The Information Available in Pictures

Author(s): James J. Gibson

Source: Leonardo, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Winter, 1971), pp. 27-35
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1572228
Accessed: 23-07-2023 04:21 +00:00

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Leonardo

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Leonardo, Vol. 4, pp. 27-35. Pergamon Press 1971. Printed in Great Britain

THE INFORMATION AVAILABLE

IN PICTURES
James J. Gibson*

Abstract-The author reviews two current conflicting theories of what a picture

is: (1) that it consists of a sheaf of light rays coming to a station point orperceiver,
each corresponding to a spot of color on the picture surface and hence that the
picture can standfor a real object or scene insofar as the rays from the picture
are the same as the rays from the real object; (2) that it consists of a set of
symbols, more or less like words, and the perceiver must learn to 'read' it.
According to the first theory, a child can perceive an object in a picture as soon
as it can perceive a real object; according to the second one, the child must
learn to 'read' the picture much as it learns to read written speech.
He points out the fallacies of both theories, shows that they cannot be combined
and suggests a new theory based on the radical assumption that light can convey
information about the world and, hence, that the phenomenal world does not have
to be constructed by the mind (or the brain) out of meaningless data. This theory
makes it possible to distinguish between the pictorially mediated perception
of the features of a world and the direct perception of the features of the sur-
roundings and yet to understand that there is common information for the
features they have in common.
His theory accounts for the difference between verbal and visual thinking.
Visual thinking is freer and less stereotyped than verbal thinking; there is no
vocabulary of picturing as there is of saying. As every artist knows, there are
thoughts that can be visualized without being verbalized.

Underlying all the discussions of representationit might be but first let us get clear about the two
there are currently two conflicting theories of what aopposing positions, what the force of the argument
picture is. The first theory assumes that it consists is in each case and why in the last analysis they
of a sheaf of light rays coming to a station pointfail.
or perceiver, each corresponding to a spot of
color on the picture surface. The second theory THE POINT-PROJECTION THEORY OF
assumes that it consists of a set of symbols, more PICTORIAL INFORMATION
or less like words, and that a painting is comparable
to a written text. On the first theory, a picture can By the eighteenth century the techniq
represent a real object or scene insofar as the light perspective representation, discovered by pa
rays from the picture are the same as the light raysin the Renaissance, had matured along with
from the original. On the second theory, a picture developing science of optics (cf. Fig. 1). An Eng
can stand for a real object or scene insofar as themathematician could assert in 1715 that in order to
language of pictures is understood. The secondproduce a perfect painting of objects, 'the Light
theory says that one has to learn to 'read' a picture, ought to come from the Picture to the spectator's
much as the child has to read written speech, butEye in the very same manner as it would do from
the first theory denies this and asserts that as soon asthe Objects themselves' [1]. It would be as if the light
a child can perceive an object directly he can perceive came through a window, to be sure, corresponding
it in a picture. to the frame of the picture but if each light ray
One might suppose that these theories as statedfrom a spot of pigment on the canvas were the same
are merely extremes, and that they can somehowin wavelength and intensity as each light ray
be combined. But attempts to reconcile themfrom a spot on the front face of the object coming
have not been successful, or at least I find themto the eye through the window, then the two
unsuccessful and I have come to believe instead bundles of light rays would correspond and the
that both theories are wrong. We need a new theory representation of the object would be complete.
At the time of this assertion, Isaac Newton's
of what a picture is. I will try to suggest later what
treatise on Optics had been published and it was
* Psychology Research Laboratories, Cornell Industrial
Research Park, Ithaca, N.Y. 14850, U.S.A. (Received 2 widely read.
September 1970.) This theory of the perfect picture seemed to fit

27

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28 James J. Gibson

the fidelity of a picture by analogy with the fidelity

of a sound recording, assuming that it could go
Ii from a maximum to no fidelity at all. A faithful
picture was a delimited surface so processed that it
I\

