Chapter 3

Wertheimer's Observation

"The eye merely takes in all the visual stimuli, whereas the brain arranges the sensations into a coherent image. Without a brain that links individual sensory elements, the phenomenon of movement would not take place."

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

The whole is different from the sum of its parts.

Gestalt (noun, German) = Form, Shape

According to Gestalt psychologists, visual perception is a result of organizing sensory elements or forms into various groups. Discrete elements within a scene are combined and understood by the brain through a series of four fundamental principles of grouping that are often called laws: similarity, proximity, continuation, and common fate."

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

Similarity

"This gestalt law states that objects that look similar will be automatically grouped together by the brain."

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

Proximity

The brain more closely associates objects close to each other than it does an object that is farther apart.

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

Continuation

"The brain seeks as much as possible a smooth continuation of a perceived movement."

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

Common Fate

"A visual communicator can use this principle to direct a viewer’s eyes toward or away from a graphic element in a picture or design."

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

"Studying individual elements of a picture helps you to better understand its whole meaning, and the theory helps you create more noticeable print and screen media designs."

"Tiny details within a frame should be studied first to discover how they create a different and often surprising whole."

Peterson vs. Foss and the fallacy of intentionality.

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

Example

"The strength of gestalt is its attention to the individual forms that make up a picture’s content. Any analysis of an image should start by concentrating on those forms that naturally appear in any picture. Recall that color, form, depth, and movement all are basic characteristics of an image that the brain notices. Gestalt teaches a visual communicator to combine those basic elements into a meaningful whole."

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

How does it work?

These quick fixations all combined within the viewer’s short-term memory to help build a mental picture of a scene. For Hochberg, a viewer constructs a scene with short-lived eye fixations that the mind combines into a whole picture. If memorable, the scene will be added to a person’s long-term memory.

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

Magritte

Peirce's Signs

Semiotics help us better understand the cultural meanings behind signs. They were developed by a linguist, De Saussure, and a scientist, Peirce in the 20th century.

Peice came up with three different kind of signs, which are not mutually exclusive.

Iconic sign

Icon (< Greek word "eikenai" = “to be like” or “to seem.”

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

“Photographic images appearing in print, electronic, or digital media that are widely recognized and remembered, are understood to be representations of historically significant events, activate strong emotional identification or response, and are reproduced across a range of media, genres, or topic. A few images meet these criteria. Others meet some but not all of them.”

Hariman, Robert, and John Louis Lucaites. No caption needed: Iconic photographs, public culture, and liberal democracy. University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Indexical sign

"Indexical signs have a logical, common sense connection to the thing or idea they represent rather than a direct resemblance to the object. Consequently, their interpretation takes a little longer than that of icons. We learn indexical signs through everyday life experiences."

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

Symbolic sign

"Symbols have no logical or representational connection between them and the things they represent. Symbols, more than the other types of signs, have to be taught (Figure 3.22). For that reason, social and cultural considerations influence them greatly. Words, numbers, colors, gestures, flags, costumes, most company logos, music, and religious images all are considered symbols (Figure 3.23). Because symbols often have deep roots in the culture of a particular group, with their meanings being passed from one generation to the next, symbolic signs mean more than iconic or indexical signs."

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

Example

New Orleans photographer Clarence John Laughlin’s “Figure from the Underworld, 1951”

Iconic sign

IIndexical sign

Symbolic sign

Barthes' chain of association & Berger's codes

"In verbal language, the narrative or story we are telling/reading/hearing is linear. One word follows the next in a specific rule-based order known as its syntax, or grammar. These rules of syntax have been established and agreed upon over centuries for a language and its people. Pictures, on the other hand, are presentational."

"We usually link individual elements within a picture into a narrative whole."

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages 7th Edition . Kindle Edition.

Berger's Metonymic Code

Berger's Analogical Code

Berger's displaced Code

Berger's Condensed Code

Religious origins of the word "icon"

"Icon"

Crucifixion

- Pain

- Meaning of the Christ on the Cross

- Love

- Redemption

Crucifixion