I’ve always been interested in those studies that erupt every now and then on how people can read text even with large quantities of the letters missing or scrambled. (I once met the man whose thesis all these reports were based on – he was amazed at how much interest it generated.)
A post on my other blog has recently produced a visual equivalent of this. I was talking about my office in response to Stephen Curry’s excellent post and asked if anyone could recognize my favourite painting from the print in the top right hand corner of this picture:
Somewhat amazingly, someone already has. There is really very little visual information in that image – yet she was able to pick out one painting from millions. Never underestimate the strength of our pattern recognition capabilities. This is, of course, why we see patterns where they don’t exist, assuming false causality. But in the case it was spot on. Nice one, Wendy.
I guess it’s all about pattern recognition. One of the things I enjoy about going to an art gallery is trying to recognise what pictures / artists I am reminded of by the picture I am looking at.
Impressive! I had looked at the picture – someone sitting on a stone bench? – but it didn’t ring any bells for me.
The person is standing up. There is no bench. But apart from that, good try Stephen!
I think there are dogs in the painting, on either side of the person. Or sheep, perhaps.
Anyway, beautiful office, Brian. What would we do without Ikea? Half the furniture, and all of the lamps, in my house would disappear. And Ikea carries on the tradition of the prose Eddas, giving proper names to ordinary objects.
Btw, I just ordered a copy of Upgrade Me from Amazon. I’m looking forward to reading it!
That’s great, Kristi – I hope you find it interesting. Now you tell me, I can see the dogs in that painting, but sadly they don’t exist. What appear to be dogs are actually (could this be a giveaway?) bottles.
Brian: I’m afraid your painting doesn’t activate any pattern recognition circuits for me, then. Usually I remember most paintings I’ve seen in museums or books, so perhaps I’ve never seen the one on your wall. I’m intrigued to find out what it is, though!
I recognize the painting (I hope!) – it’s of a woman facing out from the canvas. The light bits are the bottom are her fore-arms, with frilly cuffs, and the light above is her chest, with her head above it.
I’ve been trying to work out where I saw it. I think it might have been on adverts for one of the Helsinki museums. This means (a) I’ve no idea who painted it (a French impressionist?), and (b) advertising only partially works.
I think I need upgrading.
Google rules
Raf gets the ‘scientist wot know art’ of the week award – yes, it’s Manet’s A Bar at the Folies Bergere. (So Bob get’s half a point for ‘French impressionist’ and the cuffs etc)
I think the two things I love about it are that the subject just doesn’t look like the subject of an arty portrait, and those utterly strange reflections in the mirror behind her – clearly QED in action. (Oh and the legs on the trapeze in the top LH corner.)
For those too lazy to follow Raf’s link, here it is:
Raf – I think you are correct. How did you do it on Google? (I got it because it was a popular print in my student days).
Curse the cross-post time delay
Curse the cross-post time delay – sounds like a quote from Doctor Who…
Points should be shared with Bob indeed – I googled ‘woman standing bottles painting’ and then screened the results for anything impressionistic (I have to admit I have done painting googling before…)
Quick update – thanks to Peter Cox for this website, Tineye which allows you to search the web for an image, so could have come in useful.
Unfortunately in this case, even enhanced, the picture from my wall at the top of this post is not detailed enough for the system recognize (one up for human recognition), so it wouldn’t have helped with this quest.
But the detailed picture a couple of comments above found a couple of hundred copies out there…