yielded a sheaf of light-rays to a given point which is

the same as would be the sheaf of rays from the
original scene to a given point, that is, when the
adjacent order of the points of color in the cross-
section of one corresponded to the adjacent order
in the cross-section of the other [4]. I should have
added, and when the forms in the one cross-section
are congruent with the forms in the other. This is
essentially the same as the eighteenth-century
definition quoted above. I did hedge it somewhat
by suggesting that the variations in the adjacent
light energy across one array might correspond with
the variations across the other, thus introducing the
notion of corresponding contrasts or relations
instead of corresponding points of light. I was aware
of the fact that the light intensities from a world
range over extremes that cannot possibly be matched
by the light intensities from a picture. I did take
some account of the paradox that if another station
point were chosen for the light-rays than the
uniquely proper one, the picture would no longer
be faithful since the forms would no longer be
Fig. 1. The principles ofpictorial representation.
congruent. In short, I had some idea of the limita-
The projection on a picture-plane of a regular pavement tions of the definition but not enough to reject it.
extending into the distance is shown in A. The main laws of
linear perspective can be observed, especially the vanishing
I amended this definition considerably in a later
point at the horizon. The projection of a scene on a window paper entitled: Pictures, Perspective, and Perception
of the picture-plane is shown in B. Note the angular size rela- [5] but I still retained the notion of a sheaf of light
tions and the transformations of square-into-trapezoid. rays and did not discard the notion of fidelity in
Straight edges are projected as straight lines in the picture
terms of rays. The new definition I will propose is
(straightness is invariant). The perspective of surface texture
is not shown, only what are called outlines. In both cases, based on ecological optics, not geometrical
note that it is the optic array that is the stimulus, not the optics, and it transcends the concept of light rays.
image. A. (From J. J. Gibson, The Perception of the Visual Most of what was said about pictures in 1960,
World, Houghton Mifflin, 1950. B. After Julian E. Hochberg, however, I will still stand by. A series of studies
Perception, ? 1964. Adapted by permission of Prentice-
Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.)
over a period of 15 years has been carried out at
Cornell on pictorial perception by Gibson [6],
Ryan and Schwartz [7], Smith and Gruber [8],
exactly with the theory of visual perception based Smith and Smith [9], Hochberg [10], Hochberg and
on the retinal image that was developing at the Brooks [11] and most recently Kennedy [12].
same time. Newton asserted with confidence that: In the latter part of my 1954 essay, there was an
admission which actually invalidated the point-by-
'the Light which comes from the several points
point projection theory, although I did not realize
of the Object is so refracted as to ... paint the
it at the time. I said that a picture actually had
Picture of the object upon that skin called the
many different dimensions of fidelity to an object,
Retina .... And these Pictures, propagated
not just one, and that lines or outlines in a hand-
by motion along the Fibres of the Optick
made picture could faithfully represent the edges
Nerves into the Brain, are the cause of Vision.
and corners of the surfaces of the world, although,
For accordingly as these Pictures are perfect
of course, the lines could not represent their colors
or imperfect, the Object is seen perfectly or
or textures. But this actually gives the whole
imperfectly' [2].
thing away; the definition can only apply to a painting
The theory of point-projection (along with the or photograph, not to a line drawing. There is no
theory of the projected retinal image) has provedpoint-to-point correspondence of brightness or
to be very powerful over the centuries. Light is,color between the optic array from a line drawing
in fact, projective; one can project shadows orand the optic array from the object represented.
transparent pictures and the abstract notion of There is some sort of correspondence but it must be
point-to-point correspondence is part of the branch of a very different kind than the one defined. In
of mathematics called projective geometry. Fifteen order to describe this relational or higher-order
years ago ago I wrote an essay called 'A Theory ofcorrespondence, we need a new optics not limited to
Pictorial Perception' [3] in the effort to make itrays of light.
explicit for students of visual education. I defined Finally, there is still another objection to the

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The Information Available in Pictures 29

point-projection theory, with its definition of It is represented by the legend of Pygmalion,

