improve visual perception?

Visual perception, like other cognitive abilities, can be trained and improved. CogniFit makes it possible to do this professionally.

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Following this, Arnheim came out with the article “ Artistic symbols- Freudian and others.” In it he again returns to criticism of the aesthetics of psychoanalysis. According to Arnheim, psychoanalysts' excursions into the field of art are absolutely unfruitful.

“Every year we get some other interpretation of the image of Oedipus or Hamlet. These analyzes are either easily swallowed or ignored, and most often cause laughter among readers and do not give rise to any constructive discussion.” Freudian interpretations of works of art are arbitrary and random. By reducing art to the symbolic expression of sexual motives, Freudians, according to Arnheim, belittle art. “Even in that case,” he writes, “when the interpretation is not purely arbitrary, but is based on something, we nevertheless stop halfway in the holy of holies of art when we hear the statement that a work of art is only an expression of sexual desires, longing to return to the mother's womb or fear of castration. The benefit of this kind of communication is extremely insignificant, and one has to wonder why art was considered necessary in every culture known to us and why it penetrates so deeply into our lives and nature.

Polemics with representatives of Freudian aesthetics are also contained in the book “Art and Visual Perception.” Arnheim opposes a number of representatives of the theory of psychoanalysis. He quite wittily makes fun of, for example, the Freudian writer G. Groddeck, who in his work “Man as a Symbol” tries to interpret some of Rembrandt’s paintings in a sexual sense and present the sculptural group Laocoon as a symbolic image of the genitals. “The most common objection to such an interpretation,” writes Arnheim, “is to point out its one-sidedness, which is expressed in the recognition of sex as the most important and fundamental point human life, to which everything spontaneously comes down. Psychologists have already pointed out that this position has not been proven. At best, this theory is true only for certain individuals with a disturbed psyche, or even for certain periods of culture, during which “over-exuberant sexuality overflows all limits.”

Arnheim is no less sharply opposed to the famous English art critic and art theorist Herbert Read. The subject of Arnheim's criticism is Reed's book Education by Art, where Reed, in the spirit of Freudianism, seeks to interpret children's creativity as the expression of innate and subconscious symbols.

Following Jung, Reed believes, for example, that children's use of such universal forms as the circle in their creativity is an expression of archetypes or sexual complexes lying somewhere in the depths of the unconscious. Arnheim refutes this opinion, proving its subjectivity and groundlessness. “Visually perceived symbols,” he writes, “cannot be adequately studied without recourse to perceptual and pictorial factors. The psychoanalyst who believes that the child begins his artistic activity with the representation of circles due to his memories of the mother's breast, which was the first significant object of his life experience, neglects the elementary motor and visual conditions that cause a preference for the circle or circle shape. Real symbols such as the sun disk or the cross reflect basic human experiences through basic pictorial forms.”

Thus, Arnheim throughout his book opposes Freudian aesthetics with its search for clinical symptoms and sexual symbols, mystification of the process of artistic creation. True, we must not lose sight of the fact that Arnheim’s criticism of Freudianism is not carried out from the position of a consistent materialist philosophy. But even given this circumstance, it is of great importance.

Freudian aesthetics completely excluded the function of cognition from the field of art. In contrast, Arnheim argues that art is a process of learning. According to him, the main danger that threatens art is the loss of understanding of art. “We deny the gift of understanding things that is given to us by our senses. As a result, the theoretical understanding of the process of perception has become separated from perception itself, and our thought moves into abstraction. Our eyes have become a mere instrument of measurement and recognition - hence the lack of ideas that can be expressed in images, and the inability to understand the meaning of what we see."

The theory of aesthetic perception that Arnheim develops is based on the fact that perception basically represents cognitive process, determined by the forms and type of visual perception. This, perhaps, is main value aesthetic concept Arnheim.

Considering the perception of art as a cognitive process, Arnheim points out the specific features of this cognition. First of all, he emphasizes that aesthetic perception is not a passive, contemplative act, but a creative, active process. It is not limited only to the reproduction of an object, but also has productive functions, namely the creation of visual models. Each act of visual perception, according to Arnheim, represents an active study of an object, its visual assessment, selection of significant features, comparison of them with memory traces, their analysis and organization into a holistic visual image.

Visual perception in Arnheim's interpretation is an active, dynamic process. Vision cannot be measured in static, quantitative units - centimeters, wavelengths, etc., since it includes tension, a dynamic relationship of forces, as the most important, essential element. “Every visual model is dynamic... Any line drawn on a sheet of paper, any simplest shape sculpted from a piece of clay, is like a stone thrown into a pond. All this is a disturbance of peace, a mobilization of space. Vision is the perception of action."

