Perception can be interpreted as a process of changes that occur in the senses and psyche of the individual as a result of the influence on them of individual characteristics of a physical object.
Empirical characteristics of visual perception
At its core, the process of perception has a dual nature: perception is maximally objective at the level of primary sensory processes; at the same time, perception is deeply subjective in the subsequent interpretation of the received information, when imagination and memory are included in the processing.
In addition, perception has a number of unique characteristics, including the properties of constancy, objectivity, integrity and generality.
Constancy as one of the characteristics of visual perception
Definition 2
The category of constancy is understood as relative stability, independence of the image from the conditions of its perception. Constancy is reflected in the fact that the size, shape, color, and magnitude of a physical object are perceived as constant, despite the fact that the signals coming from the analyzed objects are constantly changing
The constancy of perception is ensured by the active actions of the perceptual system.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this quality of perception: in the absence of this property, with the slightest movement, changes in the distance to the object, with every turn of the head, changes in lighting, all the main signs of the object in the surrounding socio-natural environment, the surrounding reality itself, would constantly change, which would significantly complicate the process knowledge objective reality, would complicate the orientation of the individual in the world around him.
Objectivity as an essential characteristic of visual perception
Definition 3
Human brain divides the information coming from the perceptual system from surrounding reality into two unequal parts: the background, which is perceived as an amorphous, unlimited, indefinite field, and the object - a clearly defined, concrete whole located in the foreground.
The clarity of highlighting an individual object is largely due to contrast. In the absence of pronounced contrast, the physical object merges with the background, which significantly complicates the processes of its cognition.
There are two types of contrast: direct, in which the object is darker than the background, and reverse, in which the object is perceived as brighter than the background.
Integrity as an empirical characteristic of visual perception
Definition 4
Under Integrity visual perception in modern scientific literature understand the characteristic of the process, the essence of which is that any physical object is perceived as a whole, even if the individual components of this object at the current moment remain inaccessible to observation.
Integrity is an acquired characteristic of a perceptual image, formed as a result of objective activity and reflexive processes of the individual, when an individual, on the basis of accumulated existential experience, combines the individual characteristics of an object into a single whole.
The independence of the perception of the whole from the quality of its individual components is manifested in the dominance of the integral structure over the individual components.
Thus, visual perception is one of the most important receptor-mental processes of the individual, providing the individual with the opportunity to perceive the environment and form images of objects of reality in the individual’s consciousness.
Let's say we need a booklet about castles in Germany. Information for one page of the booklet was prepared in Word and looks like this:
Elements on the page can be grouped differently: a heading, two subheadings, two blocks of text, two pictures:
This grouping is based on one of the principles of visual perception - principle of similarity: Elements with a similar shape, size, shape, or color are perceived as related.
The similarity is similar, but the meaning is lost. This is the sin of many novice designers who, when arranging layouts, create beautiful but meaningless solutions in their own way.
Creating a Booklet Page
Instead of placing photographs and texts on the page in a natural way, the designer decided to be original:
Hm. Somehow it worked out as usual.
Maybe so? No, that's not it, it's boring.
Oh, I came up with it!
In the first two “ordinary and boring” layouts, images and text are related unambiguously, there is no ambiguity. Let's now take a look at the “original design solution”. The description of Neuschwanstein Castle is in its rightful place under the photograph, but Linderhof was unlucky - the text is located above the image. Our designer naively believes that this knowledge will spontaneously appear in the head of the person viewing the booklet. Naturally, this is not so.
Try to answer the question: which of the descriptions matches the top left photo? To his right or below? “In the top photo is Linderhof!” - the absolute majority of readers will say. Their answer will be determined by the eye movement we are accustomed to, although it is essentially erroneous.
Show or hide eye movement.
The designer misled us by creating a meaningless design. It turns out that original design cannot be made? Should everything be the same for everyone? Of course not. It is possible and necessary to create an interesting design, but not at the expense of the meaning. Let's look at what it is impossible to create an interesting and meaningful design without.
Principles of Visual Perception
First of all, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that our initial composition is integral and further manipulations should not violate this integrity.
