week 5: Gestal Effects and Schema Theories

In this lecture, Chris covers "History from the BIG THREE", Gestalt Psychology and Schema in Psychology. Wertheimer, one of the people in the BIG THREE, who's a philosopher but studies behavior using sciences founded the phenomena of apparent motion. Apparent motion is the perception of motion even though there's no actual movement.  The main idea of Wertheimer's gestalt theory is wholeness, interdependence, context and where the whole is different from the sum of its part. According Ginger (2007, p.1), Gestalt is "a complete shape or figure, which has structure and meaning." We don't see the little details but we see the relationship and pattern. Wertheirmer's gave 5 laws to perception called the "principles of perceptual organisation". The five laws are proximity, similarity, common fate, pregnantz or figure/ground and closure.

Kurt Koffka, another one of the BIG THREE, claims that the human mind organizes the individual sensation and experience it into a whole. He also believes that the young ones, don't perceive the world parts by parts but instead, the whole thing. He debated the claim made by the early psychologist that veridical perception does not need explanation.Where the early psychologist stated that mathematics is veridical, but gestalt psychologists said that perception cam fool with illusions.

Wolfgang Kohler, who's research focus on ape mental intelligence and ability to solve problem, contributed in psychology in terms of learning, memory and "nature of associations". He rejected the "stimuli-response" theory and created the dynamic model of human behavior. Kohler believes that perception is marked by relations, where there's organizing principles that show us how we learn.

Sir Frederick Bartlett, one of the schema theorist, realized that the natives aren't recalling the past accurately. They replaced the unfamiliar information with what they know in their own realities. According to Tracey and Morrow (2006, p.51), the schema theory suggest that people organize the knowledge they have into knowledge structure or schema. Frame system is the collection of related frames. This frames are divide into top levels and lower levels. The top levels represents whats is true about the situation. The lower levels has "terminals" or slots that must be filled depending on the specific evens and/or instances.

Incongruent schema creates a sense of excitement and interest from the receiver of the visual image and this takes a greater intellectual level to see how each component is related to one another. Congruent schema is where the information is familiar that creates a positive effect, for example: familiarity, and a basic sense of liking. Usually its very conservative advertising and takes a low level of cognitive process.

Tutorial Question: Name three laws of Gestalt Theory and provide examples to illustrate your point.

One of the laws of gestalt theory is proximity and its purpose is eye fixation. Lester (1995, p.54), stated "that the brain more closely associates objects close to each other than it does two objects that are far apart."

where we don't bother to see minor details of the picture, but we see it as a whole. From the picture above, most will see that it has flower type of patterns, but only few or some will bother to count the dots.


Another law of gestalt theory is closure and the purpose is to manipulate perception, create subtle effects. Where items or shapes that grouped together and is seen as a whole. The missing phenomena in the group tend to be "corrected" by the mind to reach the coherence goal.

By using the image above as an example, the human mind, spaces between the white lines and the white center are connected automatically.

Another law is Similarity, which is to emphasis of message. According to Lester (1995, p.54), "the law of similarity states that given choice by the brain, you will select the simplest and most stable form to concentrate on."

The brain automatically differentiate the squares and the circle, and we will see the pattern.


References:

Ginger, S. (2007). Gestalt Therapy: The Art of Contact. London: Karnac Books

Lester, P.M. (1995). Visual Communication: Images with Message. United States of America: Wadsworth Publishing.

Tracey, D. H. & Morrow, L. M. (2006). Lenses on Reading: An Introduction to Theories and Models. USA: Guilford Press.

week 4: Visual Syntax. Semantics and Pragmatics

This week, we covered on Syntax: The Grammar of Visual Images, Pragmatics: Context and the Changes in Meaning and Semantics: Making Meaning from Chaos.

According to Chris, syntax is structure. In language, "syntax is the way that words relate to each other, without taking into account the world outside; it includes the grammar, and does not consider who said it to whom, where ,when or why." (cutting, 2002, p.1) The problem of the visual and language is that images cannot be considered as language because there is no formal grammar, this is according to traditional linguist. Two claims was made, images don't have alphabets and no formal syntax. The critics that was made by the traditional linguist is that letters of the alphabet are symbols that represent sound when we say it or hear it, this is call phoneme, therefore colors are symbolic and representation of the light that reaches our eyes and feelings that could be felt from the color, coloreme.

In visual syntax there's rules which is studied by cognitive scientist, psychologist and neuro-scientists to find out how people hear, see, smell and feel. It was founded that people don't see thing randomly. People actually follow an unconscious rule that helps us to decide where to begin and end an image. The eyes constantly move and scan the things we look and the eyes never look on every parts of the image, instead only certain parts will catch our attention.

There's a set of common codes that has been agreed upon by others, so that we can understand the language of the visual. However to understand this language the combination of semantics and pragmatics is required. The language of the visual surrounds colors, lines, space and information.

Chris thought the rules of color, the syntatic rules of lines and syntatic rule of composition. The study of semantics involves kinesics, proxemics, etymology and semiotics. Semantics is the study of meanings. According to Cutting (2002, p.1), "is the study of what the words mean by themselves, out of context, as they are in a dictionary." Kinesics is the understanding the meaning of body language. Proxemics is the understanding of the space between bodies which creates different meanings and interpretation of subject and space. Etymology is the history of words and how its meaning changes over time and Semiotics is study of relationship between the structure and meaning of the signs in the text.