This active and creative nature of visual perception has, according to Arnheim, a certain similarity with the process of intellectual cognition. If intellectual knowledge deals with logical categories, then artistic perception, while not being an intellectual process, nevertheless relies on certain structural principles, which Arnheim calls “visual concepts.” He distinguishes two types of such concepts - “perceptual”, with the help of which perception occurs, and “visual”, through which the artist embodies his thought into the material of art. Thus, perception consists of the formation of “perceptual concepts,” just as artistic creativity is the “formation of adequate pictorial concepts.” Arnheim attaches great importance to these concepts in the process of artistic perception and creativity. He even says that if Raphael had been born without arms, he would still have remained an artist.

According to Arnheim, visual perception in its structure is a sensory analogue of intellectual cognition. “At present, it can be argued,” writes Arnheim, “that the same mechanisms operate at both levels - perceptual and intellectual. Consequently, terms such as “concept”, “judgment”, “logic”, “abstraction”, “conclusion”, “calculation”, etc., must inevitably be used in the analysis and description of sensory cognition.”

This idea of Arnheim, despite the fact that it constitutes one of the main provisions of his theory of visual perception, seems to be somewhat debatable. In the book "Art and Visual Perception" it plays the role of a hypothesis rather than an experimentally proven truth. And yet Arnheim's statement about the productive, creative nature visual perception deserves the closest attention. To a certain extent, it receives recognition in Soviet psychology. Thus, in the article “Productive Perception” V.P. Zinchenko, referring in particular to Arnheim, writes: “Various functional systems are involved in the generation of an image, and the contribution of the visual system is especially significant. This contribution is not limited to the reproduction of reality. The visual system performs very important productive functions. And such concepts as “visual thinking”, “pictorial consideration” are by no means a metaphor.”

In assessing Arnheim's book, it is necessary to say a few words about its structure. It consists of ten chapters: “Balance”, “Outline”, “Form”, “Development”, “Space”, “Light”, “Color”, “Movement”, “Tension”, “Expressiveness” (in this edition, presenting an abridged translation of Arnheim's book, the chapter “Tension” is missing). This listing of names has its own sequence, its own logic. All chapters of the book reflect certain moments in the development of visual perception, in the movement of cognition from simple, elementary forms to the most complex and significant. The final chapter, “Expressiveness,” represents, in Arnheim's words, the “crown” of perceptual categories. It is the completion of the book and at the same time the completion of the process of visual perception. Thus, the structure of the book reveals the structure of the process of aesthetic perception, as Arnheim presents it, the most significant moments in the formation of a holistic artistic image.

Arnheim's book is written based on the principles and methodology of Gestalt psychology. This orientation to Gestalt psychology is especially noticeable in the “Introduction” and the first three chapters: “Balance”, “Shape”, “Form”. In the Introduction, Arnheim specifically emphasizes that the methodology of his research is based on the experimental and theoretical basis of Gestalt psychology. In this regard, he refers to the works of Gestalt psychologists K. Koffka, M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler, and in the field of psychology of art and pedagogy to the research of the Swiss teacher Gustav Britsch and the American psychologist Henry Schaefer-Zimmern.

Gestalt psychology is one of the most influential trends in modern psychology in the West. Its foundations were laid back in the 20s in the works of German psychologists who put forward the theory of the so-called Gestalt. The term “gestalt” cannot be unambiguously translated into Russian. It has a number of meanings, such as “complete image”, “structure”, “form”. In scientific literature, this concept is most often used without translation, meaning a holistic unification of elements of mental life, irreducible to the sum of its constituent parts. In their works, Gestalt psychologists paid great attention to problems of perception. They opposed, first of all, the associative theory of perception that dominated the psychological theories of the 19th century. In contrast to this theory, they sought to prove that perception is holistic in nature and is built on the basis of the creation of integral structures, gestalts.

It should be noted that in their desire to reveal the holistic structural nature of perception, Gestalt psychologists often came to purely idealistic conclusions, to the recognition that the facts of visual perception are explained not only by the properties of objects of perception, but also by the innate, immanent structure of the phenomenal field, the action of electric fields of the brain.

“Gestalt psychologists,” notes R. L. Gregory, “believed that there were pictures inside the brain. They imagined perception as a modification of the brain's electrical fields, with these fields copying the shape of perceived objects. This doctrine, known as isomorphism, had a disastrous effect on the theory of perception. Since then, there has been a tendency to attribute properties to hypothetical brain fields that supposedly “explain” phenomena such as visual image distortion and other phenomena.”