fidelity in terms of light-rays and the forms they for whom the image and the reality were identical.
project on a plane. It does not apply to the carica- It is the theme of a comprehensive and eloquent
ture. The cartoonist's drawing of a man is not even a book by E. H. Gombrich [13]. Nearly everyone
faithful projection of the shape of his features and has been deceived, at one time of another, into taking
his body. It does not represent his curves and a picture for the real thing. So we tend to accept the
contours. We say that it is distorted, which can conclusion that a picture can be, as a limit, in-
only mean that the man represented is a deformed distinguishable from the thing pictured. But this
or distorted man. But this statement is somehow is a vague and slippery statement, as will be shown
not right. The caricature may be faithful to thoselater. If it means that the perception of something
features of the man that distinguish him from all pictured can gradually become the direct perception
other men and thus may truly represent him of that something, then it is not true.
in a higher sense of the term. It may correspond to
him in the sense of being uniquely specific to him-
THE SYMBOL THEORY OF PICTORIAL
more so than a projective drawing or a photographic
INFORMATION
portrait would be. And this is a compelling objec-
tion to the whole theory that pictorial information Artists themselves have never cared much for
can be reduced to light rays.
this point-projection theory of pictorial representa-
One might try to salvage part of the theory by
tion for it seemed to prescribe and constrain what
supposing that distortion in caricatures is excep-
they should do. Painters, critics and historians of
tional; it is not actually a kind of representation
art have rebelled against the whole concept of the
but a kind of graphic symbolism like the using of
perfect picture and the faithful image. But since
words. I was tempted by this compromise in 1954
the concept had the powerful support of optics
[4]. I assumed that when an artist sacrificed pro-
and the physiology of the eye, the justification of the
jective fidelity the only justification was that he
rebellion was not easy.
adopted graphic conventions, that is, codes which
Twenty-five years ago, Kepes wrote a book called
had to be agreed upon by all. I assumed that the
the Language of Vision [14] and recently Goodman
only two possible kinds of specification were by
has written another book called Languages of Art
projection or by convention. A caricature, therefore,
[15]. I think I understand what these two writers
was a mixture of the two. But this was only to
are saying. They are suggesting that a picture is
combine incompatible notions. A caricature is
composed of symbols, that the clearest examples of
not a mixture of optical projection and symbolic
symbols are the letters and words of a language
distortion but something different from either
and that, therefore, one can learn to read a picture
one. In the end, I will suggest that it is an effort
as the child learns to read English.
at displaying relevant information.
Kepes maintained that the components of a
Why, then, is the point-projection theory being
picture were not spots of sensation but something
considered so plausible ? It is, first of all, consistent
else:
with physical optics and with the doctrine of
visual sensations that seems to follow from it. 'Just as the letters of the alphabet can be put
This says that the pattern of light entering the eye together in innumerable ways to form words
consists of irreducible bits of color and brightness which convey meanings, so the optical meas-
and that these are the only information the eye gets. ures and qualities can be brought together in
These spots cannot specify the objects and surfaces innumerable ways, and each particular rela-
from which the light comes; they can only specify tionship generates a different sensation of
sensations of color and brightness. All the rest of space. The variations to be achieved are
perception is a matter of interpretation. For endless' [16].
example, the distance of an object, the third dimen-
He gave illustrations of what he called this space-
sion of space, is either a matter of learning what the
clues for distance are or else of having an unlearnedlanguage in his book (cf. Fig. 2). The light rays as
such, he said 'are only a haphazard chaotic
intuition about them. But interpretation depends
panorama of mobile independent light-happenings'
on sensations. Hence a picture that reconstitutes
or represents the mosaic of color sensations from an[17]. This point, that light rays are each independent
external scene will arouse the same process of per- of every other, had been made by the Gestalt
theorists.
ception that the external scene would. This is the
argument and it seems to be very convincing. Similarly, if much more elaborately, Goodman
stresses the analogy between pictorial representa-
The force of the argument comes in part from the
evidence said to show that a faithful picture cantion and verbal description. 'Representations,
fool the observer into the feeling that he is lookingthen, are pictures that function in somewhat the
at a reality instead of just a picture. Since two same way as descriptions. Just as objects are
identical retinal images will yield the same percep- classified by means of, or under various verbal
tion, according to the theory, they should labels, so also are objects classified by or under
yield the same feeling of reality. This is the 'illusion various pictorial labels' [18]. He accepts the theory
of reality' that has fascinated men over the ages. that an act of perception is essentially an act of

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30 James J. Gibson

But Goodman disagrees:

'In diametric contradiction to what Gibson
says, the artist who wants to produce a spatial
representation that the present-day Western
eye will accept as faithful must defy the "laws
..

of geometry" ' [22].

The main contribution of Goodman's book is
not reflected in these quotations. When he is dis-
cussing pictures, especially paintings, he accepts
the analogy with language but he also tries to work
out the principles of what he calls notation and to
apply them to all the various arts. This attempt
does not seem to bear directly on the issue of what a
picture is; he is clarifying a different problem, not
here considered.
The controversy is interesting and important but
it is plagued by confusion and misunderstanding.
The disrespectors of geometry appeal to so-called
inverse perspective in painting. Here is Kepes
speaking, from the Language of Vision:
'Chinese and Japanese painters assign to linear
..: .:::::., ...: '' :-, ..,07:::.... :, - .. '':: .: .~~~~~~~~~~~~1? : ?'::"?'::
perspective a diametrically opposite role from
Fig. 2. 'Study of Transparency' by Clifford Eitel, from that given it by Western painters. In their
G. Kepes Language of Vision, Paul Theobald and Co., system parallel lines converge as they approach
1944. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. the spectator. They open up the space instead
of closing it' [23].

