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How Do We See Art: An Eye-Tracker Study (2011)

44 points by sebg 10y ago

SuperPaintMan 10y ago
Excellent study, giving a measure to the hard to define area of composition. This eye-movement study confirms a few principles of composition, such as gaze following the direction of various figures (Rembrandt), movement along high-contrast lines (chiaroscuro), movement between chromatic patches (Mondrian studies), focus resting on areas of greater detail (Molina). In the non-square format works you can also see that gaze follows generally along the longest axis, the portrait aspect of the last piece helps drive the gaze up the central axis. These principles are taught, but rarely understood. It becomes a trained instinct to analyze the composition of a work and exploit it in a practice. Another thing I see in this data is a sense of inertia with sight-line. Eyes in motion, prefer to keep moving and seem to gloss over small details to the bigger compositional director. When slowed, these details are observed and the larger compositional elements ignored. Neat! >Eye-tracking recordings were done in 10 subjects (six male, four female; age 23–34) sitting comfortably in front of a 24 inches computer screen, at a distance of about 70 cm, in which different images were shown for 1 min each. Images were digital reproductions (size 1024 × 768 pixels) of original and modified art pieces. My only issue with this approach is that it does not take into account the scale of the work, impasto techniques, light effects or the change in medium (paintings are scanned differently than a typical monitor would, the screen frame may introduce bias). Overall interesting data.
lifeisstillgood 10y ago
Years ago I stuck my head in an eye tracker at the National portrait gallery in London, and advised ahead of time I tried hard just to stare at the first things I saw. I saw a nice constable-esque painting of two children. And then I sat back and ... There was a damn cat in the foreground, huge, how did I miss it! The screen afterwards showed dots where my eyes focused, and I had bullet holes all over the faces of the two kids - but had completely avoided the rest of the painting (as advised). And yeah - my brain had just not bothered noticing the damn cat. It has stayed with me for years - if you get a chance do it just to remind yourself how much of the world we see is stitched together.
- throwaway049 10y ago
  I came to ask if anyone had put eye trackers in public galleries so thanks for posting this. I hope it is still there.
mturmon 10y ago
Don't miss the results from the modified Mondrian paintings in Figures 2 and 3. They recolor one of his block paintings and discover the eye saccade pattern changes a lot.
HerpDerpLerp 10y ago
If my experience is anything to go by it is 90% reading the little explanation written next to the art, then 10% looking at the painting before hurrying onto the next thing.

44 points by sebg 10y ago

Excellent study, giving a measure to the hard to define area of composition. This eye-movement study confirms a few principles of composition, such as gaze following the direction of various figures (Rembrandt), movement along high-contrast lines (chiaroscuro), movement between chromatic patches (Mondrian studies), focus resting on areas of greater detail (Molina). In the non-square format works you can also see that gaze follows generally along the longest axis, the portrait aspect of the last piece helps drive the gaze up the central axis. These principles are taught, but rarely understood. It becomes a trained instinct to analyze the composition of a work and exploit it in a practice. Another thing I see in this data is a sense of inertia with sight-line. Eyes in motion, prefer to keep moving and seem to gloss over small details to the bigger compositional director. When slowed, these details are observed and the larger compositional elements ignored. Neat! >Eye-tracking recordings were done in 10 subjects (six male, four female; age 23–34) sitting comfortably in front of a 24 inches computer screen, at a distance of about 70 cm, in which different images were shown for 1 min each. Images were digital reproductions (size 1024 × 768 pixels) of original and modified art pieces. My only issue with this approach is that it does not take into account the scale of the work, impasto techniques, light effects or the change in medium (paintings are scanned differently than a typical monitor would, the screen frame may introduce bias). Overall interesting data.

lifeisstillgood 10y ago

Years ago I stuck my head in an eye tracker at the National portrait gallery in London, and advised ahead of time I tried hard just to stare at the first things I saw. I saw a nice constable-esque painting of two children. And then I sat back and ... There was a damn cat in the foreground, huge, how did I miss it! The screen afterwards showed dots where my eyes focused, and I had bullet holes all over the faces of the two kids - but had completely avoided the rest of the painting (as advised). And yeah - my brain had just not bothered noticing the damn cat. It has stayed with me for years - if you get a chance do it just to remind yourself how much of the world we see is stitched together.

throwaway049 10y ago
I came to ask if anyone had put eye trackers in public galleries so thanks for posting this. I hope it is still there.

mturmon 10y ago

Don't miss the results from the modified Mondrian paintings in Figures 2 and 3. They recolor one of his block paintings and discover the eye saccade pattern changes a lot.

HerpDerpLerp 10y ago

If my experience is anything to go by it is 90% reading the little explanation written next to the art, then 10% looking at the painting before hurrying onto the next thing.