Recently I have been creating more and more logos from shapes I see in patterns, this has made me think about perception of the human eye and how it translates what we see in colour, shape and form. I have been in the library in my time off after this weeks assessment reading up on psychology and perception, a few books that I skimmed include The Perception of Colour by Ralph M. Evans, Visual Perception of Form by Leonard Zusne, Sensation and Perception by D.W Hamlyn, In the eye of the beholder by Vicki Bruce and Andy Young and finally Visual Perception by Vicki Bruce, Patrick R. Green and Mark A. Georgeson.
To first look at perception one must realise that the way we see things is a combination of the eye and the brain working together to reconstruct patterns of reflected light. Salvador Dali is well known to have exploited the nature of different perception by producing works from multiple interpretations. In the book, In the eye of the beholder it explains how "our usual, stable perceptions arise because assumptions and knowledge about the world can be used to help decipher retinal images", the duck/rabbit theory is one that has been thoroughly looked at in my lectures at university this is a key example of how people can perceive objects and colour differently, where one person can see the rabbit first many other people will see the duck. A lot of people also struggle with these types of illusions because their brain unbeknownst to them has fixated on the first answer leaving them only seeing the first image before them.
Later on in the chapter the book then delves into the 'after-image' effect people sometimes get in their eyes this is what occurs when people stare at a bright light or part of an image creating an imprint in your eyes of the the inverse colour, this is caused by selective fatigue of cells that happens in some areas of visual field. This technique is also another one that has been manipulated by artists to create confusion in the viewer making them see two images before and after viewing.
The book Sensation and Perception talks on how people view perception as that it is dependent upon things affecting one's senses yet it can also involve the viewers interpretation and clarification but not entirely in the final sense. Perception in this case is mostly seen as an individual viewing dependent on the viewers experience and knowledge informing their understanding.
"If a man sincerely claims to know something but it is not in the position to know it, either because what he claims to know is not true or because he claims to know it on insufficient grounds, we normally say that he does not know it although he may think that he does. Likewise, when a man sincerely claims to see something but is not in a position to do so, either because that something is no there or because he has not sufficient warrant for claiming to see it, we normally say that he does not see it although he may think that he does"..."In saying this we imply a contrast with genuine knowledge and genuine perception; and the application of these latter concepts implies or presupposes the notion of a standard as already noted." - Sensation and Perception page 193.
Finally, in the book Visual Perception of Form it looks into more illusions such as that of the three-stick clevis created by Schuster in 1964. The work is at first considered as an impossible object but as the book goes on it explains that the object is only impossible if the viewer wills it so and considers it to be a representation of and actual object. The book also looks at how a representation of certain animals through drawing or halftone still retains it resemblance to the original creature because it's key features are still intact. This is an ability most of us are able to do since very young. Even as a baby the child would still be able to recognize it's parents from touch and smell and then seeing details such as the eyes and the shape of a face would create a link in the brain that would remember the memory of the smell or features when interacting with something similar.
The Perception of Colour and Visual Perception were also interesting reads focusing on a more biological and scientific standpoint. Visual Perception touched upon Marr's Theory of Vision which to describe at this point in my research in a short paragraph would take me hours to narrow down.