Let's start with proximity principle- objects located closer to each other are perceived together. Let's bring the photographs together with the corresponding descriptions and move the left and right halves of the layout apart to enhance the effect.
It immediately became clear what belonged to what, but at the same time the integrity was violated, the composition fell apart into two separate columns.
Let's try it differently. Let's draw a vertical line that will divide the plane of the page into two separate areas. In this case we use common area principle- elements that are in the same area are perceived together.
The line leaves no other option but to correlate the image and text, which are on one side. However, it again spoils the integrity and looks foreign. Is it possible to do without it? Yes.
Common area can be set as background. Let's remove the line and create a colored background in the right half of the layout. This is a visual demonstration principle of connection— elements that are graphically related (for example, by lines or solids) are perceived as related.
In this case, Linderhof will be highlighted, which again violates the integrity.
Still relying on communication principle, let's draw pointer arrows.
To strengthen the connection, we use the previously described principle of similarity according to the visual “mass” between the subheadings (names of castles) and arrows - let’s turn the latter into triangles. In addition to the fact that they themselves act as pointers, the void between the photograph and the description is filled and additionally works for us proximity principle.
Notice how two seemingly insignificant in size “spots” with a correctly selected shape and located in in the right place change the meaning.
Dies, lines, color, mutual arrangement individual elements are not just graphic techniques. When used correctly, they convey the desired meaning, and, conversely, their inept use can lead to the creation of very beautiful, but absolutely meaningless work. The next time you create or evaluate a design, keep this in mind.
Separating Objects
Before last paragraph the reasoning was about connection, the unification of objects. What if you need to separate objects from each other? Obviously, they need to be made different in shape, size, color, location. Let's see how this is implemented in practice using the teaser for this article as an example.
Teaser (Wikipedia) is an advertising message that contains some information about a product, but the product itself is not shown.
What do you see first? The words "heat" and "loft". Please note that neither the background nor the letters of different colors can interfere with our usual eye movement from left to right and from top to bottom. Only then do we see the words “sting” and “raft” on multi-colored dies. The opposite color of the letters is used here to enhance the separation effect.
The theory of aesthetic perception is based on the fact that perception basically represents cognitive process, determined by the forms and type of visual perception.
We will place special emphasis on the fact that aesthetic perception is not a passive, contemplative act, but an active creative process.
According to Arnheim - author most interesting book"Art and Visual Perception", each act of visual perception represents an active study of an object, its visual assessment, selection of existing features, comparison of them with memory traces, their analysis and organization of all this into complete image.
In the 20s of the 20th century, a new direction in psychology appeared - Gestalt. The term gestalt cannot be unambiguously translated into Russian; it has a number of meanings: holistic, image, structure, form. And it can be 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 focused on great attention problems of perception. They opposed primarily the associative theory of perception, which dominated psychological theories of the 19th century. They sought to prove that perception is holistic in nature and is built on the basis of the creation of integral structures - gestalts. Instead of abstract questions about how we see three dimensions, what sensory elements are, how their unification is possible, Gestalt psychologists put forward real and concrete problems: how we see things as they really are; how the figure is perceived separately from the background; what is a surface? what is form; why is it possible, without changing anything in an object, to “change” its weight, dimensions and other parameters.
Let's try to figure out how we see and help ourselves learn to manage visual perception.
So - any perception is also thinking, any reasoning is at the same time intuition, any observation is also creativity. And each person sees and hears only what he understands, and rejects what he does not understand.
It is often believed that the eye is like a camera. However, there are signs of perception that are completely different from the camera. The eye supplies the brain with information that is encoded into neural activity - a chain of electrical impulses, which in turn, with the help of its code and brain activity, reproduces objects. It's like letters when reading, symbols are not pictures. There is no internal picture! For the brain, this structural excitation is the object.
Our brain groups objects and simple figures and continues (completes) the unfinished lines. A few lines are what the eye needs, the rest will be completed by the brain as it develops and understands.
The process of visual perception also includes knowledge about an object obtained from past experience, and this experience is not limited to vision, there is also touch, taste, color, olfactory, auditory, and other sensory characteristics of this object.