classification by the observer, assuming that classes But let us be clear about this. It is certainly not
have to be imposed on the data. true that parallel lines in the world (actually the
Now if painting is a language, then just as a new edges of surfaces) converge as lines on a projection
language can be invented (an artificial language plane as the external edges approach the spectator;
like Esperanto, for instance) and can be learned the lines must diverge as the edges become closer.
by mastering its vocabulary and grammar, so a new No rule or canon of inverse perspective could
mode of visual perception can be invented by possibly be systematic, that is, it could not be
painters and this can be learned by all of us if we consistently applied in the practice of projecting a
succeeed in mastering its elements. This revolu- layout of surfaces on a picture-plane. I do not
tionary belief is, indeed, what motivates a good many know why Oriental painters (and Medieval painters
modern painters. They intend not merely to educate and sometimes children) often represent the edges
our visual perception of the world but to give us a of table-tops and floors as diverging upward on
radically different kind of perception and make us the picture surface instead of converging upwards
discard the old kind. Arnheim, for example, in but I know that they do not have a system. I
Art and Visual Perception asserts boldly that only a suspect that this so-called inversion of linear
kind of'shift of level' is needed 'to make the Picassos, perspective was quite unintentional and that the
the Braques, or the Klees look exactly like the explanation is not simple.
things they represent' [19]. These paintings do not What if anything, then, is conventional in a
now represent things for us, he seems to admit, but representative picture, if perspective is not-what
they will come to do so. is arbitrary or prescribed? Only the rules for
Is this theory correct? A crucial issue in the observing the picture surface, which are as follows:
debate is whether or not the use of perspective in it should be seen with one eye, it should be upright
painting is a convention. The assertion that it is was and perpendicular to the line of sight instead of
made long ago by the art historian Irwin Panofsky slanted and its distance must be just such that the
[20] and it has been upheld by Kepes [14], by visual solid angle from the picture is the same as
Arnheim [19] (1954) and by Goodman [15]. I would be the visual solid angle from the thing
once maintained in opposition, that: pictured. These rules, note, are highly restrictive
and cannot be enforced on the spectator. But
'it does not seem reasonable to assert that the use when they are not followed, there results a little-
of perspective in paintings is merely a conven- understood phenomenon vaguely called 'perspective
tion to be used or discarded by the painter as distortion'. There is also another prescription to
he chooses ... when the artist transcribes enhance the illusion of reality that is never followed
what he sees upon a two-dimensional surface,
in practice: there should be an aperture in front
he uses perspective geometry, of necessity'
of the eye hiding everything but the picture itself.
[21]. The system of perspective projection, its optical

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The Information Available in Pictures 31

