The study of eye movements has been very successful in providing empirical support for theoretical writings concerning the influence of pictorial balance on perceptual processing of pictures and other types of visual displays. This article describes the nature of pictorial balance that emerges from eye-movement research and related empirical findings. A graphic representation of the interaction of stimulus-driven and cognitively-driven aspects of balance perception derived from this literature is presented and discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
d'YdewalleG. and van RensbergenJ., Perception and Cognition, Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, 1993.
2.
AmheimR., The Power of the Center, University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 1988.
3.
BouleauC., The Painter's Secret Geometry, Hacker Books, New York, 1980.
4.
KandinskyV., Point and Line to Plane, DearstyneH. and RebayH. (trans.), Dover, New York, 192671979.
5.
AmheimR., Art and Visual Perception, University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 1974.
6.
NeisserU., Cognition and Reality, Freeman, San Francisco, California, 1976.
7.
LocherP. and NodineC., Symmetry Catches the Eye, in Eye Movements from Physiology to Cognition, O'ReganK. and Levy-SchoenA. (eds.), North Holland Press, Amsterdam, 1987.
8.
BerlyneD., Aesthetics and Psychobiology, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1971.
9.
LangfordR., Ocular Behavior and the Principle of Pictorial Balance, Journal of General Psychology, 15, pp. 292–325, 1935.
10.
NodineC., Compositional Design as a Perceptual Determinant of Aesthetic Judgment, Review of Research in Visual Arts Education, 15, pp. 43–54, 1982.
11.
BeardenR. and HoltyC., The Painter's Mind, Crown Publishers, New York, 1969.
12.
RiggsL., Visual Acuity, in Vision and Vision Perception, GrahamC. H. (ed.), Wiley, New York, 1965.
13.
NodineC. and McGinnisJ., Artistic Style, Compositional Design, and Visual Scanning, Visual Arts Research, 12, pp. 1–9, 1983.
14.
LocherP. and NodineC., The Perceptual Value of Symmetry, Computers and Mathematics with Applications, 16, pp. 475–484, 1989.
15.
BerlyneD., Conflict, Arousal, and Curiosity, McGraw Hill, New York, 1960.
16.
CsikszentmihalyiM. and RobinsonR., The Art of Seeing: An Interpretation of the Aesthetic Encounter, J. Paul Getty Center for Education in the Arts, Malibu, California, 1990.
17.
WinstonA. and CupchikG., The Evaluation of High Art and Popular Art by Naive and Experienced Viewers, Visual Arts Research, 18, pp. 1–14, 1992.
18.
NodineC.LocherP., and KrupinskiE., The Role of Formal Art Training on the Perception and Aesthetic Judgment of Art Compositions, Leonardo, 26, pp. 219–227, 1993.
19.
CupchikG. and GebotysR., The Experience of Time, Pleasure, and Interest during Aesthetic Episodes, Visual Studies of the Arts, 6, pp. 1–12, 1988.
20.
MolnarF. and RatsikasR., Some Aesthetical Aspects of Visual Exploration, in Eye Movements from Physiology to Cognition, O'ReganJ. and Levy-SchoenA. (eds.), North Holland Press, Amsterdam, 1987.
21.
LocherP., A Measure of Information Content of Visual Art Stimuli for Studies in Experimental Aesthetics, Empirical Studies of the Arts, 13, pp. 183–191, 1995.
22.
LocherP. and NodineC., Does Compositional Balance Influence the Perceptual Analysis of Paintings? Paper presented at the Fourth International Conference on Visual Search, Eindhoven, August 1994.
23.
AntesJ.ChangK., and MullisC., The Visual Effect of Map Design: An Eye-Movement Analysis, The American Cartographer, 12, pp. 143–155, 1985.
24.
MarrD., Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, California, 1982.
25.
LocherP. and NagyY., Vision Spontaneously Establishes the Percept of Pictorial Balance, Empirical Studies of the Arts, 14, pp. 17–31, 1996.
26.
CowanN., Evolving Conceptions of Memory Storage, Selective Attention, and Their Mutual Constraints within the Human Information-Processing System, Psychological Bulletin, 104, pp. 163–191, 1988.
27.
BeckJ., Textural Segmentation, in Organization and Representation in Perception, BeckJ. (ed.), Hillsdale, New Jersey, 1982.
28.
LocherP. and WagemansJ., Effects of Element Type and Spatial Grouping on Symmetry Detection, Perception, 22, pp. 565–587, 1993.
29.
TreismanA. and SoutherJ., Search Asymmetry: A Diagnostic for Preattentive Processing of Separable Features, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 114, pp. 285–310, 1985.
30.
Brandt, The Psychology of Seeing, Philosophical Library Inc., New York, 1945.
31.
LocherP.CavegnD.GronerM.MullerP.d'YdewalleG., and GronerR., The Effects of Stimulus Symmetry and Task Requirements on Scanning Patterns, in Perception and Cognition, d'YdewalleG. and van RensbergenJ. (eds.), Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, 1993.
