Francisco Carlos Nather

Time changes with the embodiment of another's body posture.

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the perception of presentation durations of pictures of different body postures was distorted as function of the embodied movement that originally produced these postures. Participants were presented with two pictures, one with a low-arousal body posture judged to require no movement and the other with a high-arousal body posture judged to require considerable movement. In a temporal bisection task with two ranges of standard durations (0.4/1.6 s and 2/8 s), the participants had to judge whether the presentation duration of each of the pictures was more similar to the short or to the long standard duration. The results showed that the duration was judged longer for the posture requiring more movement than for the posture requiring less movement. However the magnitude of this overestimation was relatively greater for the range of short durations than for that of longer durations. Further analyses suggest that this lengthening effect was mediated by an arousal effect of limited duration on the speed of the internal clock system.

Static Images with Different Induced Intensities of Human Body Movements Affect Subjective Time

Modulation of subjective time was examined using static images eliciting perceptions of different intensities of body movement. Undergraduate students were exposed to photographs of dancer sculptures in different dance positions for 36 sec. and asked to estimate the exposure duration. Lower movement intensities were related to shorter estimated durations. Mean durations for images of unmoving dancers were underestimated and for dancers taking a ballet step were overestimated. Temporal estimations were also related to the order of presentation of the stimuli, which suggested that subjective time estimations were influenced by the experimental context. Subjective time is related not only to the visual perception of moving images, but also of elicited perceptions of movement in static images, suggesting an embodiment effect on subjective time estimation.

Efeitos de imagens estáticas com diferentes representações de movimento sobre a percepção subjetiva de tempo

The study of the perception of movement and subjective time can be expanded with the utilization of images as visual stimuli. The aim of this work was to verify if two static images with different representations of movement would affect distinctly temporal perception. University students not trained in visual arts submitted to images with different suggestions of movement reproduced the time of presentation of the stimuli under the prospective paradigm. The results showed that the picture with the lesser suggestion of movement (Stimulus A) was judged shorter than the one with more suggestion of movement (Stimulus B), although both have been underestimated in relation to real duration. The analysis of the data of semantic differential scales, referred to 4 criteria of movement of judgment in static images, showed that stimulus A was judged having less movement than stimulus B. The conclusion was that the suggestion of movement in a static image extends the temporal experience.

Timing Perception in Paintings and Sculptures of Edgar Degas

Abstract The impressionist artist Edgar Degas (1834-1917) is widely known for his artistic production dedicated to the representation of movement. Degas has done a careful study, realistically depicting the movement both in his paintings of scenes of horses, women bathing and dancing, and in his sculptures of dancers in various positions of classical ballet. Since movements exist only at the intersection space-time, and visual works of art exist only in physical spaces defined by the works themselves, this article discusses the perception of time in the work of Degas. Therefore, this paper emphasizes aspects of the representation of movement used by the artist and the implied relations of these aspects with the perception of time. The timing perception is addressed according to studies that revealed components of the subjective perception of time related to a meeting of an observer with a work of visual art (aesthetic episode).

Exploration Time of Static Images Implying Different Body Movements Causes Time Distortions

Studies of subjective time have adopted different methods to understand different processes of time perception. Four sculptures, with implied movement ranked as 1.5-, 3.0-, 4.5-, and 6.0-point stimuli on the Body Movement Ranking Scale, were randomly presented to 42 university students untrained in visual arts and ballet. Participants were allowed to observe the images for any length of time (exploration time) and, immediately after each image was observed, recorded the duration as they perceived it. The results of temporal ratio (exploration time / time estimation) showed that exploration time of images also affected perception of time, i.e., the subjective time for sculptures representing implied movement were overestimated.

Motion Illusions in Optical Art Presented for Long Durations are Temporally Distorted

Static figurative images implying human body movements observed for shorter and longer durations affect the perception of time. This study examined whether images of static geometric shapes would affect the perception of time. Undergraduate participants observed two Optical Art paintings by Bridget Riley for 9 or 36 s (group G9 and G36, respectively). Paintings implying different intensities of movement (2.0 and 6.0 point stimuli) were randomly presented. The prospective paradigm in the reproduction method was used to record time estimations. Data analysis did not show time distortions in the G9 group. In the G36 group the paintings were differently perceived: that for the 2.0 point one are estimated to be shorter than that for the 6.0 point one. Also for G36, the 2.0 point painting was underestimated in comparison with the actual time of exposure. Motion illusions in static images affected time estimation according to the attention given to the complexity of movement by the observer, probably leading to changes in the storage velocity of internal clock pulses.

Tempo subjetivo e percepção de movimento em obras de arte

The study of images in movement as well as those static images, which represent some movement, contributes to the understanding of the role of time as a modulator of the human experience. Different forms of representing and inducing movement in stimuli or in distinct works of visual art shall involve not only specific techniques, but different forms of interaction which only occur when there is an encounter between the work of art and the spectator. The perception of movement, probably, is not confined to a unique decomposition or sum of its constituent greatnesses (time, space and speed), thus in its cognition the internal and external sensations and perceptions are combined, which occur in distinct systems and perceptual systems. Nevertheless, correlated processes shall respond by the perception of real movements, induced and represented ones. Having come from the intersection of temporal space, the utilization of movement in studies of experimental aesthetics can contribute to the understanding of the processes that act in the subjective perception of time.