Current Research (2008)
W. P. Seeley
Department of Philosophy & Scientific and
Philsophical Studies of Mind Program
Franklin & Marshall College
Recent research in the
psychology and cognitive neuroscience of art demonstrates that artworks can
serve as limiting cases in the study of a broad range of perceptual phenomena.
Artworks are abstract perceptual stimuli intentionally designed to trigger
particular perceptual, affective, and cognitive responses in spectators. In
this regard one can approach the understanding of art as an engineering
problem. For instance, how does a painting convey its content? What components
of its formal structure are critical to its performing this function? How does
an artist determine what these components are? What do the answers to these
questions teach researchers about the structure of the visual system, the
nature of object recognition, or the processes underlying our affective
responses to natural stimuli? What, if anything does the answer to these last
questions tell us about the structure of cognition or the nature of mental
representation? Discussions of these issues draw equally on work in philosophy,
psychology, computer science, neuroscience, art history, anthropology, and
behavioral ecology.
1. Effects of interpretation of energetic
& emotional costs in picture perception
Dennis Proffitt and his
colleagues have demonstrated that changes in the energetic (task difficulty and
physiological state) and emotional (fear and anxiety) costs of an action to an
individual can modulate the spatial metric of perception (Proffitt 2006). Hills
appear steeper and distances longer when one is wearing a heavy backpack than
when one is not. Interestingly these effects are limited to energetic costs
associated with an action the participant intends to perform themselves. For
instance, walking on a treadmill influences the apparent distance to a target
if participants anticipate walking to it. However, if they view the same target
with the intention tossing a beanbag to it, there is no effect on apparent
distance. Proffitt and his colleagues argue that these types of misperception
are the result of action specific motor simulations and function as cognitive
shortcuts which help perceivers tacitly relate opportunities and costs in
action planning.
a. We have developed a series of experiments to test
whether these effects generalize to picture perception. Theories of narrative
understanding can be divided into two types: 1st person participant
and 3rd person observer accounts. Participant accounts argue that we
come to comprehend narrative fictions by imaginatively projecting ourselves
into the event depicted and adopting the characters perspectives from a first
person point of view. Observer accounts argue that our experience of narratives
more closely resembles that of a side-participant, or 3rd person
observer of the depicted event. Proffitts studies suggest that, if participant
accounts are sound then one should find similar effects across changes in the
interpretation of energetic and emotional costs of events depicted in
representational paintings. We asked college students unfamiliar with key
biographical facts about Christina Olsen were asked to make line drawing
sketches of the painting before and after learning that she was crippled and
could not walk. Consistent with our predictions participants significantly
expanded the landscape in their second drawings.
b. Freeman, Evans, &
Willats (1988) reported that participants who lack drawing skill copy the
horizon line (and non-tilting
obliques) in artificial one-point perspective drawings as two oblique
projections sloping down from the vanishing point (see Willats, 1997, 188-9).
Freeman & Seeley (in preparation) hypothesize that this perspectival
distortion occurs because participants mistakenly interpret the perspectival
projection as depicting a slope (a distortion due to energetic costs).
Participants were divided into two groups and copied the same 1-point
perspective drawing of a street scene. Group 1 was told that the scene depicted
a familiar steep local street. Group 2 was told that it depicted a familiar
level street. Consistent with our predictions the perspectival distortions were
greater for Group 1 than Group 2.
c. Electromyography
(EMG) can be used to measure motor evoked potentials (MEP) in muscle groups
associated with the performance of particular actions. Previous studies have
also demonstrated enhanced motor evoked potentials associated with motor
planning and preparation, i.e. when participants anticipate an action but do
not perform it, and with motor simulation, i.e. when participants imagine
performing an action or even simply observe others performing an action (Fadiga
et al, 1995; Umilta et al, 2001; Decety & Grezes, 2006; see also Freyd
1983). If participants simulate, or imagine themselves performing, the depicted
action in Christinas world one would, therefore, expect to find increases in
MEPs for muscle groups associated with crawling while viewing the painting. We
are currently conducting surface EMG studies to investigate this hypothesis.
These studies will employ a range of stimuli including Wyeths painting , Edwin
Muybridge & Etienne-Jules Mareys photographic studies of animate motion,
and photographs of irreversible actions (Freyd, 1983).
