Movements of the Mental Eye in Pictorial Space

Abstract

When an observer is faced with a straight photograph, the observer can either look at the image or look into the photograph. This manner of observing photographs presents a difference that is crucial. In the former case, the observer is aware of the photograph as a physical object in a physical space while in the latter, the observer is aware of the pictorial object in a pictorial space. This chapter focuses on the current understanding of pictorial perception and the structure of pictorial space. Pictorial space is different from physical space in that it does not exist outside of the observer's awareness. It is a thread of consciousness and a purely mental object. In contrast, the photograph as a physical object is a mere planar sheet composed of pigments in a certain simultaneous order. The concepts of pictorial object and scene is not limited to the earlier existence of a physical space that figured casually in the present existence of the photograph. The theory of pictorial space is largely derived from psychophysical data. The measurement of it depends on the idiosyncratic movements of the mental eye. It is purely an ‘intentional entity’ that makes its elusive to physiological methods and susceptible to misconception.