A similar assessment of the philosophical meaning of Gestalt psychology is given by V. P. Zinchenko. “Taking a position of psychophysical parallelism, Gestalt psychology considered the processes of formation of a perceptual image as a simple reflection. physiological processes of structure formation supposedly occurring inside nervous system. The position of Gestalt psychologists that perceptual Gestalts are not a reflection of the external world, but of internal structures produced by the brain, is only new option old idealistic concept of physical idealism".

Art and visual perception

The name of the American esthetician and art psychologist Rudolf Arnheim is known not only in the USA, but also in many other countries of the world. His works have been translated into many languages and have gained wide popularity among art theorists, aestheticians, art critics and educators. Arnheim's fame is not accidental. It reflects the real significance of this scientist, who made a significant contribution to the study of the psychology of art and artistic perception.

In his works, Arnheim addressed a wide variety of problems, to a variety of aspects of the study of art. He conducts research on the problems of cinema, poetry, architecture, sculpture and even choreography. His works pay great attention to the problems of aesthetics, art history and art criticism. But the main, leading theme of Arnheim's research is the problems of the psychology of art. The entire creative biography of the scientist is connected with these problems.

Rudolf Arnheim was born in 1904 in Berlin. Already in his youth, having become interested in psychology, he entered the University of Berlin, where at that time one of the founders of Gestalt psychology, Max Wertheimer, taught. Since that time, Arnheim has been aligned with this trend in psychology, seeking to apply the findings and methods of Gestalt psychology to the study of art and artistic activity. After graduating from university, Arnheim moved to Rome, where he worked at the International Educational Film Institute. The Nazis' coming to power forces him to emigrate. In 1940, he moved to the United States and received American citizenship. Here he conducts extensive teaching and research activities, giving lectures on the psychology of art at the University of California, as well as at a small women's college (in New York state). Since 1971, Arnheim has received a professorship at the oldest American university, Harvard.

R. Arnheim is the author of many works on the theory and psychology of art. Among them are the books “Cinema as Art” (1938) (this book was translated into Russian in 1960). “Towards the Psychology of Art” (1966), “Visual Thinking” (1970), “Entropy and Art. Essays on order and chaos in art" (1971). In addition, Arnheim owns dozens of articles on issues of art and the psychology of artistic creativity in various scientific journals and collections. He was elected president of the American Aesthetic Society (from 1958 to 1960) and is still a permanent member of the editorial board of the American journal Aesthetics and art criticism».

Among Arnheim's studies, the book “Art and Visual Perception” (1954) occupies a special place. It is one of his most significant works, regularly republished and translated into many languages.

Arnheim's book attracts the attention of researchers, primarily because it contains rich experimental material. It is the result of many years of teaching experience of the author, who taught the history and psychology of art at American universities, a generalization of his own observations and research into the process of visual perception. Arnheim makes extensive use of empirical data: psychological experiments, achievements of physiology, psychology and pedagogy. He provides a large number of drawings, diagrams, diagrams, analyzes of works of classical and modern art. All this gives Arnheim’s book a certain fundamentality and factuality. This is one of the reasons that Arnheim's work remains one of the main studies in the field of the psychology of art.

Arnheim's work is noteworthy for its critical attitude towards aesthetics and practice modernist art. It gives quite realistic and sober characteristics of such trends as fashionable in the West as abstractionism, formalism and surrealism. At the basis of every complete and vital important art, according to Arnheim, lies an organic connection with reality. But modern art (and by this term Arnheim means the bourgeois art of the West) is characterized by “remoteness from the reality depicted,” a gap between the object and its meaning, idea and reality.

“The deepest essence of art,” Arnheim writes, “lies in the unity of the idea and its material embodiment. Contemporary art is not materialistic. Some of its representatives are subject to a fatal split between the idea and its concrete embodiment. In particular, some "abstract artists" downplay their principles and the dignity of their works, claiming that they are only interested in the feeling of pleasure derived from "formal relationships." Those artists for whom circles, cubes and other geometric figures are just a “tickle” for the nerves are likened to car salesmen, for whom a car is just a means of transportation to be sold. Such examples indicate a departure not only from the object itself, but also from its meaning.”

