Influence of figure information on attention distribution in Chinese landscape painting

Abstract

Chinese landscape painting is a complex form of visual art. More researchers pay more attention to the creation process and expressed intention of landscape painting. However, the appreciation of works of visual art is often related to cognitive processing, and it is influenced by the content of the works. This study hypothesized that the information of the figure in landscape paintings could guide the allocation of attention and affect cognitive processing. To test this hypothesis, the vertical landscape paintings of the Song and Ming Dynasties were used as experimental materials in the experiment, and the eye-movement technology was applied to record and compare the differences of the eye-movement indexes of landscape paintings with and without figures. The results showed that the dwell time of landscape painting with figure was significantly longer than that of landscape painting without figure, and the dwell time of the interest area of the figure was significantly longer than that of the interest area without figure. However, the first three fixation duration of the interest area with figures is significantly less than that of the interest area without figure, and there was no difference in the saccade counts and the distribution of fixation points between different landscape paintings. It suggested that the figure in the landscape painting can attract peoples’ attention, but it does not have attention priority. Meanwhile, peoples tend to holistic processing when they viewing the vertical landscape paintings, and it is not influenced by the information of figure.