The notion that there are steps to perception, an action that feels like a seamless process, intrigued me. In Arnheim’s first two chapters on balance and shape he is continually returning to this idea that perception is indeed separated into parts. As a Gestalt psychologist, however, he also believes that the whole of perception is different than just the sum of these visual and intellectual steps.
One of the most interesting divisions Arnheim makes is the difference between a perceptual operation and intellectual operation. He asserts that many things are not a “product of intellectual abstraction but a direct and more elementary experience” (pg 35). In other words we see a triangle and are able to distinguish the “triangularity” of it before we can intellectualize that it is a triangle. Or as Arnheim puts it “the young child sees ‘doggishness’ before he is able to distinguish one dog from another” (pg 35).
After the initial perceptual operation we begin the subjective intellectual operation. In chapter two Arnheim discusses the impact of memory on this part of perception. When we perceive something it is compared against our vast past visual knowledge. An example of this is when we see someone who we don’t know or have just met for the first time but they strike us as looking like someone we know. We are trying to fit their facial patterns into a familiar schema. Also, in ambiguous situations of balance or shape this intellectual processing must come into play.
But we need both to form a comprehensive whole. While these various stages of perception are occurring forces, both psychological and physiological, are acting on the brain. I thought this was particularly interesting. I’ve never thought of there being actual physical forces at work in the brain mainly because I don’t feel them at work when I perceive something.
After reading these first two chapters I understand why Arnheim approaches them first in his book and I feel that perhaps reading these before delving into color would have helped solidify my understanding of perception.
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In other words we see a triangle and are able to distinguish the “triangularity” of it before we can intellectualize that it is a triangle. Or as Arnheim puts it “the young child sees ‘doggishness’ before he is able to distinguish one dog from another” (pg 35).
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I found this concept particularly fascinating in relation to the reading I've done recently in my Modern Art class about Primitivism. Around the turn of the century, artists eagerly researched and emulated art they believed to be the products of more "primitive" minds - including Africans, the insane, and children. I think they were fascinated by the fact that children at least lacked the intellectualization that becomes increasingly hard-wired into our brains as we age, making us unable to even conceive of how we might have perceived "doggishness" before we knew how to distinguish dogs or before our subconscious became filled with experiences of dogs over our lifetime.
The idea of gaining access to perception stripped of its intellectual aspect fascinated the Primitivists. They lumped Africans and other "savages" in with children as producers of "primitive" art because they believed that they, too, lacked this intellectualization. Of course, we now know that an adult African intellectualizes what he or she sees as much as any European, and the similarities in perception of shape and balance that are common to all humans most likely outweigh the differences in their intellectualization as a result of growing up in a different culture. Primitivists focused mainly on the differences in perception between the cultures, believing that the African way of perceiving, which was naturally free of Western influence, was more "pure" or "true."
In light of what we've read in Arnheim's two chapters, it seems almost laughable that Primitivists believed that they could train themselves to perceive in a way that discounted all of the influence of Western culture as well as the brain's hard-wired instinct to intellectualize everything we see. We can't ever hope to see a square without immediately seeing, knowing, and understanding that it's a square. Four dots arranged in a certain way will also conjure a square in our mind so automatically that we are completely unaware of the process that accomplished it. The same mechanisms that allow us to gather an understanding of our environment with precision and speed, and - because they are unconscious - free our conscious minds for more important tasks like writing a paper or checking Facebook put us at a disadvantage when we wish to find out more about how they work.
For instance, on page 49, Arnheim shows us a series of drawings that illuminates the mind's capacity to perceive the same figure differently based on those that came before it. Not only did I not understand how this function of the brain worked, I wasn't even aware it existed. For me, it was yet another example of how a study into the brain's seemingly basic systems can reveal some of its most surprising, complex, and fascinating abilities.
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