Sensation vs. perception : a study and analysis of two methods affecting cognition

Abstract

In this thesis I discuss methods of projects that create cognitive effects that can be categorized into two situations: through sensation (outside stimulations/objective/bottom-up processing in neuroscience) or through perception (arousing background knowledge of inner mind/subjective/top-down processing in neuroscience). Similar effects can be reached through different ways. For example, to make something disappear, blending it into the environment through camouflage is changing the external stimulation, while a "lilac chaser illusion" is the result of influencing the retina and our brain. I will apply research on human sensation and perception from two perspectives: the psychological (neuroscience) realm and the phenomenological. My research mostly focuses on theories of vision, current studies on physiological information processing in visual systems, and the phenomenological theories of sensation and perception according to Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty.

It also includes a conceptual framework for theories of perception, dreams, consciousness, imagination, and hallucination presented by Dennett, Windt, and Metzinger. I also explore case studies of artistic projects and discuss these in terms of the ways that controlling visual stimuli or influencing perception affects the ways we apprehend the visual. Practices that are famous for affecting and challenging human cognition, including light and space arts and opt arts, will be discussed. The artworks created by different artists, such as James Turrell, Ann Veronica Janssens, Richard Anuskiewicz, and Brio Gysin, will be discussed and categorized into either top-down (sensation) or bottom-up (perception) works of art based on the methodology used to affect audiences' experiences and cognition of their work.

Finally, I will also involve my own practice during past years in discovering the relationship between art and neuroscience, the outside stimulation and inside interpretation, the objectivity and subjectivity. Through this thesis, I will argue for an approach that allows for a new hermeneutics of seeing that ultimately enhances the viewer's capacity to perceive.