Perceiving Hierarchical Structures in Nonrepresentational Paintings

Abstract

A series of four experiments were conducted to examine viewer perceptions of three sets of five nonrepresentational paintings. Increased complexity was embedded in the hierarchical structure of each set by carefully selecting colors and ordering them in each successive painting according to certain rules of transformation which created hierarchies. Experiment 1 supported the hypothesis that subjects would discern the hierarchical complexity underlying the sets of paintings. In Experiment 2 viewers rated the paintings on collative (complexity, disorder) and affective (pleasing, interesting, tension, and power) scales, and a factor analysis revealed that affective ratings were tied to complexity (Factor 1) but not to disorder (Factor 2). In Experiment 3, a measure of exploratory activity (free looking time) was correlated with complexity (Factor 1) but not with disorder (Factor 2). Multidimensional scaling was used in Experiment 4 to examine perceptions of the paintings seen in pairs. Dimension 1 contrasted Soft with Hard-Edged paintings, while Dimension 2 reflected the relative separation of figure from ground in these paintings. Together these results show that untrained viewers can discern hierarchical complexity in paintings and that this quality stimulates affective responses and exploratory activity.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Arnheim

(1971). Art and visual perception. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Avital

(1974). Artonomy: A new type of art and its implications for art education in the future. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Avital

(1996). Symmetry: The Connectivity Principle of Art. The Quarterly of the International Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Symmetry, 7, 27–50.

Avital

(1997a). Figurative art versus abstract art: Levels of connectivity. In Dorfman

Martindale

Leontiev

Cupchik

Petrov

, & Machotka

(Eds.), Emotion, Creativity & Art. (pp. 135–152). Perm, Russia: Perm Cultural Institute.

Avital

(1997b). Footprints literacy: The origins of art and prelude to science. Unpublished manuscript.

Berlyne

D. E.

(1971). Aesthetics and psychobiology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Berlyne

D. E.

(1974). Studies in the new experimental aesthetics. Washington: Hemisphere.

Birkhoff

G. D.

(1933). Aesthetic measure. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cupchik

G. C.

(1974). The relationship of dimensions of the perception of paintings to stylistic dimensions derived from art history. In Berlyne

D. E.

(Ed.), Studies in the New Experimental Aesthetics (pp. 235–257). Washington: Hemisphere.

10.

Cupchik

G. C.

(1992). From perception to production: A multilevel analysis of the aesthetic process. In Cupchik

G. C.

& Laszlo

(Eds.) Emerging visions of the aesthetic process (pp. 83–99). New York: Cambridge University Press.

11.

Cupchik

G. C.

, & Berlyne

D. E.

(1979). The perception of collative properties in visual stimuli. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 20, 93–104.

12.

Cupchik

G. C.

, & Gebotys

R. J.

(1988). The search for meaning in art: Interpretive styles and judgments of quality. Visual Arts Research, 14, 38–50.

13.

Fechner

(1978). Die Vorschüle der Aesthetik (2 vols.). Hildesheim: Georg Holms. (Original work published in 1876)

14.

Garner

W. R.

(1962). Uncertainty and structure as psychological concepts. New York: Wiley.

15.

Green

R. T.

, & Courtis

M. C.

(1966). Information theory and figure perception: The metaphor that failed. Acta Psychologica, 25, 12–36.

16.

Hubel

, & Weisel

T. N.

(1962). Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. Journal of Physiology, 160, 106–154.

17.

Hutcheson

(1725). An inquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue. London: D. Midwinter and others.

18.

Iser

(1978). The act of reading. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University.

19.

Julesz

(1981). Figure and ground perception in briefly presented isodipole textures. In Kubovy

& Pomerantz

J. R.

(Eds.), Perceptual organization (pp. 27–54). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

20.

Koestler

(1967). The ghost in the machine. London: Pan Books.

21.

Kreitler

, & Kreitler

(1972). The psychology of the arts. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

22.

Moles

(1968). Information theory and esthetic perception ( Cohen

J. E.

, Trans.). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. (Original work published in 1958)

23.

O'Hare

(1976). Individual differences in perceived similarity and preference for visual art: A multidimensional scaling analysis. Perception and Psychophysics, 20, 445–452.

24.

Sparshott

(1982). The theory of the arts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

25.

Stamps

J. S.

(1980). Holonomy: A human system theory. Seaside, CA: Intersystems Publications.

26.

Triesman

(1985). Preattentive processing in vision. Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing, 31, 156–177.

27.

Wölfflin

(1950). Principles of art history. New York: Dover. (Original work published in 1915)