geometry, is a very pretty thing. But it has to be the case of a caricature, where the contrasts of
distinguished from the practice of perspective. luminous energy are quite different and even the
Almost from the discovery of the system, the practice forms are different but where the high-order
has proved to be less than satisfactory to painters. information to specify a particular person is
It was unsatisfactory for the very good reason that common to both arrays. In short the optic array
people cannot be made to look at a picture in the from a picture and the optic array from a world
way prescribed. The system had to be compromised can provide the same information without providing
for the spectator's benefit in ad hoc ways, for the same stimulation. Hence, an artist can capture
example, to minimize perspective distortion. Painters the information about something without replicating
and sympathetic critics put the blame on the system, its sensations.
not distinguishing it from the practice of per- The above definition is based on a new theory of
spective. Most of them did not understand or care perception as well as a new formulation of optics.
about the abstract elegance of perspective geometry. It assumes that two perceptions can be the same
For example, they confused the habit of putting a without their accompanying sensations being the
vanishing point in the center of the picture, which is same. It implies that visual sensations are not
a matter of composition, and, therefore, to be freely necessary for visual perception, strange as this may
chosen, with the system of perspective projection as seem. Perception is based on the pickup of informa-
such. tion, not on the arousal of sensation, and the two
And thus, if I am right, when artists stopped using processes are distinct. Having sensations is at most
perspective entirely as a guide to painting, they may only an accompaniment of perceiving, not a pre-
have had good reason but the reason given should requisite of perceiving. Visual sensations are a
not have been that perspective is a convention. For sort of luxury incidental to the serious business of
they might be interpreted to mean that the science perceiving the world. I have argued all this, of
of optics is itself a convention. They might be course, in The Senses Considered as Perceptual
saying that optics is not just ill-formulated for the Systems [24].
purpose of understanding pictorial perception but The heart of the theory is the concept of optical
it can never be formulated for that purpose. The information. Information consists of invariants,
first statement I believe. The second I deny, for I in the mathematical sense, of the structure of an
have some ideas about how to reformulate optics.optic array. Let us consider the information for the
perception of an object in the environment. When
A NEW THEORY OF PICTORIAL INFORMA- one sees an object one does not ordinarily see its
TION front surface, in perspective. One sees the whole of
it, the back as well as the front. In a sense
If a picture is neither the source of a sheaf all of
of its aspects are present in the experience. It
is an
different light rays each corresponding to a spot onobject in the phenomenal visual world, not a
form in the phenomenal visualfield [25]. How can
the surface, on the one hand, nor a layout of graphic
symbols like writing, on the other, what isthis it? be
I so ? The basis of this direct perception is not
the form sensations, or even the remembered
suggest that it is a display of optical information
and that optical information does not consist sequence
of of these forms, but the formless and
either spots of color or conventional figurestimeless
with invariants that specify the distinctive
assigned meanings. It comes in an optic array, to of the object. These are the information for
features
be sure, but the array is composed of a hierarchy
perception.
of
But what about the indirect perceiving of an
nested units, not of rays. Information is contrasted
with energy. There has to be enough stimulus object when one is presented with a picture of it?
The picture, we have always understood, is only
energy in an optic array to excite the retinal recep-
tors but the stimulus information is what counts for one of an infinite family of perspectives of the object,
perception. And stimulus information is invariant frozen in time. But we can now understand that an
under all sorts of changes in stimulus energy. informative picture contains the same kind of
Here is a formal definition. A picture is a surface timeless invariants that a sequence of perspectives
so treated that a delimited optic array to a point of contains. If it does not provide the eye with these
observation is made available that contains the invariants, it is not a good picture of the object
(for example, if it is not depicted from a favorable
same kind of information that is found in the ambient
optic arrays of an ordinary environment. This point of view). The fact is that even when one sees
definition covers both the photograph and athe pictured object one ordinarily does not see its
caricature. It admits that a photographic front
color surface only but the whole of it. This is an
transparency can provide an eye with almostunsolved
the paradox for sensation-based theories of
same brightness and color contrasts that theperception
cone but it follows immediately from the
of light intercepted by the camera provided.present
The theory.
The timeless invariants become more obvious
relations of luminous intensity and spectral com-
position of the stimulus energies in the two arrays
over time, it is true, in a motion picture as compared
are in sufficient correspondence to make thewith
low- a still picture but some of them at least are
order stimulus information very nearly the same.
still present in the latter. When one walks around
But the definition is broad enough also to admit
an object, or sees it rotating, its optic array under-
3