The study of semantics is not a singular and independent field like Semantics and Kinesics, Semantics and Proxemics and Semantics and Etymology. Semiotics and Semantics, where semiotics is the study of signs and how its is connected to the social and cultural. "semiotics involves the study of signs and formalises an attempt to establish the meaning of these signs." (Inskip, MacFarlane and Rafferty, 2007, p.693) It is studied in relation to discourse, ideologies and audience and it is also studied in relation to codes and modality. It is also the study of pragmatics. According Levinson (1983), "pragmatics is the systematic study of meaning by virtue of, or dependant on, the use of language."

Signifiers that form a signs is called a Syntax. Semantics is the signifieds and connotation of the sign, but the meaning is decided by pragmatics which is codes, modality, sender, receiver and context. This factors influences and changes the definition of the signifier and signs. Codes is the sets of rules agreed upon by a culture an society. Codes decide the dominant reading of the sign. Modality is the medium that is giving out the information. The author creates the texts definition and his/her intention and encoded message is transmitted. The receiver decodes the message using the available cultural and technological resources. Context is the space and time in which the message is told or said.

Tutorial question:- If all visual communication is subjective, why do we have to study it?

Visual communications is communication via visual image. Where it is focus on the media culture and how it gives information. One of the reason why we have to study it, because its a part of our everyday lives. Another reason is that we have to study the perceptions of others to understand the differences of perception  and ideology of societies.


References:-

Cutting, J. (2002). Pragmatics and Discourse: A resource book for students. New York: Routledge.

Inkip, C., MacFarlane, A. & Rafferty, P. (2008). Meaning , Communication, Music: towards a revised communication model. Journal of Documentaion, 64(5), 693.

Levinson, Stephen C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Week 3- Semiotics Revisited

In week 3, we revisited an old topic, Semiotics. According Inskip, MacFarlane and Rafferty (2007, p.693), "Semiotics involves the study of signs and formalises an attempt to establish the meaning of these signs." Stokes (2003, p.70) stated that semiotics is very useful when it comes to analyzing the meaning of texts.The basics to analyse a text is where the signifier and signified are combined to produce a sign, denotation and connotation.

Signifiers, according to Griffin (2009, p.324), is the physical form of the sign as people perceive it through their five senses, which is sight, smell, touch, taste and sound. While signified is "the meaning we associate with sign." (Griffin, 2009, p.324). In other words is the mental image created from the signifier. A signifier doesn't have one signified but has a lot. When both of the signifier and signified, a sign is formed. There's three types of signs; Symbolic, Indexical and Iconic. According to Lester (1995, p.63), Iconic signs are the easiest to interpret due to the fact that this type of symbols closely resembles the thing they are represent. Indexical signs "have a logical,commonsense connection to the thing or idea they represent rather than a direct resemblance to the object." (Lester, 1995, p.63).  Lester (1995, p.64), stated that Symbolic signs are the most abstract, cause they have no logical or representational connection with the thing that they are representing.

There's rules that is use to interpret signs. This rules are agreed upon by a community, and this rules are called codes. The absent of the knowledge of this code will cause the interpretation of the sign not to be understand by others. Denotation, according to Chandler (2002, p.140), is the defitional, literal, obvious or commonsense of a sign. In other words Denotation is the literal description of the signifier or sign. Connotation is the representation and concept of the sign, where it's a metaphors or a way to conceptualize  something.

In semiotics, there's anchorage, where it's a very powerful semiotic tool that shapes how people view and see things. The use of anchorage is to "anchor" the meaning of the sign so that it has only a specific interpretation is favored, without this the interpretation of the sign/image could go in any direction.

Tutorial Question: Provide example of signifiers, signified and connotation.

The above picture is an example for signifier and signified, the signifiers are the word symmetry, rotate, tyrant, monotonous and shutter. The signified is the images, for example symmetery is the signifier and the signified is the reflection of the word symmetry and the tyrant is signified with big "T" which means that the "T" is a dictator.

The picture above is the same picture from the previous post on Seeing and Perception. The reason why I chose this picture again is Perceiving and Connoting are almost the same. The denotation of the animal is an elephant, but the people who are touching, which is one of the signifiers, are connoting it differently. The reason is that, they are using only one signifiers, which is the sense of touch. Therefore they are connoting it differently. One touches the trunk of the elephant and connoting it as a snake, one is touching the big body or the elephant and connoting it as a giant brick wall and one touches the tail of the elephant and connoting it as a rope.

References

Chandler, D. (2002). Semiotics: The Basics. New York: Routledge.

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory (7th ed). Glencoe, IL: McGraw Hill

Inkip, C., MacFarlane, A. & Rafferty, P. (2008). Meaning, Communication, Music: towards a revised communication model. Journal of Documentation, 64(5), 693.

Lester, P. M. (1995). Visual Communicaion: Images with Message. United States of America: Wadsworth Publishing.