Right brain, left brain myth debunked

[DougStocks]

With all due respect to Ms. Tennenbaum (right brain left brain articles). The right, left brain myth has been thoroughly debunked and has no support in the neuroscience field. It's an oversimplification of a small study that has grown into a popular myth.
Here is a link to one of many articles on the subject.

http://ideas.time.com/2013/11/29/there-is-no-left-brainright-brain-divide/

I won't offer any theory as to why we prefer an image to read from left to right.

[PeterAit]

Yes, this has been known for many years, but the RB-LB mythology has become so ingrained in pop psychology that there seems to be no getting rid of it.

The same is true of all the theories about how certain lines, shapes, and compositions in an image "lead" the viewer's eye around the image in a certain way. Studies that actually determine where someone is looking have shown this to be all nonsense.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Studies that actually determine where someone is looking have shown this to be all nonsense.

Links?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Links?

Indeed, I'd be interested as well. Broad sweeping statements should be easy to back up with some links to research papers, me thinks.

BTW, leading lines and such are probably culturally trained by the direction of how we are taught to read. I know of a marketing fuck-up concerning a global producer of baby and infant food in the 70s who started to advertize their goods in new territories around the world. They used large bill boards, with an image of a baby before it got fed with their product, and how happy and healthy the baby looked after eating the product. Obviously the campaign had the opposite effect in the Arab countries, because people there interpreted it that the baby became unhappy after eating the food.

Cheers,
Bart

[PeterAit]

Links?

With all due respect, look it up yourself. It's something I learned during my education as a psychologist/neuroscientist and I certainly do not remember the exact source.

[Jeremy Roussak]

I won't offer any theory as to why we prefer an image to read from left to right.

Ask an Israeli. Or an Arab.

Jeremy

[Isaac]

"Gaze movements during the beholding of paintings"

pp79-108 "Art, Aesthetics, and the Brain" 2015 (Google book preview)

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Thanks for the link, Isaac.

Between centuries of art theory and a few clunky experiments, guess what I am going to stick to?

P.S. On a more general note, worth noting that absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

[Arlen]

The same is true of all the theories about how certain lines, shapes, and compositions in an image "lead" the viewer's eye around the image in a certain way. Studies that actually determine where someone is looking have shown this to be all nonsense.

Thanks for bringing up this thought-provoking subject, Peter. It prompted me to do as you suggested, and search for the evidence backing it up. It turns out not to be all that easy to find, as most writings on the subject hew to the traditional concepts. However, with persistence relevant material can be found. The reference that Isaac linked is a good one. And on p. 48 of Basics Photography 01: Composition, the author quotes the following passage from Feininger's 1972 book Principles of Composition in Photography:  "The entire theory of leading lines - lines that allegedly lead the viewer's eye to the so-called center of interest in the picture - is a fallacy." The Feininger book apparently references some scientific studies as the basis for that statement, although I wasn't able to get to that list.

A number of posts on the Gurney Journey design blog describe interesting experiments along the same lines:
What are you looking at?  
Eye Tracking and Composition: Part 1
Eye Tracking and Composition: Part 2
Eye Tracking and Composition: Part 3

All very interesting work, which lends some insight into the subject at hand. However, I would respectfully suggest that given the current state of the science, it might be more appropriate to say that some doubt has been cast upon the utility of traditional notions of composition, rather than that they have been proven to be nonsense. The movements the eye makes are certainly of interest, but the eye just collects data; it is the mind that sees. The mind may construct images in a different order and with different emphases than data collection. Some of the material presented in Isaac's reference makes similar points.

[Tim Lookingbill]

Very interesting topic indeed.

As a cartoonist I read a lot on composing lights & darks for emphasis in panel layout design in order to direct the viewer to look at the picture and read the captions with ease of flow in mind. Faces being the most recognized are placed within panels to aid this flow.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OAXtkueEx3Q/U3NdVVs2IrI/AAAAAAAAWqs/aWhkdneHHTw/s1600/Terry+Pirates.lg.gif

The same thing works in photography only one frame at a time unless there is a triptych or polyptych ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyptych ) which basically is what a comic strip or graphic novel is.

Here's an example of a photographer who deliberately uses luminosity over detail or line to convey and evoke a unique emotional response in photographs...

http://starr-review.blogspot.com/2013/10/barbara-vogels-luminous-portraits.html

So studying eye movement as a science is also a myth because it doesn't indicate how the viewer feels or responds to each element in an image no matter what gets looked at first. Many people including myself will look at something first and not even see it (missing the exit sign on the interstate while looking right at it) because our mood, level of sleepiness or excitement controls train of thought and consciousness. Surrealism toyed with this kind of perception disconnect.

On the same subject here's another myth debunked by science regarding mental illness as a part of being a genius...

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/14/8955273/mad-genius-schizophrenia-bipolar-mental-health-creativity

[spidermike]

Yes, this has been known for many years, but the RB-LB mythology has become so ingrained in pop psychology that there seems to be no getting rid of it.

The same is true of all the theories about how certain lines, shapes, and compositions in an image "lead" the viewer's eye around the image in a certain way. Studies that actually determine where someone is looking have shown this to be all nonsense.

Isn't that rather like saying 'the idea we read left to right is nonsense because the eye darts all over the page' - which is proven. The brain then builds a narrative out of the words it sees.
Similarly I would suggest the brain is hard wired to find patterns and paths, the latter being essential to navigate the easiest way over a landscape. A river or a ribbon of tarmac provides exactly the same function in a landscape picture.

With all due respect, look it up yourself. It's something I learned during my education as a psychologist/neuroscientist and I certainly do not remember the exact source.

FWIW (not that you are interested in all likelihood) one of the most tedious responses I find in this sort of discussion. It comes across as extremely high minded as someone who is happy to throw their comment with no substantiation.
How do we know we are looking at the same 'evidence' you are?

[PeterAit]

Thanks for the link, Isaac.

Between centuries of art theory and a few clunky experiments, guess what I am going to stick to?

How are the experiments "clunky." And what exactly does "clunky" mean? Other than you do not like the results.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

How are the experiments "clunky." And what exactly does "clunky" mean?

With all due respect, figure it out yourself

[Isaac]

Between centuries of art theory and a few clunky experiments, guess what I am going to stick to?

iirc You'll typically reject new information in order to defend your existing belief.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

It could be rejecting, or it could be being sceptical about the quality and validity of the new information.

[Isaac]

It could be not being sceptical about the quality and validity of the existing beliefs.


"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so."

[Alan Klein]

My logical half wants to believe the theories.  But my emotional half wants to believe what makes me feel good.

[amolitor]

My technique for understanding how well a picture works, what it means, how good it is, well, it's radical and a little crazy.

I just look at the picture for a while.

[amolitor]

Are detailed theories of eye leading actually very old?

My modest exposure to pre-twentieth century art theory pretty much stopped at 'the point of highest tonal contrast is where people are gonna look'

Practically everything photographers tell one another is ancient stuff going back to Leonardo is in fact twentieth century balderdash.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

iirc You'll typically reject new information in order to defend your existing belief.

Reading this again, I am not sure if that was a rhetorical "you" or you were addressing me directly?