Television Aesthetics

Perceptual, Cognitive and Compositional Bases

Nikos Metallinos

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136686146
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

USE FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS ONLY FOR GENERAL CATALOGS... This volume offers a response to three ongoing needs:
* to develop the main composition principles pertinent to the visual commmunication medium of television;
* to establish the field of television aesthetics as an extension of the broader field of visual literacy; and
* to promote television aesthetics to both students and consumers of television. Based on effective empirical research from three axes -- perception, cognition, and composition -- the aesthetic principles of television images presented are drawn from converging research in academic disciplines such as psychology (perceptual, cognitive, and experimental), neurophysiology, and the fine arts (painting, photography, film, theater, music, and more). Although the aesthetics of the fine arts were traditionally built on contextual theories that relied heavily on subjective evaluation, on critical analyses, and on descriptive research methods, the aesthetics of today's visual communication media consider equally valuable empirical methodologies found in all sciences. Investigations in these different academic disciplines have provided the constructs and strengthened the foundations of the theory of television aesthetics offered in this book. Special features include:
* a great variety of pictures supporting the topics discussed;
* a thorough, up-to-date, and specifically related bibliography for each of the major parts of the book;
* computer drawings illustrating the concepts examined in the text;
* scientific data -- tables and charts -- documenting the research findings cited;
* simplified explanations of the processes of visual, auditory, and motion perceptions of images, enhanced by specific diagrams;
* detailed analyses of the threefold process of stimulation, perception, and recognition of televised images; and
* workable, easy-to-understand and use rules of picture composition, visual image evaluations, and television program appreciation.

1

Visual Perception Principles: Defining the Visual Field of the Television Screen

Any attempt to define the visual field of the television screen is futile unless the main theories, the organs, and the processes involved in visual perception are thoroughly defined and clearly understood. The physiology of the human perceptual organs, mostly the eyes, the ears, and the brain, and their specific functions are discussed in detail in Part II of this book. This chapter briefly examines only the basic anatomy of the eyes to explain how we perceive televised images. Specifically, this chapter introduces the following topics as they relate to the perception of television images: (a) basic approaches of perception, (b) visual stimulation (which includes also the visual sensory processes), (c) the perceptual process of television images, (d) the perception of elements within the visual field (which expands the discussion to include light and color), and (e) the perception of holographic and three-dimensional visual displays.

BASIC APPROACHES TO VISUAL PERCEPTION

Perception, in general, is a process in which objects and events in the environment are received by the sensoric perception organs as stimuli. These organs then organize, codify, and process the stimuli to the brain, where they are turned into structural perceptions, or cognitive units. The normal operation of this process depends on various key factors such as the nature of the stimuli, heredity, memory, and learning. Perception, therefore, is a product of both the physiological and psychological processes.

In visual perception we usually look at the external world (the visual world) to assign meaning to a variety of sensory impulses. We attempt to organize these impulses to identify and understand them. Depending on how familiar we are with the environmental stimuli, we ask, first, what the form of the particular stimulus is. We then try to define its depth and location. Finally, in our effort to determine its nature in relation to the environment, we wonder what the stimulus is doing; whether it is stationary or in motion.

Consequently the perceptual systems, visual perception in particular with its learned and innate characteristics, are committed to organizing impulses, explaining their existence according to the three previous questions and allowing us to understand, adapt to, and better control the external world. As Gleitman (1986) stated: “our perceptual system shapes and organizes the patchwork of different sensations into a coherent whole that has form, depth, and motion. . . . The perceptual system operates to minimize perceptual contradictions and to make all parts mesh in a coherent whole” (p. 191).

Moreover, our perceptions have meanings that illustrate psychological dimensions of visual perception. In an attempt to survive, we draw from experience and search through computed stimuli to define that which is being examined. As a result, although we accept the information garnered through the means of sight, we are dependent on psychological processes for determining what those impulses mean. As stated by Connor and Hawthorn (1985), “Our perceptions do have meaning, they do make sense; and meaning and sense derive from both our experiences and our present purposes. Without the presence of meaning and sense as active organizing agents, perception, as we know it, would not exist” (p. 119).

These physiological and psychological dimensions of visual perception formed the basis for the creation of three prominent analytical paradigms in perception research, which, in turn, formed the constructs on which three basic approaches of perception were built, the empiricist, the nativist, and the Gestaltist.

In simple terms, empiricists maintain that visual perception depends on the following three factors: (a) an object’s size on the retina, (b) depth cues that establish an object’s whereabouts and distance from the retina, and (c) the necessity of experience and prior learning. For example, we know from experience that small retina objects—when they have been established and measured in relation to the human figure—are farther away (Gleitman, 1986).

