The Skill of Pictorial Perception: An Interpretation of Cross-Cultural Evidence

Abstract

A theoretical framework is proposed for understanding perceptual skills in their functional context. Pictorial perception is construed as a functionally specialised skill whose pervasive importance in modern education derives from the proliferation of pictorial materials in Western culture. Drawing on cross‐cultural research, the major components of the skill are identified as (1) detection of appropriate contexts for its application, (2) selection of a limiting frame of reference, (3) use of conventional criteria of fidelity to recognise depicted items, (4) sensitivity to impoverished depth cues, (5) an expectation of finding in the picture most of the information necessary for its disambiguation, and (6) various assumptions about the range of cognitive inferences that may legitimately be made ‘beyond the information given’. Training studies are interpreted as suggesting that the skill can be enhanced through guided experience.

La Perception Des Relations Spatiales Dans Le Dessin Et Le Developpement Des Operations Concretes*

“…Serpell et Deregowski (1980) ont tenti de faire une synthkse des travaux actuels. L'image est un objet h regarder, objet limit6 dans I'espace.…”

“…De nombreuses Ctudes ont Ct C faites dans le domaine de la perception picturale, soit par des psychologues expkrimentalistes, soit par les utilisateurs de moyens audio-visuels pour des campagnes d'information dans le tiers-monde, en particulier auprks de populations illet tries. Serpell et Deregowski (1980) ont tenti de faire une synthkse des travaux actuels. L'image est un objet h regarder, objet limit6 dans I'espace.…”

Issues in the development of cross‐cultural assessments of speech and language for children

“…Some cross-cultural studies have suggested that the ability to recognize and interpret pictures is culture-specific. Serpell and Deregowski (1980) consider picture recognition to be a 'culturally restricted perceptual skill': Western children learn to perceive pictures in the functional contexts of learning to speak and listening to stories with the help of picture books, activities unavailable to most rural African children. Hudson (1960Hudson ( , 1962 described picture recognition as related to literacy, rather than solely to culture, finding that non-literate Bantu and European participants were unable to interpret a picture in three dimensions.…”

Cross-Cultural Psychology: An Eclectic and Idiosyncratic View

“…There may therefore be minor but important differences. These may be those of skill and indeed an argument can be made for considering perceptual differences apparent from studies of pictorial perception as essentially those of skill (Serpell & Deregowski, 1980). If such systematic differences were to emerge they would undoubtedly tell us something about the perceptual mechanism.…”