The organization of shape and color in vision and art

Abstract

The aim of this work is to study the phenomenal organization of shape and color in vision and art in terms of microgenesis of the object perception and creation. The idea of “microgenesis” is that the object perception and creation takes time to develop. Our hypothesis is that the roles of shape and color are extracted in sequential order and in the same order these roles are also used by artists to paint objects. Boundary contours are coded before color contours. The microgenesis of the object formation was demonstrated (i) by introducing new conditions derived from the watercolor illusion, where the juxtaposed contours are displaced horizontally or vertically, and based on variations of Matisse’s Woman, (ii) by studying descriptions and replications of visual objects in adults and children of different ages, and (iii) by analyzing the linguistic sequence and organization in a free naming task of the attributes related to shape and color. The results supported the idea of the microgenesis of the object perception, namely the temporal order in the formation of the roles of the object properties (shape before color). Some general principles were extracted from the experimental results. They can be a starting point to explore a new domain focused on the microgenesis of shape and color within the more general problem of object organization, where integrated and multidisciplinary studies based on art and vision science can be very useful.

Simultaneous Brightness and Apparent Depth from True Colors on Grey: Chevreul Revisited

“…His intuition that distinct object borders influence our perception of color and contrast is consistent with studies showing interactions between color appearance and the spatial profile of surface contours, or the geometric configuration of the visual display (Devinck et al, 2006;De Weert and Spillmann, 1995;Dresp and Fischer, 2001;Fach and Sharpe, 1986;Pinna, 2008Pinna, , 2011Pinna and Reeves, 2006).…”

Illusion and Illusoriness of Color and Coloration

“…In between the two main effects, the long range homogeneous coloration is more prominent as an illusion. The primacy of the shape against the color [12,13] makes it more difficult to acknowledge its possibility to be an illusion and its illusoriness.…”

“…Given two adjacent contours as in the watercolor illusion, the one with the higher luminance contrast in relation to the surrounding regions is seen as the boundary contours of the object, while the contour with the lower luminance contrast is seen as the color of the figure [12][13][14]. In more general terms, the assignment of the role is due to the relative contrast between the two adjacent contours.…”

“…It is worthwhile noticing that, although the coloration does not fill the whole inner edge of the shape, the roles are assigned anyway by the visual system. The general statement can be synthesized as follows: the perception of the color of an object does not require the full and perfect coloration of its inside edges [12,13].…”

“…The red and light-blue colorations spreading and filling in the space among the circles (in reversed order between the two patterns) were spontaneously reported as "apparent", "illusory", "as an impression", or "as a result of brain It is worthwhile noticing that, although the coloration does not fill the whole inner edge of the shape, the roles are assigned anyway by the visual system. The general statement can be synthesized as follows: the perception of the color of an object does not require the full and perfect coloration of its inside edges [12,13].…”