An opposite view is held by nativists, who maintain that perception depends on innate factors that provide information about objects. For example, if the size of an object is defined by distance and its related projected image, the variation in size of surrounding elements remains constant. Consequently, it is the texture gradient that produces a higher order pattern of situations that provide information about distance. According to nativists, a person does not measure the differences between the object and its surroundings, but the internal capacity to interpret changes in texture gradients to create a complete picture of distance. They maintain that, “there is a constant ratio between the retinal size cast by an object and the retinal size of its adjacent texture elements—a higher order stimulus relationship that remains invariant over changes of distance” (Gleitman, 1986, p. 181).

This belief that the perceptual process entails an analysis of the entire visual field has been reinterpreted by Gestalt psychologists. Their approach is based on the law of simplicity of parsimony, which states, in effect, that the best scientific explanation is the simplest one that fits the data (Bloomer, 1976). Thus, Gestaltists believe that humans perceive whole shapes as opposed to assessing an object’s various elements. Elements, therefore, are grouped into a whole, a shape, to facilitate recognition and simplify the perceptual process. Moreover, a person is only conscious of this activity when confronted with a stimulus that is foreign and requires the creation of meaning. Consequently, the Gestaltists believe humans perform closure, completing forms that are incomplete.

Among these three approaches there are certain similarities worth mentioning. First, the perceiver must be conscious of external stimuli and focus on them. Second, the perceiver must be able to establish distinctions between the object (or stimulus) and its environment, known as figure–ground relationships that are further discussed later. Third, the perceiver must be able to attach meaning to a stimulus (after he or she has examined its outline, size, color, and texture) drawn from the stored familiar shapes. This process is called pattern recognition, whereby the perceived figure is compared with and defined by its relation to objects previously seen.

These three common grounds of the empiricist, nativist, and the Gestaltist theories of visual perception are of great significance to the perception of television pictures. Viewers’ conscious efforts to focus on the visual phenomena depends on the clarity and the attractiveness of visual images. Their ability to differentiate the figures from the grounds depends largely on how visual elements are constructed within the concentrated space of the television screen. Finally, the degree to which television viewers are able to recognize and to give meaning to visual stimuli is determined by the producer’s skill in creating readily recognizable television pictures.

VISUAL STIMULATION

Visual perception is an important sensing system. More information reaches the human brain through the eyes than through any other sense organ. Most organisms have two eyes, either both in front or one on each side of their head. For most mammals the gradual change from sideways to frontal-looking eyes occurred as precise judgment of distance became important. The use of two eyes cooperating to give stereovision is an important process in visual perception. Sight developed as living organisms needed to react to the electromagnetic energy we call light. Light is essential to life. It is the key ingredient of visual perception and orientation in space and time. The receptors of the eyes are sensitive to only that tiny portion of the vast spectrum of electromagnetic radiation known as light.

Light strikes the eye; it travels through the complex structure of the eyeball to the retina where it is translated into electrical energy and then transmitted to the brain where it is organized, decoded, and perceived.

To understand this entire process we must be aware first of the physiology of the eye. This entails a clear understanding of the various parts of the eye, as illustrated in Fig. 1.1, and their functions (further discussed in Part II).

Because the television camera was developed from the anatomy of the human eye to which it has a great resemblance, knowledge of the physiology of the eye and the nature, role, and specific functions of the lens, iris, pupil, cornea, retina, fovea, rods, cones, and optic nerve are necessary. Second, we must fully comprehend the mechanism of visual perception; what happens in the eye from the moment the light strikes the cornea, transfers to the light-sensitive receptors at the back of the eyeball—the rods and the cones—and then through the optic nerve to the brain. Third, we must learn to distinguish among the potential stimuli (exposed in the visual world), the effective stimuli (picked up by the eye), and the ineffective stimuli (ignored or overlooked by the eye). Herein discussions of these subjects are provided as they relate to television pictures that are moving images accompanied by sounds.

The stimulus of vision is light. Light can be emitted directly by a light source such as the sun or an electric light bulb, or it can be reflected from objects. The eye is only sensitive to a relatively small amount of radiation that travels in a wave form, somewhat analogous to the pressure waves that are the stimulus for learning. This radiation can vary in intensity and in wavelength. The range of wavelength to which our visual system can respond is the visual spectrum, extending roughly from 400 (violet) to 750 (red) nm between successive crests.

FIG. 1.1. The human eye. Reproduced with permission from Metallinos, N. (1994). Physiological and cognitive factors in the study of visual images. In D. M. Moore & F. M. Dwyer (Eds.), Visual Literacy: A Spectrum of Visual Learning (p. 56). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology.

The eye is the organ that gathers the visual stimulus. As Gleitman (1986) suggested, “Except for the retina, none of its major structures has anything to do with the transduction of the physical stimulus energy into neurological terms. Theirs is a prior function: to fashion a proper stimulus for vision, a sharp retinal image, out of the light that enters the eye from the outside” (p. 153). The particular function of each of the eye structures is examined in detail in Part II.

