In the domain of visual arts, professional artists usually graduate from academies and universities. For professional development, art students must practise domain-specific activities. Support from lecturers and exchanges with fellow students also help advance accomplishments. Amateurs without academic or vocational artistic education can acquire their skills autodidactically or attend courses such as those at an adulteducation centre. Empirical research in the domain of visual arts remains scarce; therefore, the present study's objective was to analyse which kinds of domainspecific practice activities and social interactions artists, intermediates and amateurs rate as relevant to their artistic development in visual arts. The Professional Development in Arts Questionnaire (PDA-Q), including closed and open questions, was developed to examine artists' activities and interactions. In this study, 81 experts, 58 intermediates and 31 amateurs participated. Experts and intermediates perceived domain-specific practice activities working on artworks and reflecting as the most important in their professional development. Experts and intermediates also rated these two activities as the most demanding. Amateurs rated these activities as less relevant and demanding. Experts and intermediates most often received feedback from lecturers and fellow students, while amateurs most often received feedback from friends and family. Experts and intermediates cited lecturers as being the most helpful sources of feedback, while amateurs cited family.
Research on visual expertise has progressed significantly due to the availability of eye tracking tools. However, attempts to bring together research on expertise and eye tracking methodology provoke several challenges, because visual information processes should be studied in authentic and domain-specific environments. Among the barriers to designing appropriate research are the proper definition of levels of expertise, the tension between internal (experimental control) and external (authentic environments) validity, and the appropriate methodology to study eye movements in a three-dimensional environment. This exploratory study aims to address these challenges and to provide an adequate research setting by investigating visual expertise in sculpting. Eye movements and gaze patterns of 20 participants were investigated while looking at two sculptures in a museum. The participants were assigned to four different groups based on their level of expertise (laypersons, novices, semi-experts, experts). Using mobile eye tracking, the following parameters were measured: number of fixations, duration of fixation, dwell time in relevant areas, and revisits in relevant areas. Moreover, scan paths were analysed using the eyenalysis approach. Conclusions are drawn on both the nature of visual expertise in sculpting and the potential (and limitations) of empirical designs that aim to investigate expertise in authentic environments.
Mobile eye tracking helps to investigate real-world settings, in which participants can move freely. This enhances the studies’ ecological validity but poses challenges for the analysis. Often, the 3D stimulus is reduced to a 2D image (reference view) and the fixations are manually mapped to this 2D image. This leads to a loss of information about the three-dimensionality of the stimulus. Using several reference images, from different perspectives, poses new problems, in particular concerning the mapping of fixations in the transition areas between two reference views. A newly developed approach (MAP3D) is presented that enables generating a 3D model and automatic mapping of fixations to this virtual 3D model of the stimulus. This avoids problems with the reduction to a 2D reference image and with transitions between images. The x, y and z coordinates of the fixations are available as a point cloud and as .csv output. First exploratory application and evaluation tests are promising: MAP3D offers innovative ways of post-hoc mapping fixation data on 3D stimuli with open-source software and thus provides cost-efficient new avenues for research.
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