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32 James J. Gibson

goes perspective transformation and the whole it is much the same when he looks at a picture as
family of perspectives is available to the eye, so that when he looks at the world. He can notice only the
the invariants are easy to see and the single per- information for the perception of what is represented
spectives are not; in fact, it is then almost impossible or he can pay attention to the picture as such, to the
to see a single perspective. This is the normal way medium, the technique, the style, the composition,
of seeing an object. On the other hand, when one the surface and the way the surface has been
holds still it is easier to see the single perspective treated. It is possible of course to shift from one
than when one moves around. But this is not the attitude to the other and some pictures fairly
normal way of seeing an object. compel us to go back and forth from the virtual
object that is in the picture to the real object that is
THE NAIVE ATTITUDE AND THE the picture. It is possible to combine these attitudes
PERSPECTIVE ATTITUDE in various ways.
This duality, I suggest, is the essence of representa-
There is evidence to suggest that animals and
tion. Ordinarily one can perceive both the picture
young children do not notice the aspects as a of
thingan and the thing pictured. There is optical
object or the perspectives of the environment.
information to specify the surface as such and, in
(An aspect or perspective is an appearance at a array, information to specify a quite
the same
single stationary point of view.) The world differentdoeslayout of surfaces. There are thus two
not appear as a frozen patchwork of flat colors levels of surface perception and two
concurrent
confined by the boundaries of the temporary field
corresponding levels of depth or space perception.
of view [26]. What they notice is the set ofOne is the space in which the picture lies and the
invariant
distinctive features of objects and the rigid layout
other is the space in which the objects pictured lie.
of environmental surfaces. They see the non-changeI have made experiments to verify this duality. If
underlying the change. This is the naive attitude.you place a photomural on the wall of a room
I also believe that our primitive ancestors, before
representing (say) a road and trees, and if you then
the discovery of pictorial representation byobserver
put an the at the proper station point, you will
cave painters, had never noticed the aspects find thatofhe can 'perceive' the distance of one of the
objects and the perspectives of the environment. trees and its height. He confidently estimates that
They could only take the naive attitude toward it is a the
hundred paces away and twenty feet high,
world. Why should the Ice Age hunters have with about the same accuracy as when he is actually
noticed that a mammoth had a different appearance standing on the road that was photographed. But
from the front, the side, the rear and above? he can also, on request, perceive and estimate the
Why should they have observed that a thing appears distance and the height of the picture. This object
to get smaller as it gets farther away? What use is seen to be three paces away and four feet high.
would there be to have paid any attention to linear The distance and size of the tree and the picture
perspective, and vanishing points and the optical are not commensurate, for they are not in the same
horizon? But as our ancestors began increasingly space. The space of the road and the space of the
to make pictures they began to notice these appear- room are not continuous with one another.
ances. They began to see aspects, perspectives, in When you come to analyse the optic array from
short forms. The man who painted the mammoth the room-and-picture, you find that it contains
on the cave wall had to notice and remember one information for both the perception of the room-
aspect (usually the side view) since the necessity
space and the perception of the picture-space.
of making tracings on a flat surface required it.
Neglecting binocular disparity and the focussing
And so it was, I think, that some men began some- of the lens, the optical texture is present to specify
both the surface of the road and the surface of the
times to take the perspective attitude in viewing the
environment. They began to be able to see thephotograph, and the gradients of texture are present
world as a picture [27]. But they had to learn to
to specify both the distance of the tree and the
do so. distance of the wall.
The modern child also has to learn it. He is
surrounded by pictures and is encouraged BUT
by his
WHAT ABOUT THE ILLUSION OF
parents to convert his scribblings into representa- REALITY?
tions as soon as possible. But this is not easy, for
contrary to orthodox theory, he does not experience
The point-projection theory of the perfect picture
his retinal image. And so, in learning to draw, he that the objects represented would be seen
asserted
has to learn to pay attention to the projected'through
forms the frame of the picture as if through
as distinguished from the formless invariants. If and, if this was true, it was implied tha
window'
the young child experienced his retinal image he
the pictured scene would be indistinguishable
should not have to learn to draw. The 'innocent from the real scene. This analogy with a window
eye', far from registering points of color oropening
even on another world, a magic window,
patches of color, picks up invariant relations [28].
inspired painters for centuries and we owe a great
If I am right, then, the modern adult can adoptdebta to Gombrich [13] for reminding us of it.
naive attitude or a perspective attitude. He But,
can like most analogies, it can be misleading. The
attend to visible things or to visual sensations. margins
And of a picture, the frame, could never be

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The Information Available in Pictures 33

mistaken for the occluding edges of a window,

since the use of two eyes or the slightest movement
of the head would betray the difference. That is, the
existence of a world outside the window and extend-
ing behind the edges of the window, as contrasted
with the non-existence of such a world, is specified
by the kind of optical information called accretion-
deletion of elements [29]. And so, despite all the
stories of paintings that are said to deceive
observers into trying to lift the curtain, or eat
the grapes, or walk into the scene [30], I am sceptical.
There would be information for seeing these things,
of course, but there would also necessarily be
information for seeing a painted curtain, painted
grapes and a painted scene. The notion of an image
that is literally and actually indistinguishable
from the reality is a myth. Pygmalion's cold i
I? -*

statue was not a girl and the image that Narcissus J; ? ;c.
1
O
saw in the pool was insubstantial, as he could have 1. ..:i

discovered at any time.