The above statements are very typical of Arnheim's position. Such a critical attitude towards abstract art is quite rare in Western studies of art theory. Arnheim rejects the claims of abstract art that abstract art supposedly higher realistic art, that it operates exclusively with a “pure” form, devoid of concreteness. All these claims, according to Arnheim, are false, since there is nothing more concrete than form, color and movement, which abstractionists are unable to abandon.

Arnheim's statements about formalism are no less important. In relation to formalism, the critical and sober-realistic position of the American scientist is again manifested, boldly opposing artistic fashion. According to Arnheim, formalists do not simply use geometric form. The meaning of formalism is that it separates form from the content it should serve. “Instead of merging with the content,” writes Arnheim, “the form comes between the viewer and the theme of the work. A certain category of artists, gripped by the fear of apostasy, seeks to squeeze the richness of life into the Procrustean bed of geometry. Thus, formalism is an expression of the tragic limitations of man.”

It should be noted that Arnheim criticized not only formalism in art, but also formalism in aesthetics. This is the subject of, for example, his article “Form and the Consumer” in the book “Towards a Psychology of Art”, in which Arnheim critically analyzes the work of American formalist aestheticians Clive Bell and Roger Fry.

In this book, Arnheim objects to the widespread idea that the artist’s imagination must necessarily deform reality and that this deformation lies the essence of art. He categorically rejects this concept of modernist aesthetics, contrasting it with the experience and tradition of classical art. “In the manner of depicting the human hand by Titian,” Arnheim writes, “there is much more imagination than in hundreds of nightmares of the surrealists. Instead of distorting reality, artistic fantasy reaffirms the truth. It is a direct result of the desire to reproduce real experience as accurately as possible."

The critique of modernist art is undoubtedly one of the positive aspects of Arnheim's book. It is connected with his orientation towards classical art and his rejection of modernism. At the same time, it should be emphasized that this criticism is not always consistent, quite often turning out to be half-hearted and contradictory. It does not touch on the social reasons that lead to the crisis of modern Western artistic culture. Arnheim speaks of secondary reasons, including the “mechanization” of life, “technicism,” and the loss of humanistic values. In one place in his book, he directly writes that “the reason for the deviation from a realistic image must be sought in the psychological laws of perception.” Therefore, his criticism of modernism remains within the framework of abstract humanism with its defense of “eternal values”, universal, “universal” ideals.

The above statements constitute not so much the text as the subtext of Arnheim's book. The author himself does not view his work as an aesthetic study. On the contrary, he talks about the special, purely psychological goals of his book: to explore some principles of organization artistic form and its perception in the process of visual cognition of the world. But, despite these reservations, Arnheim is not able to ignore a number of the most important philosophical and aesthetic problems. And indeed, in the course of analyzing the psychological factors of perception, he enters into a discussion on cardinal issues of aesthetics with representatives of various directions of modern Western aesthetics, and, above all, with representatives of the aesthetics of psychoanalysis.

It should be noted that in the USA, Freudian aesthetics until recently was one of the most significant and leading trends in aesthetics. She had a huge influence on the study of problems in the psychology of art, including problems of aesthetic perception. Freudian psychologists view the perception of art as an unconscious, irrational process, motivated only by sexual complexes or, as is done in the aesthetics of C. Jung, by images of the “collective unconscious.” Freudians believe that art is a symbolic expression of forms of the collective unconscious, or archetypes. From this point of view, the artist is not a creator of something new, but just a medium, a blind means for expressing archetypes lying in the subconscious. According to Freudians, art uses the language of irrational, non-verbal forms that cannot be deciphered in a rational, discursive way. In aesthetic perception we find only traces of various archetypes, in accordance with which the process of perception or creativity of each individual is modified.

Analyzing the work of artists, Freudians turn art into a subject of psychiatric diagnosis, trying to find in their works the expression of hidden neuroses or subconscious sexual complexes. One could cite a huge number of examples of purely voluntaristic interpretation of works of art by Freudians. Thus, in Freudian studies, Hamlet turns out to be neurotic, King Lear is a narcissist, and Baudelaire’s work is interpreted as an expression of the Oedipus complex. A favorite example of psychoanalysts is the work of Lewis Carroll, whose novel Alice in Wonderland is interpreted as an expression of sexual and erotic symbols.

The undivided dominance of Freudianism in the field of psychology of art dates back to the 30s and 40s of the 20th century. However, already from the 50s, Freudian aesthetics began to experience acute crisis. The psychology of art, which was previously considered the reserved territory of psychoanalysis, is being penetrated by trends that are alien or even hostile to psychoanalysis, one of which was Gestalt psychology.