Perception goes beyond the sensations directly given to us. Perception and thinking do not exist independently of each other. The phrase: “What I see is what I understand” indicates a connection that truly exists.
When describing objects and things, we constantly point out their correlation with environment. No object is perceived in isolation. Perceiving something means attributing to this “something” a place in the system: location in space, degree of brightness, color, size, size, distance, etc. Changing our hairstyle, we suddenly notice that our face has become a little rounder. When choosing a dress style, we dream of “stretching” your legs and neck and “reducing” your waist size. We see more than what hits the retina. And this is not an action of the intellect!
It seems incredible, but any line drawn on paper or applied to the surface of an object (in our case, on clothing or on a face) is like a stone thrown into the calm water of a pond. All this is a disturbance of peace, mobilization of space, action, movement. And vision perceives this movement, this action.
This is where perceptual powers come into play. Are these forces real? In perceptual objects, no (of course, your height did not increase because you wore a vertical striped suit), but these forces can be considered as psychological counterparts or equivalents to physiological forces operating in the visual area of the brain. There is no reason to call these forces illusions; they are no more illusory than the colors inherent in the objects themselves, although colors from a physiological point of view are just a reaction nervous system to light of a specific wavelength.
The visual analyzer is perhaps the most powerful of all existing ones. With the help of vision, a person cognizes the surrounding reality and perceives primary information about the world. What he sees causes him positive or negative emotions, helps to better understand how life works around you.
People with visual impairments suffer not only from the fact that they cannot see something, they experience a state of deprivation from the inability to fill their emotional sphere new impressions. You can often observe how visually impaired individuals begin to listen more carefully to sounding word, trying to somehow compensate for his shortcomings.
Features of visual perception
Like any other analyzer, vision has its own physiological characteristics that allow it to perceive objects and phenomena of the surrounding world as fully as possible.
Color perception
A healthy human eye is capable of perceiving all existing colors. This phenomenon is possible due to the perfect structure of the visual analyzer. The scientist Helmholtz formulated the concept of photosensitivity and determined what the perception of green, red, violet and other colors depends on. He also spoke about the excitations that are regulated by visual neurons in the cerebral cortex and create the sensation of the presence of a particular color.
Perception of space
Visual acuity usually refers to the ability to distinguish individual objects. The clearer this feature, the brighter a person’s ability to see well. Visual acuity is checked using specially designed tables in which the letters are arranged in such a way as to most clearly and completely display real picture. Human eye able to embrace a fairly large space around itself, to catch the smallest units located both near and far. Moreover, at a very close distance, some things are often missed, but at a distance they are seen more clearly.
Perception of distance
Distances may be a sufficient barrier to viewing objects only for a person who is progressing or already has myopia. Otherwise, having healthy vision, people do not have to complain that some objects located in the distance are not perceived clearly. At its core, the visual analyzer can see equally well both near and far.
Perception of darkness
The human eye has unique ability see in complete darkness. If an individual is suddenly placed in dark space, then at first he will not see anything and will not be able to distinguish objects. But after a couple of minutes, the visual analyzer adapts to new conditions and gradually it becomes possible to first distinguish the outlines of individual objects, and then even navigate in space. The protective mechanism, which is included in the structure of the eye, allows a person, finding himself in extreme conditions, to maintain the ability to navigate the terrain.
Visual impairment
Visually impaired people cannot perceive the world with the same acuity that is available to a healthy person. Any visual impairment necessarily affects the eye’s ability to accommodate and actually perceive objects and phenomena. It has been experimentally proven that partially sighted people have a significantly reduced speed of object perception. That is, those who have poor vision first need to approach an object at a certain distance, examine it, and only then form their individual attitude towards it. A healthy person can do these same actions almost instantly, with ease, without thinking about what happens in the next minute.
Violation of the visual analyzer is characterized by a number of signs and features that must be identified separately.
- Decreased ability to see in the dark. People whose eyesight has become impaired to one degree or another often complain that in pitch darkness, even after two to five minutes, it is difficult for their eyes to adapt, and they literally lose their orientation in space. If a person is suddenly moved from a light environment to a dark one, then it will be quite difficult for him to understand which direction to move. In this situation, perhaps, only being in a familiar environment and having an idea of the location of objects helps.
