ENTRY 4: Gestalt and the concept of wholeness in visual perception

"The whole is different from the sum of its parts."

What can you see from this image?

Chances are you can make out the shape of a four-legged animal. I could see a dog with his head near to the ground, his legs positioned in such a way as to suggest it is on the move, sniffing and walking. Perhaps you see something else entirely?

But the stimuli for your eyes, the light that the eyes detected, are of numerous blotches of black on white. It is your brain that the interprets the groups of black and white as a shape of a four-legged animal. How did this happen? How can you make out a dog from the blotches of black?

First we have to see how the brain works. "The brain is lazy" When processing visual stimuli, the brain:

• process everything as a whole instead of looking the elements one by one (Wholeness)
• perceive all objects as related to one another (Interdependance)
• place an experience within time and space (Contexts)

The law of similarity is a principle of gestalt that claims the brain would group similar objects together into a larger form (Boeree, 2000) while the law of proximity maintains that the brain will associates objects that are close to each other more than those that are farther apart (Lester, 1995, p.54). When perceiving the image above, we consider the blotches of black on the top left corner to be one group, the black at the bottom left corner to be another, the black at the bottom of the image to be another smaller group which is separated from the bottom left corner. This grouping is done because they have the same color and they are nearer to each other when compared to the other blotches of black in other parts of the image. the white  color in the image becomes a measure of the distance. This leave the black around the center and the right side; they are harder to grouped together because of the distance between them. After quickly sorting the left bottom and upper corner into groups, the brain deals with the blotches of black that is harder to sort out.

The brain "close" up the white space
and blotches into the shape of a dog

The imaginary outline that formed the dog is not random. The brain tries to make meaning out of what we see. The closest pattern my brain could get from the blotches of black and white is a shape of a dog sniffing the ground. The principle of figure-ground states that the brain will try to separate the object(figure) with the background (ground) in an image (The Gestalt Principles, n.d). When the brain tries to make sense of this image, it is looking for the figure of this image, and once it finds it, everything else becomes the ground of the image.  Perceiving the size and shape of the dog can also be explained by the law of closure: the brain will fill in missing information if it recognize that piece will make a gestalt. So the brain combined all the remaining ungroup pieces found in the centre of the image and "fill in the gaps" as well as drawing contour lines (some blotches of black together made up the feet while others the head) forming the dog. 

The moment you perceive the dog, then you will try to make sense into what the rest of the black blotches represents. The brain tries to place a context for this image. For me (my brain), the rest of the area is the terrain that the dog is walking on. From this, I make out the group of blacks at the top part of the image as the ground further away from the viewpoint of this image. Thus, the black and white in the lower part of the image would be the terrain closer to the viewpoint. 

My brain wouldn't connect the blotches into 

shapes such as this because I could not

 make any meaning out of this)

You may perceive something else other than a dog from the image above because your brain associates differently. In fact, a person who has never seen a dog in his entire life, and does not have any knowledge of the appearance of a dog, would not be able to discern the dog from the image. Gestalt theory has been criticized for not considering past experiences and cultural influences when it comes to finding the meaning of an image (Lester, 1995). Schema theory said that people organize knowledge into structures, or schemas, and that these schemas are different from one person to another (Tracey, 2006). Someone who came from another planet may have seen something similar to this, and would perceive soemthing else entirely. Perhaps this is actually an actual photograph of a landscape in another planet. But because I have never been there, seen it, have no knowledge of it, I would never be able to perceive the image as a landscape on another planet. 

References:

Boeree, G. (2000). Gestalt Psychology. Retrieved September 21, 2012 from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/gestalt.html

Lester, P.M (1995). The sensual and perceptual theories of visual communication. Visual communication: Images with messages (p.52-58). California: Wadsworth Publishing.

The Gestalt Principles (n.d.). Retrieved September 21, 2012 from  http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm

Tracey, D.H. and Morrow, L.M. (2006). Schema Theory. An Introduction to Theories and Models (p. 51-54). New York: Guildford Press.

ENTRY 3: If All Interpretation Of Visual Communication Is Subjective, What Is The Point Of Studying It?

Image interpretation is subjective. The same image can be interpreted differently by different people. This is because viewer interpret images using their previous experiences as the frameworks for interpreting what they are seeing (Jamieson, 2007). So, even though the producer of the image created the material form of the image carrying his or her own message, the viewer will not necessarily catch the message in the image. John Berger (1972), wrote that "image embodies a way of seeing". To be exact, image is a record of how someone had seen a subject. He also went on to say that when images are seen as a work of art, how people look at it is affected by "a whole series of learnt assumptions".