And it is no coincidence that Arnheim, in his works, sharply criticized the subjectivism and irrationalism preached by Freudian aesthetics. This criticism also occupies a significant place in the book “Art and Visual Perception.”

Arnheim's polemic with Freudianism has its own background. It was started by him on the pages of the magazine “Aesthetics and Art Criticism”. In 1947, this magazine published an article by the American Freudian art critic F. White about the work of the famous English sculptor Henry Moore. In this article, White explained Moore's work as an expression of subconscious symbols. Objecting to such an interpretation of Henry Moore's work, Arnheim wrote an article in which he refuted Freudian methodology and explained the expressive features of Moore's sculptures with a special approach to understanding the problem of space. The controversy against White was explained not only by purely taste differences in assessing the work of Henry Moore, but, first of all, by Arnheim’s rejection of Freudian methodology in aesthetics.

Following this, Arnheim published the article “Artistic Symbols - Freudian and Others.” In it he again returns to criticism of the aesthetics of psychoanalysis. According to Arnheim, psychoanalysts' excursions into the field of art are absolutely unfruitful.

Polemics with representatives of Freudian aesthetics are also contained in the book “Art and Visual Perception.” Arnheim opposes a number of representatives of the theory of psychoanalysis. He quite wittily makes fun of, for example, the Freudian writer G. Groddeck, who in his work “Man as a Symbol” tries to interpret some of Rembrandt’s paintings in a sexual sense and present the sculptural group Laocoon as a symbolic image of the genitals. “The most common objection to such an interpretation,” writes Arnheim, “is to point out its one-sidedness, which is expressed in the recognition of sex as the most important and fundamental moment of human life, to which everything spontaneously comes down. Psychologists have already pointed out that this position has not been proven. At best, this theory is true only for certain individuals with a disturbed psyche, or even for certain periods of culture, during which “over-exuberant sexuality overflows all limits.”

The theory of aesthetic perception that Arnheim develops is based on the fact that perception is fundamentally a cognitive process determined by the forms and type of visual perception. This, perhaps, is the main value of Arnheim’s aesthetic concept.

Visual perception in Arnheim's interpretation is an active, dynamic process. Vision cannot be measured in static, quantitative units - centimeters, wavelengths, etc., since it includes tension as the most important, essential element, dynamic ratio strength “Every visual model is dynamic... Any line drawn on a sheet of paper, any simplest shape sculpted from a piece of clay, is like a stone thrown into a pond. All this is a disturbance of peace, a mobilization of space. Vision is the perception of action."

This idea of Arnheim, despite the fact that it constitutes one of the main provisions of his theory of visual perception, seems to be somewhat debatable. In the book "Art and Visual Perception" it plays the role of a hypothesis rather than an experimentally proven truth. Nevertheless, Arnheim's statement about the productive, creative nature of visual perception deserves the closest attention. To a certain extent, it receives recognition in Soviet psychology. Thus, in the article “Productive Perception” V.P. Zinchenko, referring in particular to Arnheim, writes: “Various functional systems are involved in the generation of an image, and the contribution of the visual system is especially significant. This contribution is not limited to the reproduction of reality. The visual system performs very important productive functions. And such concepts as “visual thinking”, “pictorial consideration” are by no means a metaphor.”

A similar assessment of the philosophical meaning of Gestalt psychology is given by V. P. Zinchenko. “Taking a position of psychophysical parallelism, Gestalt psychology considered the processes of formation of a perceptual image as a simple reflection. physiological processes of structure formation supposedly occurring inside the nervous system. The position of Gestalt psychologists that perceptual Gestalts are not a reflection of the external world, but of internal structures produced by the brain, is only a new version of the old idealistic concept of physical idealism.”

At the same time, it cannot be denied that in the field of empirical research, experiments and observations, in the field of visual perception, Gestalt psychologists have achieved certain successes. Therefore, Soviet psychologists, along with criticism of the idealistic conclusions of Gestalt psychologists and their interpretation of patterns discovered experimentally, point to certain merits of Gestalt psychologists in the study of the psychology of visual perception. As V.P. Zinchenko points out, Gestalt psychology played a big role in overcoming the “element-by-element” approach to perception. “Her merit lies, first of all, in the fact that she posed real problems of perception of the visible world and abandoned the concept of perception of the “geometric” world. Instead of abstract questions about how we see three dimensions, what sensory elements are, how their unification is possible, representatives of Gestalt psychology put forward real and concrete problems: how we see things as they really are, how a figure is perceived separately from the background, what what is a surface, what is a contour, etc.”