- Feeling of discomfort. A person who has poor vision constantly experiences a feeling of internal inferiority. He has to work hard to get the information he needs. Despite all his efforts, however, he never has information in in full, since part of it is sure to be lost. Often such a person is forced to turn to other people with a request for assistance (for example, to read small text located at some distance), which in itself can sometimes be accompanied by awkwardness and embarrassment.
- Psychological deprivation. This state comes because a person, during his life, one way or another, gets used to the comfortable conditions that surround him. The ability to see is perceived by him not as a huge physical phenomenon, but rather as a given, without which it is impossible to do without. Therefore, when vision suddenly, for some unknown reason, begins to decline, the person finds himself in a situation of confusion. A depressed state of mind arises when it seems that the colors of the world are melting before our eyes and will never get better. If at the same time a person is forced to put aside his activities (for example, working on a computer), then an additional feeling of limitation and often hopelessness arises until help is provided. real help and support.
Correction of visual perception
Any violation of the visual analyzer requires mandatory correction. Unfortunately, nowadays, when most people prefer to spend their leisure time not in communication with loved ones and nature, but in front of the computer and TV, vision deteriorates much faster than in previous years. Young people are quietly spending more and more time in front of the monitor, thereby gradually “sagging” their eyes and not even recording these changes. Below are useful recommendations, which will help preserve vision for a long time and improve it if there are minor impairments.
Preventive examination. You must visit an ophthalmologist at least once or twice a year. During this period it is quite possible to identify visible changes visual acuity and take appropriate steps. If at the next examination it turns out that your vision has noticeably deteriorated, you should definitely consult how you can improve it. Often on initial stage you need to take certain vitamins, and your vision will gradually begin to return to normal. An ophthalmologist will give the necessary recommendations and, if necessary, prescribe corrective glasses.
Take breaks from working at the computer. Activities that require high concentration of attention and concentration of gaze sometimes lead to certain vision problems. If your job requires constant sitting in front of a monitor, there is reason to think and worry about your health. You can’t sit at the computer for several hours in a row and not look away. It has been noticed that in this position we blink much less often, which leads to drying out of the cornea of the eye. It won’t hurt to buy eye drops or purchase special glasses for working at a monitor if you experience stress every day.
Wear glasses if indicated. Many people neglect this simple rule and continue to overstrain their eyes. Instead of wearing glasses, people for some reason prefer to squint and experience certain inconveniences. Some people are frankly embarrassed to wear glasses, others find it inconvenient, and others simply forget. Of course, when vision is not significantly impaired, it is quite possible to do without this accessory. But if there is severe myopia, then you can’t do without them.
Do eye exercises. Everyone knows that eye exercises are highly effective. But for some reason people use this remedy little, although the benefits of it sometimes cannot be measured. All you need to do is develop the habit of regularly performing these simple actions.
Give yourself reasonable breaks. People whose profession is related to computers should understand that without daily care of their eyes, they can gradually deteriorate their vision. That is why it is so necessary to take short breaks every hour for ten to fifteen minutes. At this time, you can drink a glass of tea or coffee, go outside to breathe fresh air or just walk around the room.
Classes to develop visual perception
Below are exercises to correct declining vision and help maintain it. long years. The development of visual perception begins with making a conscious decision. If you follow these recommendations every day, the results will be noticeable within a week. The tension and burning sensation in the eyes will go away.
- Palming. This exercise is sometimes called “The Warmth of Your Palms.” Its essence is as follows: you need to close your eyes, place your palms on them and sit in this position for several minutes. It is especially effective when you are very tired and the text on the monitor screen is already difficult to perceive. In five to seven minutes your eyes will rest and you will feel better. An indispensable condition: you need to close your eyes with your palms so that daylight does not penetrate into them. IN in this case darkness will act as a healing factor, having a beneficial effect.
- Let's draw a "snake". At a moment of extreme fatigue, you can try to draw a snake with your eye movement, which crawls from right to left, and then from left to right. This training is perfect for those whose activities require constant concentration and tension. The exercise allows you to relax the eye muscles and restore your previous visual acuity.
