Viewing event

A visual event is described as an appearance that humans perceive through their visual cognitive apparatus, i.e. primarily an image.

Perceptual Physiology of Vision

The light reaches light-sensitive cells ( photoreceptors ) in the retina ( retinal ) encoding the information into electrical signals. After multiple interconnections, these signals reach the brain via the optic nerve and finally reach the occipital lobe of the cerebral cortex .

Physiologically, humans never have access to the optical image that is projected through the eye ; without exception, every visual perception goes through a complex multi-stage processing process:

"The image is never put together again in the form in which it was on the retina and is therefore destroyed. Only the coded information is further processed" (Betz 1974: 42)

Typology of visual events

Basically, four types of visual events can be distinguished:

1. static three-dimensional visual events , for example sculptures , monuments , friezes and architecture ;
2. dynamic three-dimensional visual events , for example theater , dance , opera , parades , processions , fireworks , shadow plays , exhibitions , trade fairs ;
3. static two-dimensional visual events , for example pictures on stone, on the skin, on the canvas, on paper or film, etc .;
4. dynamic two-dimensional visual events , usually moving images for example film , television , video

Functions of visual events

Visual events have a specific function; see picture function .

literature

• Dieter Betz : Psychophysiology of the cognitive processes . Munich 1974
• Petra Schuck-Wersig : Expeditions to the picture. Contributions to the analysis of the cultural significance of images . 248 pages. 1993. ISBN 3631454287