This is overall rating that psychological theory on the basis of which R. Arnheim builds his research. Indeed, in his book Arnheim tries to apply to the study of art the laws and principles put forward by Gestalt psychologists in relation to the field of visual perception. These laws include: the contrast of “figure and background”, the relationship between part and whole, vertical and horizontal, the desire for “good form”, constancy (maintaining constancy) of the image, etc. Based on these laws, Arnheim considers visual perception, including the perception of works of fine art as “grasping” gestalts, that is, the most characteristic features objects capable of denoting the whole (chapter “Equilibrium”). In the chapters “Outline” and “Form”, Arnheim examines how the relationships of figures are created in a painting, perspective is revealed, movement is conveyed, etc. In this regard, he puts forward the laws of “simplicity” (proving that any visual model tends to simplification and simplicity), laws of the relationship between part and whole, the principle of overlapping, rules for “grouping” figures based on the principle of similarity, etc. It is characteristic that these chapters, in which the influence of Gestalt psychology is most felt, are distinguished by the greatest schematism and abstractness.

In much to a lesser extent the influence of Gestalt psychology is felt in subsequent chapters. The chapter “Development” is one of the most informative sections in Arnheim’s book. It analyzes the psychology of child development and the formation artistic abilities child. Here, along with criticism of Freudianism, Arnheim makes several critical remarks about Gestalt psychologists, in particular G. Britsch, who viewed the artistic form as an isolated and self-developing process. The influence of Gestalt psychology is less significant in the sections of the book devoted to the problem of light, color, movement and expression.

All this suggests that in Arnheim’s book there is a certain contradiction between his initial premises, borrowed from Gestalt psychology, and the conclusions he comes to based on the study of living, concrete material of art. Moreover, where Arnheim follows directly from Gestalt psychologists, he often comes to the idealism characteristic of this school. This is especially evident when Arnheim argues that the perceptual images formed in the process of visual perception are the result of the action of electrochemical fields of the cerebral cortex (chapter “Equilibrium”). “The forces we deal with in the process of visual exploration of objects can be considered a psychological counterpart or equivalent to the physiological forces operating in the visual area of the brain. Despite the fact that these processes are physiological in nature, psychologically they are felt as properties of the perceived objects themselves. Indeed, in the process of simple observation it is impossible to distinguish them from the physical processes occurring in the object, just as it is impossible to distinguish a dream or hallucination from the perception of “real” events.” Thus, following the Gestalt psychologists, Arnheim comes to clearly erroneous conclusions, identifying the processes occurring in the brain with the objective properties of real phenomena.

However, where Arnheim departs from the principles of Gestalt psychology and relies on the real concrete experience of art history, he comes to valuable and realistic observations about the structure of the artistic image and the laws of the process of aesthetic perception. This contradiction between the patterns of aesthetic perception discovered by Arnheim and their interpretation from the standpoint of Gestalt psychology underlies Arnheim’s entire book; it determines both its advantages and its disadvantages.

Obviously, a few words should be said about how this contradiction affects the content of the book, Arnheim’s presentation of the laws of visual perception and their reflection in art. As mentioned above, in the first chapters of his book, the author substantiates the productive nature of visual perception, points out its similarity with intellectual cognition, and talks about the role of “perceptual” concepts in the process of this perception. However, subsequently, Arnheim, completely unexpectedly and in contradiction with his initial premises, opposes the intellectualistic interpretation of artistic creativity. Thus, in the chapter “Development” he criticizes intellectualistic concepts children's creativity. He contrasts the formula “Children draw not what they see, but what they know” with his formula: “Children draw what they see, and not what they know.” This opposition between knowledge and the process of perception turns out to be in striking contradiction with Arnheim's initial premises; it indicates a certain inconsistency of his methodology.

We also cannot agree with some of the provisions of Arnheim’s book, which, when presented as headlines, take on an overly categorical and dogmatic form. Among them, for example, are the following: “Any art is symbolic,” “Simplicity is more important than verisimilitude,” etc. Obviously, not everything in art and not all art is symbolic, although symbol plays a huge role in the structure of artistic knowledge. It is also obvious that simplicity is not opposed to verisimilitude, and the question of which is more important must be decided in the context of the analysis of a specific work of art.

Among the methodological shortcomings of Arnheim's book is his too narrow understanding of the term “realism.” Sometimes he interprets it as a simple naturalistic copying of reality.