The resemblance of the eye to the camera, illustrated by Fig. 1.2, has been emphasized by perceptual psychologists and visual communication media researchers such as Hochberg (1978), Zettl (1992), and others. Both the eye and the camera lens bend light rays that pass through and project an image on a light-sensitive surface behind the film in the camera, and the retina in the eye. Both have a focusing mechanism. In the eye, a set of muscles changes the shape of the lens—a process known as accommodation. Both have a diaphragm to control the amount of entering light. In the eye, this is the iris, a smooth circular muscle that contracts and dilates by reflex action. The differences, however, are enormous, as explained later.

FIG. 1.2. Eye and the camera. Reprinted from PSYCHOLOGY, Second Edition, by Henry Gleitman, with the permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright © 1986, 1981 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

The receptors do not report to the brain directly, but relay their message upward by way of two intermediate neural links—the bipolar cells and the ganglion cells. The bipolar cells are stimulated by the receptors and they, in turn, excite the ganglion cells. The axons of these ganglion cells are collected from all over the retina, combining into a bundle of fibers that finally leaves the eyeball as the optic nerve. The region where these axons converge contains no receptors and thus cannot give rise to visual sensations; appropriately enough, it is called the blind spot. Visual acuity is greatest in the fovea where the density of the reception is greatest.

According to the duplicity theory of vision, rods and cones differ in function. The rods operate at low light intensities and lead to monochromatic sensations. The cones function at a much higher illumination and are responsible for sensations of color. The biological utility of such an arrangement becomes apparent if we consider the enormous range of light intensities that we encounter between day and night.

The first stage in the transformation of light into a neural impulse is a photochemical process that involves the breakdown of various visual pigments that are later resynthesized.

The visual system is not passive as early observers had assumed it to be. It actively shapes and transforms the optic input; its components never function in isolation, they interact. One kind of interaction concerns the relation between what happens now and what happened before. There will be a gradual decline in the reaction to stimulus that persists unchanged. As Bartley (1958) suggested long ago:

Everyone knows that when we enter an unilluminated or weakly illuminated room, such as a movie theater, from the street on a bright sunny day, we cannot see very well. In a few minutes, this inability diminishes and objects begin to be seen fairly well. This is the experimental aspect of dark adaptation. The same initial inability is a well known occurrence when one passes from an unilluminated room to one that is illuminated. The process in this case however, is called light adaptation. (p. 109)

Researchers have concluded that in humans, continual involuntary eye movements serve the biologically useful purpose of keeping the visual world intact. As Gleitman (1986) stated:

Adaptation effects show that sensory systems respond to change over time. If no such change occurs, the sensory response diminishes. What holds for time, holds for space as well, for here too, the key word is change. In vision, the response to a stimulus applied to any one region partially depends on how the neighboring regions are stimulated. The greater the difference in stimulation, the greater the sensory effect. (p. 161)

It is well known that the appearance of a gray patch looks different on a light background than it looks on a black background. This is called brightness contrast and its effect increases with intensity differences between the contrasting areas. Such effects serve a vital biological function. They accentuate the edges between different objects in our visual world, and thus allow us to see them more clearly.

The lens and the cones have serious optical aberrations that cause some blur of the retinal image. This blur is further aggravated by light that is dispersed as it passes through the liquid medium of the eye, scattering a diffuse haze over the entire retina. The result is a retinal image in which there are no distinct outlines but only fuzzy fringes. How then do we see the sharp edges of the world around us? The answer is that brightness contrast accentuates intensity differences between adjacent retinal areas, so much so that it sometimes creates perceived boundaries where physically there are none.

Neighboring regions in the retina tend to inhibit each other. The reason for this is a process called lateral inhibition (in effect, it is inhibition exerted sideways). When a visual receptor is stimulated, it transmits its excitation upwards to other cells that eventually relay it to the brain. However, this excitation also stimulates some neurons that extend sideways along the retina. These lateral cells make contact with neighboring cells whose activation they inhibit. This process results in increased contrast. The brain gets an exaggerated message. What is dark becomes darker and what is light seems li...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Author
• Introduction
• I. PERCEPTUAL FACTORS
• 1 Visual Perception Principles: Defining the Visual Field of the Television Screen
• 2 Auditory Perception: Defining the Sound Dimension of Television Pictures
• 3 Vision in Motion: Defining the Dimension of Movement in Television Pictures
• References
• II. COGNITIVE FACTORS
• 4 Anatomy of the Human Information System
• 5 The Brain and the Mind
• 6 Recognition Standards of Visual Images
• References
• III. COMPOSITIONAL FACTORS
• 7 Introduction to the Arts
• 8 Introduction to Criticism
• 9 Applied Rules for Composition of Television Pictures
• References
• Conclusion
• Author Index
• Subject Index