Wade Nicholas J
School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, UK.
Spat Vis. 2007;21(1-2):27-53. doi: 10.1163/156856807782753967.
Visual artists and visual scientists are often concerned with examining the same spatial phenomena, but the methods they adopt differ radically. Scientists try to discover new facts regarding old phenomena; they rarely discover new phenomena but different conditions under which the old ones operate (perhaps using some novel apparatus for generating stimuli). Artists are concerned with arranging phenomena in a manner that has not been seen before, or perhaps to increase the spectators' awareness of the phenomena. This typically involves complicating the effects rather than simplifying pattern elements. Thus, scientists rarefy and isolate phenomena to control them in the laboratory, whereas artists embrace complexity and manipulate phenomena intuitively. The differences in method have resulted in divergent vocabularies for describing similar effects, and the two approaches can appear more disparate than their phenomenal commonality would suggest. It could be argued that for spatial vision, prior to the advent of computer graphics, visual scientists have not represented adequately the subject matter of their own enquiry; this want was supplied by visual artists. Not only have artists provided more engaging examples of spatial phenomena, but they have also enhanced their range in ways that are scientifically novel. The opposite argument applies to motion perception, where scientists developed techniques that were eagerly adopted in the arts. The interactions between art and both spatial and motion vision were influenced by instruments invented in the early nineteenth century for manipulating the representation of space and time - the stereoscope and the stroboscopic disc.
视觉艺术家和视觉科学家常常关注相同的空间现象，但他们采用的方法却截然不同。科学家试图发现关于旧现象的新事实；他们很少发现新现象，而是发现旧现象产生作用的不同条件（或许使用一些新颖的仪器来产生刺激）。艺术家则关注以一种前所未有的方式来安排现象，或者提高观众对这些现象的感知。这通常涉及让效果变得复杂而非简化图案元素。因此，科学家提纯并分离现象以便在实验室中对其进行控制，而艺术家则接受复杂性并直观地操控现象。方法上的差异导致了用于描述相似效果的不同术语，而且这两种方法可能看起来比它们在现象上的共性所暗示的更为迥异。可以说，在计算机图形学出现之前，对于空间视觉而言，视觉科学家并未充分呈现他们自己所研究主题的内容；视觉艺术家弥补了这一不足。艺术家不仅提供了更引人入胜的空间现象示例，还以科学上新颖的方式拓展了其范围。相反的观点适用于运动感知，在这方面科学家开发的技术被艺术领域热切采用。艺术与空间视觉和运动视觉之间的相互作用受到19世纪早期发明的用于操控空间和时间表现的仪器——立体镜和频闪盘的影响。