However, the shortcomings in the book should not hide from us the obvious fact that this work by an American psychologist is a valuable and original work devoted to the little-studied area of the psychology of artistic perception.

It should be noted that the general patterns of visual perception have been studied quite thoroughly modern psychology. There is quite a solid literature on this matter, both in our country and abroad. As for special area artistic perception, then it relatively recently became the subject of research by psychologists, estheticians and art critics.

Problems of aesthetic perception are becoming increasingly relevant in our country. They are covered in the works of a number of scientists. There is no doubt that familiarity with the experience of foreign research will contribute to further fruitful study of this area.

Arnheim's book may attract the attention of not only scientists studying problems of psychology and aesthetics. It is also of interest to those specialists who are interested in art in the broadest sense of the word. And this is no coincidence. Arnheim's book contains rich artistic material, mainly on the history of classical and modern painting. By making works of art the subject of scientific analysis, Arnheim does not anatomize them, but preserves the integrity and originality of their artistic form. Some examples from the field of art cited by Arnheim reveal a fairly high level of art historical analysis and indicate a high aesthetic culture author.

And although the book does not set itself the goal of covering the history of art, an attentive reader can find in it answers to many questions about the fate of art in modern society. Arnheim's book ends with these words: “We don't know what the art of the future will look like. But we know that “abstraction” is not the culmination of art. The artistic style will never be abstract.” These words are an expression of the author’s principled position; they are fully consistent with the content of his entire book. That is why Arnheim's book is of great interest to the Soviet reader and will undoubtedly benefit researchers of art and psychology.

It may seem that art is in danger of being drowned in a sea of talk about it. Too rarely are we spoiled with a new work that we treat as though it were true art. However, a whole stream of articles, books, dissertations, reports, lectures, various kinds of manuals will readily tell us what art is and what it is not; what and when was done by someone, why and as a result of which it was done. We are haunted by the vision of a small graceful body, dissected by a crowd of amateurs to operate and analyze. And we are forced to assume that in our time art is something vague, since too much is said and thought about it.

This diagnosis is probably superficial. However, it is indisputable that the state of affairs in art for most of us seems unsatisfactory. The reason for this is that we are the heirs of a situation that not only is not conducive to the development of art, but, on the contrary, gives rise to incorrect judgments about it. Our ideas and experiences tend to be general but shallow, or deep but not general. We deny the gift of understanding things that is given to us by our senses. As a result, theoretical understanding of the process of perception has become separated from perception itself, and our thought moves into abstraction. Our eyes have become a mere instrument of measurement and recognition - hence the lack of ideas that can be expressed in images, and the inability to understand the meaning of what we see. Naturally, in this situation we feel lost among objects that are intended for direct perception. Therefore, we turn to a more proven means - the help of words.

This book aims to explore some of the features of visual perception and thereby help you learn how to manage it. As far as I can remember, I have always been involved in art: I studied its nature and history, practical artistic activity, trained my eye and hand, tried to move among artists, art critics and art teachers. This interest in art was also supported by my studies in the field of psychology. Every visual process is an area of study for a psychologist, but no one has yet analyzed the processes of creativity or issues of artistic practice without bringing in psychology to help. (By psychology I mean the science of human mind in all its manifestations, and not just a limited concern with problems related to human “emotions.”) Some aestheticians and art historians use works on psychology in order to have some advantages over other art theorists. Others do not understand or do not want to admit that they also inevitably use psychology, but such theoretical concepts that are either “homegrown” or outdated and therefore, for the most part, turn out to be much lower than the level of modern knowledge. For this reason, I try to apply the methods and achievements of modern psychology to the study of art.

The experiments that I give as examples and the principles of my psychological thinking are based mainly on the theory of Gestalt. This choice seems justified to me. Even psychologists who criticize and challenge the tenets of Gestalt psychology are forced to agree that the foundations of the existing modern knowledge of visual perception were laid in the laboratories of this particular school. But that's not all. For more than fifty years of its development, Gestalt psychology has shown that its method is similar to the principles on the basis of which works of art are built. The works of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka are literally imbued with problems of the psychology of art. In all their works, issues of art are analyzed in detail. But what matters most is the fact that the very nature of the proof of their positions makes the artist feel at home. Indeed, something like an artistic view of the world was needed to remind scientists that most natural phenomena cannot be adequately described if viewed piecemeal. Awareness that the whole cannot be achieved by addition individual parts, was not some news for the artist. For many centuries, scientists have made valuable statements about reality using relatively simple arguments that do not exclude the complexity of the organization and interaction of phenomena. But a work of art could never be created or even understood by a mind incapable of perceiving and realizing the integrated structure of the whole.