- Eyes in a circle. Mentally draw a circle and move your eyes in a circle: up - right - down - left. Repeat several times. The essence of this wonderful exercise is to perform this action as carefully as possible. During the exercise, the eyes relax and rest.
- "In different directions". Try to randomly make simple movements with your eyes: up, down, right, left, look at the far corner of the room and at the tip of your own nose. The point is to perform these actions not in a clear sequence, but separately. This achieves visual acuity and attention to detail.
Thus, human visual perception is a complex and highly organized process that requires a competent, responsible approach. The work of the visual analyzer is very important for the whole organism and, fortunately, it can be corrected.
“Creativity begins with vision. Vision –
it's already creative act"requiring tension"
Henri Matisse
The theory of aesthetic perception is based on the fact that perception is basically a cognitive process determined by the forms and type of visual perception.
We will place special emphasis on the fact that aesthetic perception is not a passive, contemplative act, but a creative, active process.
Each act of visual perception, according to Arnheim (author of the most interesting book “Art and Visual Perception”), is an active study of an object, its visual assessment, selection of existing features, comparison of them with memory traces, their analysis and organization of all this into a holistic image.
In the 20s of the last twentieth century, a new direction in psychology appeared, it is called Gestalt. The term Gestalt cannot be unambiguously translated into Russian; it has a number of meanings: holistic, image, structure, form. And it can be 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, which dominated the psychological theories of the 19th century. They sought to prove that perception is holistic in nature and is built on the basis of the creation of integral structures - gestalts. Instead of abstract questions about how we see three dimensions, what sensory elements are, how their unification is possible, Gestalt psychologists put forward real and concrete problems: how we see things as they really are, how a figure is perceived separately from the background, what is surface, what shape is, why you can “change” its weight, dimensions and other parameters without changing anything in an object.
Let's try to figure out how we see and, thereby, help ourselves learn to manage visual perception.
So - any perception is also thinking, any reasoning is at the same time intuition, any observation is also creativity. And each person sees and hears only what he understands and rejects what he does not understand.
It is often believed that the eye is like a camera. However, there are signs of perception that are completely different from the camera. The eye supplies the brain with information that is encoded into neural activity - a chain of electrical impulses, which in turn, with the help of its code and a certain structure of brain activity, reproduces objects. It's like letters when reading, symbols are not pictures. There is no internal picture! For the brain, this structural excitation is the object.
A very interesting tendency of our brain is to group objects and simple shapes and continue (complete) unfinished lines. A few lines are what the eye needs, the rest will be completed by the brain as it develops and understands. (Caricatures, visions in flames or in the clouds - faces and figures, fortune telling on coffee grounds, etc.)
We can say with complete confidence that the process of visual perception also includes knowledge about an object obtained from past experience, and this experience is not limited to vision, there is also touch and taste, color, olfactory, auditory, and possibly even temperature, pain and other sensory characteristics of this item.
Perception goes beyond the sensations directly given to us. Perception and thinking do not exist independently of each other. The phrase: “I see what I understand” indicates a connection that really exists.
When describing objects and things, we constantly point out their relationship with the environment. No object is perceived in isolation. Perceiving something means attributing to this “something” a certain place in the system: location in space, degrees of brightness, color, size, size, distance, etc. Changing our hairstyle, we suddenly notice that our face has become a little rounder. When choosing a dress style, we dream of “stretching” our legs and neck and “reducing” our waist size. We can say with complete confidence that we see more than what hits the retina. And this is not an action of the intellect!
It seems incredible, but any line drawn on paper or applied to the surface of an object (in our case, on clothing or on the face) is like a stone thrown into the calm water of a pond. All this is a disturbance of peace, mobilization of space, action, movement. And vision perceives this movement, this action.
This is where perceptual powers come into play. Are these forces real? Perceptual objects naturally don't have them (of course, you didn't grow up wearing vertical stripes or expanding from horizontal stripes), but they can be thought of as psychological counterparts or equivalents to physiological forces operating in the visual area of the brain. There is no reason to call these forces illusions; they are no more illusory than the colors inherent in the objects themselves, although colors from a physiological point of view are just a reaction of the nervous system to light with a certain wavelength (but more on that later).
