What is it about?
This study illustrates how the implicit perceptual factors of the visual cortex served to bias the preferences of Upper Paleolithic hunters leading to the way animals were depicted in particular ways.
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Why is it important?
Most studies of Upper Paleolithic art are based on the conscious intentions of paleo-artists. This study shows that many of the graphic features of the depicted animals may have been derived from more implicit tendencies relating to the need to rapidly identify animals.
Perspectives
The paper was motivated by a lack of the wealth of data coming from perceptual psychology and visual neuroscience which, at the time the paper was published, was largely ignored by the academic community and urgently needed to be applied to the field in order to provide new insights.
Derek Hodgson
University of York
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Seeing the ‘Unseen’: Fragmented Cues and the Implicit in Palaeolithic Art, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, April 2003, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0959774303000064.
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