Cognition and Perception
This chapter was a bit underwhelming to be honest. Maybe it’s because I already knew culture had an impact especially on our perception. Regardless, I was a bit disillusioned that I couldn’t find anything about aesthetic perception. I always felt like one of the best ways to explore culture is through authentic artwork. I find questions like “Why did the Ottoman Empire had minature art?”, and “What importance biblical smybolism held through Renaissance?” very important. I think aesthetic perception is a very underrepresented topic in the perception field.
Maybe related, maybe not
Here are the findings that were interesting for me because I thought they could be related to aesthetic perception.
- While analytic thinking emphasized object-oriented focus in visual attention, dialectical thinking emphasized a context-oriented focus.
- Obviously Islam was the biggest contributing factor in Ottoman art, and why there was only a few portraits for the era. However, I still think dialectical thinking has played a role. If we examine Ottoman miniature art, there is very little focus on individual objects. The scene almost always focuses more on the relationship figures have – human or not. The background isn’t just the backdrop figures sit on. It is used as a tool to show relationships. The use of rivers and roads especially point to hierarchical positions of the figures (buildings OR people) in my opinion. This is an incredibly direct way of showing relation also – drawing a line in between related things. Further, it might be a sign that objects are categorized in a way that is based on themes and family-resemblance like the chapter suggests. I think the importance of background and the amount of detail they had shows Ottoman culture relied on contextual information heavily.
- Cultural practices can change cognition and perception and can move beyond borders of countries.
- I think this can be a great example for the Tulip period in Ottoman art which was influenced by European ideals. Right before it, miniature art had a bunch of new tools (like new paints, and figures extending to the whole body). In the Tulip period, Ottoman individuals were, let’s say, heavily under the influence of Europe. What is not a surprise here is that miniature art focused on more individuality – including more standalone human figures, more detailed faces, or plain landscape paintings; themes moving away from context and towards individuality. I think this shows how independent thinking style had an influence on miniature art that relied on a dialectical thinking style.
- The effect of interdependedness on attention: Japanese focused on both focal objects and contextual information.
- I think this could also explain why miniature art didn’t have one obvious focus for the scene. In Western art, it is easy to tell which figures are “important” and which aren’t: The background is blurred most of the time, and artists tend to detail the object that they want the viewer to focus on. In miniature art, however, it’s hard to understand what’s the focus of the composition. Perhaps this is because it doesn’t have one because the style is documentative. It may also be caused by the finding that interdependedness influencing attention to take account of the most – creating a holistic view and a viewer that has holistic attention.
Conclusion
Overall, altough this chapter was underwhelming, it was still fun to explore how the findings could support some of the ideas I had about Ottoman culture and art. I think miniature art spesifically can explain a great deal of Ottoman culture and the dialectical thinking style individuals had. I feel like the findings are also able support that when art changes, it is probably a sign that culture is shifting.
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