psychology of consciousness #3

… Visual Cues Continued

Human eyes and brains are rather adept at working together to perceive distance and dimension, to the point where this process often happens subconsciously.

The goal of our third session was to bring this innate awareness to a conscious level, by delving into binocular and monocular depth cues.

Tobias and Gordon were shown a series of projected images, each highlighting a different monocular cue: linear perspective, relative high, relative size, interposition, relative brightness, haze, texture gradient, and motion parallax. After careful observation and discussion, they were asked to give examples of visual concepts they observe in everyday life.

The session culminated with them analyzing a set of four pictures (a photo of landscapes, a person standing on a rooftop overlooking a cityscape, a Vincent Van Gogh painting, and a still from the TV show SpongeBob SquarePants) and identifying all of the cues found in each.

Prisoners Exercising (also known as Prisoners' Round) — painted by Vincent van Gogh in February 1890.

Optional Homework:

Create two sets of drawings of the same scene, one through observation without visual aids and the other with help from a viewfinder. Compare the Experiences — what was similar and what was different?