The fallacy encouraged by an uncritical accept- Fig. 3. Reversible surface-or-air and reversible c
ance of the 'illusion of reality' is the belief that the vexity-or-concavity.
perception of something pictured can pass over into On the left are two examples of ambiguous figure and
the perception of it. A mediated perception cannot ground (the goblet-faces display and the alternate Maltese
become a direct perception by stages. No matter crosses). On the right are two examples of reversible 'per-
spective' (the ambiguous book and the ambiguous staircase).
how faithful, how lifelike, how realistic a picture Stare at the center of each drawing for a time; observe what
becomes, it does not become the object pictured. happens.
Perception at second hand will never be perception
at first hand.
two alternative percepts from the same drawing
A related fallacy is the belief that a picture is is very puzzling. The light to the eye has not changed
similar to the object pictured (which is false to when a pair of faces is seen instead of a goblet
begin with) and the notion that when similarity but the percept has (cf. Fig. 3).
reaches a maximum it becomes identity. If such drawings are analysed as sources of
information instead of mere stimulation, however,
WHAT ABOUT PICTURES OF NON-EXISTENT the puzzle becomes intelligible. The information in
OBJECTS? the array is equivocal [31]. There are two in-
compatible kinds of pictorial information in the
The new definition of a picture does not suggest,
light to the eye and the percept changes when the
as did my old definition, that there mustbeholder
exist in
shifts from one kind to the other. The
the world, or have existed, an original scene for
information for depth at an edge, for what hides
which it is an imitation, a substitute, a surrogate
what, has been carefully arranged to specify two
or a literal representation. There are pictures ofand opposite directions of depth. Equivo-
different
mermaids, of angels, of buildings not yet constructed
cal representation in drawings of the edges and
and of events that will never happen. The informa-
corners of surfaces in the world has recently been
tion provided by a picture is information for per- and is reported by Kennedy [12].
studied
ceiving, in the widest sense of the term, not only
for remembering something in the past but also for DISCUSSION
conceiving something in the future, in short for
Two theories of pictorial perception have b
apprehending. The invariants of pictorial informa-
tion are timeless. The experience obtained described.
by a Either we can see what is depicte
picture is as if one were confronted with a the same way we can see it when it is not depic
material
butif.
layout of light-reflecting surfaces but only as confronts us or we can understand what is
depicted in the same way we can understand it when
WHAT ABOUT AMBIGUOUS DRAWINGS AND it is described verbally. No other alternative has
been considered in the debate.
REVERSIBLE FIGURES?
Neither theory is correct. It is true that perceiving
what with
Displays which are ambiguous or reversible is represented is more like seeing it than like
understanding
respect to what is seen have been interpreted as it by reading or hearing about it.
proving that perceiving depends more on
But it the
is not true that perceiving what is represented
perceiver than it does on the externalcan stimulus.
ever be exactly like perceiving it in the world.
In the illusion of reversible figure-ground Conversely,
and pictorial perception has more im-
mediacy
that of reversible perspective, it is as if there than the understanding of words. But
were
all visual
two different things in the same place. The fact perception,
of indirect or direct, is based on

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34 James J. Gibson

the pickup of information, not on the having of Not only do we perceive in terms of visual infor-
sensations; it is based on the information in an mation, we also can think in those terms [33].
optic array not on the rays of radiant energy. Making and looking at pictures helps us to fix
To speak of the information in an optic array does these terms. We also can think in terms of verbal
not imply that it consists of conventional symbols information, as is obvious, and words enable us to
or that pictures constitute a language, for some of fix, classify and consolidate our ideas. But the
the basic principles of optics still underlie the re- difference is that visual thinking is freer and less
formulated discipline that I call ecological optics stereotyped than verbal thinking; there is no
[32]. Herein lies an alternative to both the analogy vocabulary of picturing as there is of saying.
with classical optics and the analogy with language. As every artist knows, there are thoughts that can be
The structure of a picture is allied to the structure of visualized without being verbalized.
perspective geometry, not to the structure of lan- It is possible to suggest a new theory of pictorial
guage. Both pictures and language have struc- perception only because a new theory of visual
ture, to be sure, and in this limited sense it is perception has been formulated. The latter is
possible to say that both have a sort of grammar. based on the radical assumption that light can
But the informative structure of ambient light is convey information about the world and, hence,
richer and more inexhaustible than the informative that the phenomenal world does not have to be
structure of language. Animals and men could constructed by the mind (or the brain) out of
see things long before men began to describe them meaningless data. This assumption, in turn, depends
and we can still see many things that we cannot, on a new conception of light in terms of the array
as yet, describe. at a point of observation-light considered not
It is surely true that picturing is a means of merely as a stimulus but also as a structure. These
communication and a way of storing, accumulating ways of thinking about perception and light are
and transmitting knowledge to successive genera- unfamiliar but they clarify murky puzzles of long
tions of men. So is speaking-hearing a means of standing and they make the art of depicting very
communication and writing-reading a way of much more intelligible than it has been. It is now
accumulating and transmitting knowledge. But possible to distinguish between the pictorially
the difference is that picturing exploits some of the mediated perception of the features of a world and
information in the structure of the light, the space- the direct perception of the features of the sur-
filling light that is everywhere available as long as a roundings, and yet to understand that there is
clear medium of water or air has existed on his common information for the features they have in
planet. And this is what visual perceiving does. common.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. B. Taylor, Linear Perspective, London, 1715.