This research has the
potential to contribute to: our general understanding of the role played by
motor planning in attention, perception, & action planning; to debates
between embodied and representational theories of perception & cognition;
to discussions in the philosophy of mind of the role played by mirror neurons in
empathy and interpretation; and to discussions of depiction, narrative
understanding, and art & imagination in philosophical aesthetics.
2. Diagnostic recognition model for our
engagement with art:
Recent research in object recognition (Schyns,
1998), inattentional blindness (Kovisto & Revinus, 2007), and the cognitive
neuroscience of dance (Calvo-Merino et al, 2005) has demonstrated that how one
categorizes a stimulus influences how one perceives it. Research in the
cognitive neuroscience of attention suggests a mechanism to explain these
effects (see Kastner, 2004). Endogenous shifts of attention modulate sensory
processing in the visual cortex as early as LGN. This attentional mechanism
both enhances sensory processing for target locations, image features, objects
and/or object parts and inhibits the perception of local distracters. This
model for selective attention suggests that inattentional blindness is the
rule, not the exception, in ordinary perception (Chun & Marois, 2002). This
suggest that art historically educated viewers, viewers who know how to
categorize artworks relative to the formal vocabularies and styles of
individual artists, artistic movements, and/or art historical epochs, literally
see different artworks than art historically nave viewers. This, in turn,
suggests that in normal contexts art historically nave viewers fail to
perceive critical formal cues diagnostic for the meaning of a work. Aaron
Kozbelt and I have proposed a schematic model to explain these expert knowledge
effects in the perception and interpretation of visual artworks (Seeley &
Kozbelt, forthcoming). Similarities between the visual processing, auditory
processing, and the link between perception & action suggest that this
model can be generalized to music and dance (Montero, 2006, 2007; Zatorre,
Evans, & Meyer, 1994).
This research has the potential to contribute
to: research in psychology & cognitive neuroscience on selective attention;
research in cognitive psychology on the inter-relationship between object identification
and object recognition (see Schyns, 1998); debates between aesthetic and
contextualist theories of art in philosophical aesthetics; and discussions of
the role of artists intentions in our engagement with works of visual art (see
Rollins, 2004).
3. Artists and non-artists eye movements
in out of focus picture recognition:
Aaron Kozbelt and I have developed a model to
explain differences in performance between artists and non-artists in visual
analysis and form recognition (see Cohen, 2005; Kozbelt 2001). Kozbelt and I
hypothesize that as artists develop technical proficiency in a medium, they
develop a novel class of object knowledge (Kozbelt & Seeley, 2007; Seeley
& Kozbelt, forthcoming). This knowledge defines artworks in different
visual media relative to sets of stimulus features sufficient for accurate
depiction and the marks necessary to reproduce them. We argue that this
knowledge is encoded in two ways: 1) as spatial schemata that represent these
sets of stimulus features, and 2) as motor plans for rendering them in an
artistic medium. Art historians and perceptual psychologists have argued that
the perceptual cues necessary to support depiction in a medium are the same
cues necessary for object identification. Recent research in cognitive
neuroscience demonstrates that spatial schemata and motor plans function as the
grounds for complementary attentional strategies which modulate sensory
processing in the early visual cortex. We hypothesize as a result that artists
ability to selectively attend to image features for successful drawing is one
mechanism that explains their enhanced performance in visual analysis and form recognition.
We are currently running an eye tracking study
to test our model. The purpose of the study is to evaluate whether individuals
with expert drawing skills employ different attentional strategies than naive
viewers when asked to identify subject depicted in blurred photographs.
Interestingly, baseball & softball players performed as well as artists in
our pilot study. This spring we will conduct a separate eyetracking study to
test whether there is a correlation between batting average and performance in
basic visual analysis tasks and whether baseball/softball players employ
different attentional strategies than naive viewers in the blurred photograph
task.
4. Brain mechanisms supporting the
understanding of action sentences:
I am collaborating with Michael Anderson and
Tony Chemero in the Psychology Department on a MEG study of the time course for
the involvement of premotor cortex in language comprehension. This research is
being conducted in collaboration with the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language
Laboratory, University of Maryland. The study expands upon a model developed by
Arthur Glenberg (Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002) It is designed to evaluate the
role of tacit motor planning in understanding the meanings of action sentences.
This study has the potential to contribute to
discussions of embodied cognition in philosophy mind & cognitive science
and debates between competing models for narrative understanding in
philosophical aesthetics. If the study supports our predictions it would
suggest that the effects of energetic/emotional costs should generalize to
narrative understanding of fictional texts as well.
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