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL BALANCE.
When discussing the influence of the location of an object on its perception, we inevitably encounter the factor of balance. From the point of view of physics, equilibrium is a state of a body in which the forces acting on it compensate each other. This definition also applies to perceptual powers. Like any physical body, each visual model that has boundaries has a fulcrum or center of gravity. Why do you need balance in creating an image? An unbalanced composition, be it a drawing, furniture arrangement, selection of clothes or colors and lines of makeup and hairstyle, looks random and temporary. When there is a lack of calm and clarity, we have the impression of destruction or sloppiness. For example, the clown's clothes are red and blue, dividing the body in half - and the figure seems ridiculous, although both halves of the body and their physical weight are equal. We can say with complete confidence that the lack of balance leads to the impossibility of perceiving a single whole.
WEIGHT. When creating a visual composition, one should not forget about apparent weight. Weight depends on the location of the part or item. An element located in the center of the composition or close to it weighs less than others. The part at the top seems heavier than the one at the bottom, and the one on the right side has more weight than the one on the left. Weight also depends on size; naturally, a larger object will look heavier. Now, regarding the “weight” of color, red (warm) color is heavier than blue (cold), and bright and light colors are heavier than dark ones. For example, in order to mutually balance black and white, it is necessary to make the area of black space slightly larger than white. Weight is also influenced by the shape of the object and the direction of perceived objects. A correct geometric shape always looks heavier than an irregular one. For example, when comparing a ball, square and triangle of the same weight and color, the ball seems to be the heaviest.
DIRECTION. Direction, like weight, affects balance, i.e. to create a general impression of the subject. It is very important to understand and remember that in elongated forms, the spatial orientation of which deviates from the horizontal or vertical by a small angle, this direction becomes dominant. The simplest and most accessible example of this rule is the slightly offset seam on the once fashionable seamed stockings!
RIGHT AND LEFT SIDE. A difficult problem arises from the asymmetry of right and left. Any object located on the right looks heavier than the left. Experts believe that everything that is located on the left has more meaning for the observer than what is located in the center or on the right. Remember where the speaker’s podium is, where the main action on stage takes place: in the middle, and more often on the left. This phenomenon is associated with the dominance of the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex, which contains the higher brain centers - speech, reading and writing.
OUTLINE. In essence, vision is a means of practical orientation in space. The visual process means “grasping,” the rapid awareness of several characteristic features of an object. (A poorly printed photograph has turned the face into several gray spots, but we recognize it) We can say that the human gaze is, to some extent, an insight into the essence of an object. And the outline is just one of the essential characteristics of an object, captured and perceived by the human eye. The outline is the boundary of the mass. But here’s an interesting example: we don’t see the hidden side of the ball, but we know for sure that the ball is round. What is familiar to us appears as knowledge that is added to direct observation.
Gestalt psychologists believe that any stimulating model is perceived as the simplest, i.e. the object we see consists of a small number of characteristic structural features. And the farther an object is from us, the simpler the shape we see. Upon closer inspection, we begin to see details.
SIMILARITY. When creating any composition, it is necessary to remember the principle of similarity: the more similar the parts of any perceived model are to each other, the more strongly they will unite into a whole. Elements related by similar shape, color, size, etc. tend to be located in the same plane. Similarity creates a strong visual effect by shaping and forming visual patterns. And the simpler the models obtained in this way, the more striking they are, often breaking the composition or creating a new one.
Further development of the principle of similarity of parts finds its expression in a pattern that deals with the internal similarity of a visually perceived object: when there is a choice between several possibilities for the continuation of curves (and the human body, I want to remind you, consists only of them), then preference is given to the one that is most consistently preserves the internal structure. And yet, we always mentally fill in the intervals between curved segments and build them up to a full circle. It has also been proven that the similarity of figures or color spots is expressed not in a strict repetition of the previous one, but in a gradual change in shape. And the viewer's eye, forced to follow this perceptual movement, sees a new form!