2. I. Newton, Opticks, 1730 (New York: Dover Publications, 1952) p. 15.
3. J. J. Gibson, A Theory of Pictorial Perception, Audio-visual Communic. Rev. 1, 3 (1
4. Cf. reference 3, p. 14.
5. J. J. Gibson, Pictures, Perspective and Perception, Daedalus 89, 216 (1960).
6. J. J. Gibson, The Non-projective Aspects of the Rohrschach experiment-IV. The
Rohrschach Blots Considered as Pictures, J. Soc. Psychol. 44, 203 (1956).
7. T. A. Ryan and C. Schwartz, Speed of Perception as a Function of Mode of Represe
tion, Am. J. Psychol. 69, 60 (1956).
8. 0. W. Smith and H. Gruber, Perception of Depth in Photographs, Percept. Mot. Ski
307 (1958).
9. P. C. Smith and 0. W. Smith, Ball-throwing Responses to Photographically Portrayed
Targets, J. exp. Psychol. 62, 223 (1961).
10. J. E. Hochberg, The Psychophysics of Pictorial Perception, Audio-visual Communic.
Rev. 10, 22 (1962).
11. J. E. Hochberg and V. Brooks, Pictorial Recognition as an Unlearned Ability. A Study
of One Child's Performance, Am. J. Psychol. 75, 624 (1962).
12. J. M. Kennedy, Line representation and pictorial perception, Ph.D. Thesis, Cornell Univ.
Library, 1970.
13. E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation
(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1961).
14. G. Kepes, Language of Vision (Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1944).
15. N. Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (New York:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1968).
16. Cf. reference 14, p. 23.
17. Cf. reference 14, p. 31.
18. Cf. reference 15, p. 30.
19. R. Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception (Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Press, 1954)
p. 93.

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The Information Available in Pictures 35

20. E. Panofsky, Die Perspective als Symbolische Form, Vortrage der Bibliothek Warburg,
1924-1925.
21. Cf. reference 5, p. 227.
22. Cf. reference 15, p. 12.
23. Cf. reference 14, p. 86.
24. J. J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin,
1966).
25. J. J. Gibson, The Perception of the Visual World (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1950).
26. Cf. reference 25, ch. 3.
27. Cf. reference 24, ch. 11.
28. E. J. Gibson, Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development (New York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts, 1969).
29. J. J. Gibson, G. A. Kaplan, H. N. Reynolds and K. Wheeler, The Change from Visible
to Invisible: A Study of Optical Transitions, Percept. Psychophys. 5, 113 (1969).
30. Cf. reference 13, p. 206.
31. Cf. reference 24, p. 246.
32. Cf. reference 24, ch. 9-11.
33. R. Arnheim, Visual Thinking (Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Press, 1969).
34. A useful book has just been published that clarifies the little-understood phenomenon
of perspective distortion in pictures. It is Optics, Painting and Photography by
M. H. Pirenne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Professor Pirenne has
misgivings, like me, about the theory that perspective is a symbolic convention. He
defends, as I once did, the point-projection theory of pictorial information, although
cautiously. But he accepts the eye-camera analogy, as I do, and thus the new theory
here proposed will seem very strange to him.

L'information contenue dans les images

Resume-L'auteur passe en revue deux theories courantes et opposees sur la nature
de l'image: (1) l'image est formee d'un faisceau de rayons lumineux convergeant vers
un point precis: le spectateur; chaque rayon correspond a une tache de couleur sur
la surface de l'image et par consequent celle-ci peut etre considere comme un objet
reel ou une scene dans la mesure ou les rayons provenant de l'image sont semblables
aux rayons provenant de l'objet reel; (2) l'image est formee par un ensemble de symboles
qui sont a peu pres comme les mots et le spectateur doit apprendre a la 'lire'. Selon
la premiere theorie, un enfant peut percevoir un objet dans une image des qu'il peut
percevoir l'objet reel; selon la seconde, l'enfant doit apprendre a 'lire' l'image de la
meme fa9on qu'il doit apprendre a lire le discours ecrit.
II met en evidence ce qu'il y a de faux dans ces deux theories, montre qu'elles ne
peuvent se combiner et suggere une nouvelle theorie basee sur l'hypothese hardie que
la lumiere peut vehiculer de l'information et que par consequent l'esprit (ou le cerveau)
n'a pas besoin de construire le monde des apparences a partir de donnees depourvues
de signification. Cette theorie rend possible la distinction entre la perception du
monde mediatisee par l'image et la perception directe de ce qui nous entoure tout en
nous permettant de comprendre qu'une information semblable rende compte de leurs
particularites communes.
Cette theorie precise la diff6rence entre la pensee verbale et la pensee en images.
La pensee en images est plus libre et moins stereotypee que la pensee verbale; il n'y a
pas de vocabulaire de l'image comme il y a un vocabulaire de la parole. Les artistes
savent bien qu'il y a des pensees qu'on peut imaginer sans les formuler.

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