Visual-Object Versus Visual-Spatial Representations: Insights from Studying Visualization in Artists and Scientists

Abstract

This paper aims at to demonstrate that visual-object processing can support abstract visual-object representation in the same way as visual-spatial processing supports abstract visual-spatial representations, and that the visual representations contained in abstract art indeed constitute a unique and meaningful symbolic system, irreducible to that used in the visual-spatial domain. Specifically we compared how visual artists and scientists interpret abstract visual-spatial representations, such as kinematics graphs, and visual-object representations, such as modern abstract art.