Vision and Cognition in Picture Perception*

Abstract

In recent papers [1997, in press] I have explored how two seemingly conflicting paradigms inform the conception and study of picture perception. The dominant paradigm, one especially favored by vision theorists, claims that seeing a pictorial representation of an object is, with qualifications, like seeing the object itself. The picture, being a geometrically sanctioned projection of its object, resembles it, or otherwise serves as a mimetic surrogate, re-presenting what it depicts [Danto, 1982]. Accordingly, pictorial representation is at its best when, as in trompe l'oeil paintings, viewers can not tell the picture, the stand in or substitute, from the real thing.' An alternative paradigm, the symbolic model, championed most forcefully by Nelson Goodman [1968], focuses attention on syntactic and semantic features of pictures. On this account, pictures are importantly allied with other forms of representation, including languages, maps, and music notation, and picture perception is to be understood in this context. In my earlier work, I attempted to show how adopting the symbolic approach could provide a framework for explaining several persistent problems in the study of picture perception-a topic I will return to later. I also maintained that vision theorists' reluctance to embrace this approach often rests on a misunderstanding. Although the symbolic paradigm does stress that pictures, as representations, function like languages, it does not claim they are linguistic symbols. The model, in fact, insists there are significant syntactic and semantic distinctions between linguistic and pictorial systems.