Rock art animals in profile: Visual recognition and the principles of canonical form

The article examines factors involved in rapid and easy visual identification of animals in life and art. It gives an account of what we term canonical form in connection with 'basic level' recognition, profile depiction and the concept of salience. In the course of this it introduces disc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Rock art research 2013-05, Vol.30 (1), p.75-90
Main Authors: DOBREZ, Livio, DOBREZ, Patricia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ethnology and art
Methodology and general studies
Neurophysiology
Prehistory and protohistory
Rock paintings
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The article examines factors involved in rapid and easy visual identification of animals in life and art. It gives an account of what we term canonical form in connection with 'basic level' recognition, profile depiction and the concept of salience. In the course of this it introduces discussion of part/whole relations and saccadic eye motion. Overall it offers a critical assessment of the literature on the subject of recognition and suggests likely neurophysiological correlates for the perception of real and depicted profile animals.
ISSN:0813-0426