Having said that, the question arise: What is the point of studying visual communication, if all interpretation of it are subjective?

Although subjective, image is used to communicate visually. To achieve it, it has to have some sort of structures or guiding rules for people to understand its message or no one can use it to communicate. Jamieson (2007) agreed that, like verbal language, the visual is involved in the task of creating relationships between elements. Lester (2006) remarked that while verbal language is considered discursive as words follow one another in a specific rule-based order, images, which are "presentational", presents signs differently depending on the style of the image-maker. Lester describe images as a collection of signs that are linked together in some way. He quoted from Suzanne Langer that grammatical structure ties symbols into a complex form and her claims that "visual forms ... are just as capable of articulation, i.e. of complex combination, as words". Just like we have to follow the structure and grammar when making sentences, these guidelines helps image to be effective at communicating.

In conclusion, the purpose of studying visual communication is to learn the system in which images are created in, so as to effectively communicate with visuals. There are still frameworks to work in when we use  visual language, and we learn these structures that creates some order in visual communication. As Jamieson (2007) said, "while there appears to be more freedom in visual production, it is not unrestricted freedom ... limits are set".

References:

Berger, J., Bloomberg, S., Fox, C., Dibb, M., and Hollis, R. (1972). Ways of seeing (pp. 7-22). London and New York: Penguin Books.

Jamieson, H. (2007). Language or system. Visual Communication: More than meets the eye (p111-112) Bristol: Intellect Books. [Available from UBD eLibrary eBooks]

Jamieson, H. (2007). The Perceptual Connection. Visual Communication: More than meets the eye (p21). Bristol: Intellect Books. [Available from UBD eLibrary eBooks]

Lester, P.M. (2006). Syntactic theory of visual communication. Retrieved September 18, 2012 from Communication Faculty of Fullerton University Website: http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/viscomtheory.html

ENTRY 2: Semiotics and its mind-boggling terms

Semiotics is a topic that is full of words which at first seems "English enough", but then you will realized they are actually used as special lexis. I have always feel grateful for the author to bold and italicized all those words. So what is this obscure field?

To put simply, semiotics study signs - anything that can be use to represent something else. Daniel Chandler wrotes that semioticians nowadays studies not just the signs, but how the meanings carried by signs are made (2005). He also pointed out that "semiotics represents a range of studies... rather than an independent academic discipline". The study of signs involves how signs are created (the rules), under what context a sign is created, and how signs are interpreted.

A sign is made of two part, a signifier, and a signified. Below is an attempt at explaining what these two terms are will be followed by some examples.

Signifiers - The part of a sign that is formed by the experiences of your 5 biological senses. It is the "physical" part of a sign. e.g. the shape, colors, smell, texture, sound.

Signifieds - The meaning of the sign. e.g. A plastic bottle, a traffic light, an indication of a fire alarm.

Denotation is the description of a sign. It is different from a signifier; it is a lengthy description of the signs physical appearance. Chandler describes it as "the definitional, 'literal', 'obvious' or 'commonsense' meaning of a sign" (2008). It is literal, obvious, in the way that it has no intended implying of any messages or meaning. Using the examples from above, denotation can be "a plastic bottle with a blue cap, one-third of it covered by plastics and is almost empty", "a black-colored traffic light with a dent on the pole which shines red, on a junction", "the sound sounds like a doorbell ringing continuously".

Connotations are the mental concepts linked to the signs. It is a second level of meaning which is produced by a sign. A sign may carry multiple connotations, and the meaning of a sign is subjective from one person to another. One person may perceive the bottle of water as a life-saver in a desert, while another may view the almost-finished water bottle as trash. A notification alarm can be perceived by one person as a distraction (in class), while it is useful for the person who sets it.

When using semiotics in analysis, it is important for the analyst to have a high level of knowledge about the object of analysis. This is due to the fact that connotations are derived from codes, a rule used to connect the signified to the meaning. In Martin Irvine's words, "For semiotics, a code is the framework, a learned a shared conceptual connection at work in all uses of signs" (2005). Different codes are created in different communities that have different cultures. So 

References:
Chandler, D. (2008). Denotation, Connotation and Myth. Semiotics for beginners. Retrieved  September 21, 2012 from
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html

Chandler, D. (2005). Introduction. Semiotics for beginners. Retrieved September 21, 2012 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem01.html

Irvine, M. (2005). Media Theory and Semiotics: Key Terms and Concepts. Retrieved September 21, 2012 from http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/theory-keyterms.html