Chapter 5 PVM

Franc Boas

"culture is more important than race". Culture is "the community of emotional life that rises from our everyday habits"

Max Wertheimer

German psychologist who created the flip book and concluded that the eye merely takes in all the visual stimuli and that the brain arranges the sensations into a coherent image

True

True or False A creator of images also has an ethical and moral responsibility to ensure that a picture is fair, accurate, and complete representation of someone from another culture

True

True or False? The researchers found that the content, size, and placement of photos on a newspaper page are more important than whether the image is printed in color

metonymic, analogical, displaced, and condensed

What are the four types of codes?

color, form, depth, and movement

What are the four visual attributes?

memory, projection, expectation, selectivity, habituation, salience, dissonance, culture, and words; Carolyn Bloomer

What are the nine activities that can affect visual perceptions and who identified these?

sensations

lower-order physical responses to stimuli and alone convey no meaning

gestalt

means form or shape

memory

our link with all the images we have ever seen

condensed codes

several signs that combine to form a new, composite signs

sign

simply anything that stands for something else. For something to be a ________, the viewer must understand its meaning

gestalt theory

teaches a visual communicator to combine those basic elements into a meaningful whole and pays its attention to the individual forms that make up a picture's content

Semeion

the Greek word for sign

Augustine

the Roman philosopher and linguist who first proposed the study of signs

continuation

the brain does not prefer sudden or unusual changes in the movement of a line. Also refers to objects that are partially blocked by a foreground object

proximity

the brain more closely associates objects close to each other than it does two objects that are far apart

visual perception

the conclusion that is made by combining all of the information gathered by your sensual organs

iconic signs

the easiest to interpret because they most closely resemble the thing they represent

similarity, proximity, continuation, and common fate

the four fundamental principles of grouping:

visual perception

the meaning concluded after visual sensual stimuli are received

symbolic signs

the most abstract and have to be taught. Closely connected to culture and usually evoke an emotional response from the viewers

semiotics

the study or science of signs

display code

the use of phallic imagery in the shape of form of their product would be an example of __________ code

the principle of camouflage

there is little or no separation between the foreground and the background

display code

those that transfer meaning from one set of signs to another

Pierce and de Saussure

traditional linguists who studied the way words are used to communicate meaning through narrative structures

gestalt principle

used to explain the phenomenon of reversible figure and ground spatial patterns

mnemonics

using pictures are memory aids to help recall certain events

culture shock

when a person is overwhelmed with too many different images and visual sensations for the brain to filter

selectivity

when the mind focuses on only significant details within a scene

habituation

when the mind protects itself from over stimulation by ignoring visual stimuli that are a part of a person's everyday, habitual activities

dissonance

when too many stimuli are competing for one's attention. Concentration is limited to one activity at a time

analogical code

yellow writing paper to yellow peel of a lemon is an example of what code?

the meaning that humans associate with the images that they see

The perceptual theories are concerned with what?

direct or mediated images are composed of light objects that attract or repel us

The sensual theories maintain that what?

words

are conscious thoughts are often framed as ___________.

tarot cards

astrological signs

words and images

One of the strongest forms of communication is when words and images are combined in equal proportions

iconic, indexical, and symbolic

What are the three types of signs?

semiotics and cognitive

What are the two perceptual theories?

Gestalt and constructivism

What are the two sensual theories?

Hochberg; constructivism

_______ said that the gestalt approach described a viewer as being too passive and that _____________ emphasizes the viewer's eye movements in an active state of perception

Pierce

_________________identified the three types of signs

constructivism

________________is only a minor clarification of the gestalt approach

Edgar Rubin

a Danish gestalt psychologist experimented with figure and ground patterns by drawing an object that could be interpreted as either a face or vase. The brain cannot see both images at once, you must make a conscious decision whether to see the face or vase

Roland Barthes

a chain of associations or signs that make up a picture's narrative

metonymic code

a collection of signs that cause the viewer to make associations or assumptions

analogical code

a group of signs that cause the viewer to make mental comparisions

culture

a manifestation of the way people act, talk, drink, eat, dress, behave socially, and practice their religious beliefs

projection

a person's mental state of mind is thus "projected" onto an inanimate object or generalized statement

metonymic code

a picture of living rooms with expensive paintings and furniture reminds the viewer of upper class society is an example of ___________ code

visual messages

a powerful form of communication because they stimulate both intellectual and emotional responses

Julian Hochberg

a professor of psychology at Columbia University who found that the eyes of observers are constantly in motion as they scan an image

perception

a result of a combination of sensations and not of individual sensual elements

visual sensation

a stimulus from the outside world that activates nerve cells within your sense organs

salience

a stimulus will be noticed more if it has meaning for the individual

cognitive approach

a viewer does not simply witness a light-structure object, but actively arrives at a conclusion about the perception through mental operations

common fate

a viewer mentally groups five arrows or five raised hands pointing to the sky because they all point int eh same direction. An arrow or hand pointed in the opposite direction will create tension, because the viewer will not see it as part of the upwardly directed whole

a sundial, a footprint, or smoke

examples of an indexical sign?

constructivism

has been criticized for describing perceptions rather than giving explanations of how these perceptions actually give meaning to an image

indexical signs

have a logical, commonsense connection to the thing or idea they represent rather than a direct resemblance to the object

expectation

how a scene should appear

codes

individual signs that are combined to communicate complicated ideas

Simnoides

invented the first mnemonic system