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This research subjected the visual rightness theory of picture perception to experimental scrutiny. It investigated the ability of adults untrained in the visual arts to discriminate between reproductions of original abstract and representational paintings by renowned artists from two experimentally manipulated less well-organized versions of each art stimulus. Perturbed stimuli contained either minor or major disruptions in the originals' principal structural networks. It was found that participants were significantly more successful in discriminating between originals and their highly altered, but not slightly altered, perturbation than expected by chance. Accuracy of detection was found to be a function of style of painting and a viewer's way of thinking about a work as determined from their verbal reactions to it. Specifically, hit rates for originals were highest for abstract works when participants focused on their compositional style and form and highest for representational works when their content and realism were the focus of attention. Findings support the view that visually right (i.e., "good") compositions have efficient structural organizations that are visually salient to viewers who lack formal training in the visual arts.

Participants rated the dynamic quality of a set of twelve-element nonrepresentational or abstract visual designs each composed of one of four types of triangles or four types of quadrilaterals. We investigated the contribution to the perceived or implicit dynamics of the design of the four factors edge alignment of compositional elements, physical weight distribution about the horizontal axis, activity directions within the designs, and type of compositional element. It was found that edge alignment of elements was the most influential factor contributing to the dynamics both of triangle and of quadrilateral designs. In addition, dynamics was found to be positively correlated with the number of perceived activity directions within both types of stimuli. Triangle designs, but not quadrilateral ones, with greater structural weight above the horizontal axis were rated as more dynamic. Results suggest that implicit dynamics of nonrepresentational designs arises from a percept based on a global spatial analysis of the stimulus characteristics studied.

The comparability of viewers' responses to slide-projected and computer-generated images of nine paintings by renowned artists to those obtained from individuals experiencing the originals in the galleries of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art was investigated. The influence of training in the visual arts upon evaluative judgments made under the three presentation formats was also assessed. Specifically, art-trained and untrained participants in each format condition rated each artwork on sixteen measures of physical and structural characteristics, novelty of content, and aesthetic qualities. Analyses revealed significant differences in the judged hedonic value of the originals as contrasted with the two types of reproduction, whereas trained and untrained participants' evaluations of the pictorial qualities of the artworks were comparable across presentation formats. Findings are discussed in terms of a facsimile-accommodation hypothesis proposed by the authors.

This research tested the visual rightness theory of pictorial composition's assertion that the induced organizational structure of a visually right (i.e., "good") design is perceptually salient and judged superior by anyone viewing it regardless of his or her training in the visual arts. Stimuli for Experiments 1 and 2 consisted of 16 reproductions of paintings by renowned artists and an experimentally reconstructed less-well-organized version of each art stimulus. It was found that design professionals (Experiment 2) were significantly more successful at detecting the original versions than were participants untrained in the visual arts (Experiment 1) (hit rates = 64% and 55%, respectively). In Experiment 3 participants replaced a major structural element removed from each of six pictures of the stimulus set at the location where they thought it appears in the original. A significant number of untrained participants and those with training in design theory were in agreement as to the location of each element within its pictorial field; the location chosen conformed to its compositional structure but not its actual location in the original. Findings demonstrate that the ability to detect the induced structural skeleton of a painting resulting from a visually right design does not require expert knowledge of design principles whereas the ability to discriminate between several articulation possibilities of the same composition does require formal training.

The influence of local and global attributes of symmetric patterns on the perceptual salience of symmetry was investigated. After tachistoscopic viewing, subjects discriminated between symmetric and either random patterns (experiment 1) or their perturbed counterparts (experiment 2) created by replacing one third of the mirror element-pairs of symmetric stimuli with 'random' elements. In general, it was found that perceptibility of symmetry, measured by response time and detection accuracy, was not influenced in a consistent way by type of pattern element (dots or line segments oriented vertically, horizontally, obliquely, or in all three orientations about the symmetry axis). Nor did axis orientation (vertical, horizontal, oblique), advance knowledge of axis orientation, practice effects, or subject sophistication differentially affect detection. A highly salient global percept of symmetry emerged, on the other hand, when elements were clustered together within a pattern, or grouped in symmetric pairs along a single symmetry axis or two orthogonal axes. Results suggest that mirror symmetry is detected preattentively, presumably by some kind of integral code which emerges from the interaction between display elements and the way they are organized spatially. It is proposed that symmetry is coded and signalled by the same spatial grouping processes as those responsible for construction of the full primal sketch.

Eye movements of adult hemiplegics (11 right- and 9 left-brain-damaged patients) and 11 nonimpaired controls were recorded as they viewed selected cards of the Motor-free Visual Perception Test. The major finding was that neither group of patients exhibited an asymmetry of visual exploration (unilateral visual neglect) as they viewed the cards. Their scanning strategies were, however, unsystematic and irregular. In addition, both groups of patients scanned the cards longer and made more errors than controls. Use of the Motor-free Visual Perception Test as an appropriate measure for the general assessment of visual-perceptual processing abilities of adult brain-damaged patients who lack severe clinical manifestations of neglect is discussed.

Two experimental approaches examined observers' ability to characterize shape symmetry based upon the information obtained within a single fixation. Exp. I tested observers' ability to discriminate among three levels of symmetry on the basis of a 25-msec. presentation. Results indicated that identification accuracy was higher for symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes than for mixed shapes, which contained both symmetrical and asymmetrical components. Exp. II tested observers' ability to detect a given level of symmetry by means of a signal-detection approach. Symmetrical shapes were detected better than asymmetrical shapes. Detectability of mixed shapes was lower than that for both symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes. The results of Exps. I and II demonstrate that observers can characterize shape symmetry on the basis of information available within a single fixation. The data are supportive of the hypothesis that a global response to the over-all configuration of the shape serves to facilitate form perception.

The influence of amount and type of exploratory activity upon 3 male and 5 female undergraduates' ability to detect the symmaterical or asymmetrical characteristics of individually presented plastic nonrepresentational shapes was examined. A decrease in scanning time and number of identification errors between the first and fourth days of testing indicates that extended perceptual experience plays a major role in the efficient pick-up and utilization of haptic information. A signal-detection analysis demonstrated that the use of a simultaneous-apprehension scanning strategy resulted in greater sensitivity to asymmetrical shapes than did the use of a simultaneous-apprehension scan. The data support the hypothesis that experience, the form parameter of symmetry, and the type of scanning strategy used to explore a stimulus function together to influence haptic perception of nonrepresentational shapes.

Sighted subjects (n = 15) assembled 6-piece jigsaw puzzles under four conditions of visual-haptic perception which both separated these perceptual systems and required the simultaneous use of vision and touch. The time required and haptic scanning strategies used to assemble the puzzles in each of the four conditions were examined to determine the influence of type of visual involvement upon haptic encoding processes and the degree to which the visual and haptic systems are linked. Results indicate that a cognitive component is involved during visual-tactual form perception which affects how the perceptual modalities work together and how information is selected, encoded, and processed. When vision and touch were used simultaneously to examine the same stimulus, and visual information was adequate for responding, vision dominated touch. However, in conditions of visual-haptic perception in which visual input was inadequate for responding or when haptic perception was independent of vision, subjects relied upon a form of information which was specifically tactual in nature and independent of visual or verbal recoding.