On July 28th I attended
“Senses + Perception” at the UCLA California NanoSystems Institute. The
presentation discussed how the information we take in through our five senses
shape our perception of our environment and how we can, in turn, use what we
know about perception to trick our senses. Our five senses give us all of the
information we take in from the world around us and allow us to interact with it.
All artists utilize the science of perception, presenting the viewer with an
experience that invokes thought or emotion.
Young Lady or Old Woman?
Playing on your perception of the image, you can see one or the other, but not both simultaneously
Source: <http://www.grand-illusions.com/opticalillusions/woman/>
Both evolution and society have a
part to play in how our senses create perception. For example, the human tongue
distinguishes which foods could be poisonous by activating the bitter taste
receptors and creating the perception of bad taste. The sense of smell plays a
huge role how we perceive attractiveness. Pheromones, which people secrete
though several areas of their body, trigger a subconscious sexual attraction.
MTV played on this idea with their 2009 dating game show “Senseless” where
contestants were deprived of sight and hearing and had to choose their blind
date via touch, smell and taste.
While
we tend to view senses as independent, the can be combined to create entirely
different experiences. In movies, cognitive association is often put to use,
invoking a particular feeling about characters or actions. In the 2011 film
Drive, the music and lighting tells as much of a story as the pictures on the
screen, cluing the viewer in on the main character’s thoughts and feelings, as
well as how they should feel about it.
Lighting and
soundtrack tell the story of who’s good, who’s bad and whether the main
character is acting morally in a given scene
The Art of Trance: Swarm
The animals in
their natural environment almost seem to dance to the music. Watching the video
with and without sound creates vastly different experiences
It’s also possible to use one sense to
stimulate another. In Tlon, three conductors use their arms as if they were
conducting an orchestra. Despite no sound being produced, the perception of
sound is created in the viewer’s mind.
Tlon
Source: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4KFDuilStc>
Those born without a certain sense
can make up for it by using their other senses to supplement their perception.
People who are deaf or mute can use sign language to communicate by sight. One
blind man uses the science of echolocation to “see” his environment my clicking
his tongue and listening to how it bounces off objects.
I
would definitely recommend this lecture. It helped me understand how not only
can science and art intermingle, but also how the science of perception changes
how we view and feel about both art and our environment.
Another Professor Vesna spotting (see left)
Works Cited
Finkel, Michael. "The Blind Man
Who Taught Himself to See." Men's Journal, Mar. 2011. Web. 01 Aug. 2014.
Ganz, Jacob. "'Drive' Lets The
Songs Do The Feeling." National Public Radio, 16 Sept. 2011. Web. 01 Aug.
2014.
Solomon, Benjamin. "A Complete
History of MTV’s Dating Game Shows." The Date Report, 12 Nov. 2013. Web.
01 Aug. 2014.
Staff, NPR. "Blindness No
Obstacle To Those With Sharp Ears." National Public Radio, 13 Mar. 2011.
Web. 27 July 2014.
Grammer, Karl,
Bernhard Fink, and Nick Neave. "Human pheromones and sexual
attraction." European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and
Reproductive Biology 118.2 (2005): 135-142.
Fischer, Anne, et
al. "Evolution of bitter taste receptors in humans and apes."Molecular
biology and evolution 22.3 (2005): 432-436.
Cohen, Annabel J.
"Associationism and musical soundtrack phenomena."Contemporary
music review 9.1-2 (1993): 163-178.
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