In the work to which Gestalt theory owes its name, von Ehrenfels pointed out that if each of the twelve subjects were asked to listen to one of the twelve intonations of a melody, then the sum of their experiences would not correspond to the feeling that a person would experience if he listened to the entire melody . Later, many experiments showed that the manifestation of any element depends on its place and function in the model of the whole. Every thinking person cannot help but admire the active desire for unity and order, which is manifested in the simple act of looking at a simple pattern of straight lines. Perception is not a mechanical recording of sensory elements, it turns out to be a truly creative ability to instantly grasp reality, an ability to be imaginative, insightful, inventive and beautiful. It has now become obvious that the qualities that characterize the activity of a thinker and an artist are characteristic of any manifestation of the mind. Psychologists also came to the conclusion that this fact is not a mere coincidence. The different mental abilities share common principles because the brain always functions as a whole. Any perception is also thinking, any reasoning is at the same time intuition, any observation is also creativity.

The discovery that perception is not a mechanical recording of elements, but is the grasping and comprehension of meaningful patterns of structure, has been of great benefit to mankind. If this is true for the simple act of perceiving an object, then, in all likelihood, it also applies to the artistic perception of reality. Obviously, the artist is not a mechanical recording device, nor are his own organs of vision. An artistic depiction of an object cannot be considered as a boring, tedious copying of random external details. In other words, the understanding that images of reality have a certain value, even if they are far from “naturalistic” similarity, has received scientific support.

With great encouragement, I learned that, quite independently of my research, similar conclusions had been reached in the field. art education. In particular, Henry Schäfer-Simmern, inspired by the theories and ideas of Gustav Britsch, did a great job of developing practical recommendations For creative process artist. With his research, he confirmed the position that thinking, in the struggle for a true understanding of reality, develops (in its logical evolution) from the simplest, visually perceptible models to the most complex. Thus, we received evidence that the patterns of perception discovered experimentally by Gestalt psychologists are also confirmed genetically. The fourth chapter of this book contains comments from a psychologist on the main aspects of this theory. In his work “The Development of Artistic Activity,” Schäfer-Simmern clearly and clearly showed that the ability to perform artistic activity is not the privilege of some gifted individuals, but is an affiliation of every healthy person to whom nature has given a pair of eyes. From a psychological point of view, this means that the study of art is a necessary part of the study of man.

At the risk of causing the sharp displeasure of my colleagues, I apply the principles in which I believe with a kind of reckless one-sidedness. I do this partly because in some cases it is useful to present my point of view with naked simplicity and thereby leave the further polishing of my concept to subsequent blows and counter-blows of criticism. I must also apologize to art historians for not being as competent in their field as I would like. At present it would probably be beyond anyone's power to explore quite satisfactorily the question of the relationship between the theory visual views art and related psychological theory. If you try to combine two different objects, which, although related to each other, are nevertheless not created for each other, then many inconsistencies and gaps arise. I was forced to speculate where I could not prove, and I had to use my own eyes where I could not rely on the testimony of others. I tried to point out those problems that need systematic research. However, after all was said and done, I felt like Herman Melville exclaiming: “This whole book is just casting a net, nay, casting a net within a net. O Time, Effort, Money, Persistence and Patience!

One of the reasons that prompted me to write this book was the fact that many people, I believe, are tired of incomprehensible, puzzling conversations about art, in which, with a claim to artistic and scientific significance, they juggle buzzwords and watered-down aesthetic concepts, with an intrusive They persistently look for clinical symptoms, carefully examine all sorts of little things and compose charming epigrams. Art is the most concrete thing in the world, and no excuse can be found for those who cloud the minds of people who strive to know as much as possible about it.

But even specific things sometimes turn out to be quite complicated. I tried to talk about them as simply as possible, but this does not mean that I only used in short phrases and words. When a form is simpler than its content, the information contained in it does not achieve its purpose. To be simple means to express your opinions directly, constantly illustrating them with examples.

I would like to express my gratitude to three of my friends: Henry Schaefer-Simmern - an expert in the field artistic education, Meir Shapiro, art historian, and Hans Wallach, psychologist, for reading some chapters of the book while they were still in manuscript and for their valuable comments and suggestions. The insightful comments from my students that contributed to this book acted on her like a torrent polishing a pebble. Many thanks to the institutions and individuals who have allowed their works of art to be reproduced. I want to thank all the children whose drawings I used as illustrations.