The Effects of Search Practice and Perceptual Training upon Representational Drawing

Abstract

While growth in visual perception is an accepted goal of the field, most of the studies concerning the effects of perceptual training upon particular kinds of art activities are recent. Several investigators have reported positive effects of perceptual training strategies on subjects' modes of perception and/or two-dimensional drawing performances (Salome, 1965; Rennels, 1969; Salome and Reeves, 1972; Dorethy, 1973). In drawing, the individual has to develop efficiency in searching for critical cues in stimulus objects and similarities and differences in various kinds of visual information. These abilities appear to affect accuracy of recognition, identification, and delineation of visual objects and patterns. Neisser, Novick, and Lazar's (1963) investigation of the visual scanning procedure provided the basis for the assumption that the process of recognition is hierarchically organized. Before an individual decides that the letter Z, for example, is present in a list of items, he makes prior decisions about subordinate features such as parallel lines and angles. Neisser (1963, 1964) found that visual scanning practice enables subjects to develop unusual skill in searching for and differentiating multiple targets from background items. A list of 50 items arranged in a single spaced column was presented to subjects. Each-item was a string of letters which were scanned down from the top. Results indicated that, when searching for a target in a random context of a 50line list of letters or numbers, the time per item a person scanned tended to decrease rapidly and stabilized at about 19 lines per second after 14 days of practice. Practiced subjects were able to search for 10 targets at once as efficiently as for a single one. Neisser (1967) concluded that, with practice, subjects discover perceptual operations that seem to be minimally sufficient for the problem. For example, the subject need not identify the K as he would if he named it. He need only discover the minimal features such as curves, iagonals, or intersections which are not shared by the context letters. Gibson (1969) posited that the subjects of these experiments must be learning to narrow down the search to a minimal