Do all humans view a composition from left to right?

I posted the following comments on another forum but (so far) no

discussion has been generated. Now, it could be that it does not

warrent discussion, but I'll leave that to you to decide...<br>

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My comments were: <i>"I also find it fascinating to discover that many

(most?) humans 'naturally' scan an image from left to right (same as

reading) and that you should compose your compositions accordingly to

benefit from this.<br>

<br>

It gets me wondering if this scanning from left to right is a 'western

world' phenomenon. <br>

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How do other cultures that read (for example) from right - left, or

from top - bottom - across interpret compositions? <br>

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Does the same composition elicit different emotional responses

depending on the cultural reading norms the viewer is from?<br>

<br>

Maybe someone here can shed further light on this?"</i><br>

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And, if this is the case, how does all this impact on your

'photography'?<br>

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For your consideration. M

Left-to-right viewing is a western-world thing.

Note that Japanese books and magazines have their pages arranged right-to left.

That reading habits might influence viewing habits is certainly a very interesting assertion. However, short of research into the viewing habits of people of from different cultures as well as illiterate persons, pre-literate cultures and children, it would be very hard to substantiate.

 

I am not entirely sure I approach visual objects from left to right. The individual photograph seems to dictate the center of attention from which one starts the exploration of the photograph. This seems natural because unlike reading, which is linear, photography is spatial and is equally and totally accessible at once. I am reminded of Derrida and others' analysis of reading as 'unfolding' and I am trying to think what a photographic parallel of that would be.

 

Finally, FWIW, I am from eastern India and from a culture where reading from left to right is also considered 'natural' in the convention of the Indo European languages.

 

-A

I am uncomfortable when certain things are just tagged 'Western.' Left to right reading is something 'Westerners' share whith several other cultures. There isn't just West and Not-West but a multiplicity of overlapping cultures and discourses of which Western (European/North American) culture is just one.

 

-A

I don't read every photograph left to right. There are photographs that would be very difficult to read left to right. For example a photo where the dominate figure is heavily weighted to the right, or where the only fiure in the photo is in the lower right hand corner.

Also I would say that verticles are less inclined to be read left to right.

According to my knowledge "scanning" photographs happens in the same way as reading text, if one is taught to read.

 

For example Hebraic is read from right to left as far as I know. What I don't know is if this language is important enough to set up the scanning habits of people. - are there pure hebraic only Israelis or are they confused by reading other languages?

 

I use the western world habits to describe vehicles and boats. To call it "fast" I let it move from left to right, To make it look strong, long lasting or struggling against currents I picture it moving to the left.

 

I suppose top to bottom reading isn't relevant. - Emphasizing the speed of a motorbike , by showing it lifting the rear wheel against the pulled front brake doesn't make sense.

<i>Hebraic is read from right to left as far as I know. What I don't know is if this language is important enough to set up the scanning habits of people. - are there pure hebraic only Israelis or are they confused by reading other languages?</i>

 

<p>Several languages based on the Arabic script go left to right, AFAIK. Languages like Chinese go top to bottom. And yes, these languages are important enough in the sense billions of people read, speak and think in them exclusively. Also, what of illiterate people?

 

<p>I am with John in doubting that we read spatial images like linear script.

 

<p>-A

I meant right to left in the context of Arabic and similar languages. Sorry.

I'm not a scientist or biologist, so my remarks here come from "gut feeling". I also doubt that the direction of text-reading plays any part in how a photograph would be viewed. The most "normal" thing we do with our eyes is simply to look; our brains don't demand that scenery or images be processed in a linear fashion from one direction to another; our minds are much more powerful than a mechanical device and can interpret an entire scene all at once. In other words, our eyes & brain don't operate like mechanical scanners.

 

However, to represent text in a readable format does require that it be laid out in a linear fashion, because the only way to make sense of the text is to read the letters & words in the correct order. This is not really a natural thing - we have to be taught to do this at school. Different cultures have different conventions for laying out text so that it can be read in the right order, but because this is not a base instinct, I don't believe that this influences how general scenery or pictures are viewed.

 

It's worth mentioning that when we read, we do not read one letter at a time in sequence (whether reading left-to-right or right-to-left or vertically down a page): we see an entire word and the brain instantly interprets it. The direction of the text is therefore less important than the ability to recognise at a glance what a single word is, and again highlights the fact that our brain sees in entire scenes, not just individual sequential components of the scene. In this case, the "scene" is an individual word; a page is made up of many such "scenes".

 

Well, that's my take on it :-)

FWIW I've tried 'reversing' images in slide presentations where the composition in the natural (as in 'real-life') scene was strongly right-left, and shown the audience this and also a reversed version. The majority of people preferred it the 'wrong' way round ie reading left-right.

 

I have twice viewed work by photographers who have contacted me for a critique online (so I have never met them) and I've correctly surmised (from their compositions) that they are left-handed. I have no idea why. It was just a 'feeling' about their work and on reflection I could not detect any one really obvious visual clue that would indicate this to me.

 

I should add that I have also got it VERY wrong too!

 

The whole area of left/right brain activity and artistic composition (and viewing) is interesting. If anyone with some professional insight into this subject could contribute I'd be grateful.

I certainly do. And when I shoot portriats I always light them from the right so that the shadows are on the left, thus directing the viewer from left to right. I do this instinctively since it just seems to 'look right'.

Hi, I like to view images a number of ways. However, for most pratical purposes I think Anupam Basu has hit the proverbial nail square and true. There is a mix of sysems, some people drive on the left, some on the right. Some folks write and shoot left and some right. One guy said to me, you should try to write left handed, it is good for your brain! I guess he meant that it excersises the other hemisphere I usually don't use when wring right handed. Anyhow, for practical purposes I think that humans are slow to become ambidextrous and it may be a long time before we can all see images ambidextrously too. I see that web pages are designed with the tabs etc on the left and the text on the right. All these things are designed to fit into a system. If you always light a portraight from the right so the shadows appear on the left, then people will become accustomed to that. If that is also the norm, you will sell more photos. Perhaps the lower right corner of any photo is the focal point of many photographers, however I like to see other angles of view. The groundglass on a camera back is an intesting way to see!

 

Cheers.

"Do all humans view a composition from left to right?"<p>

 

I didn't know there was a rule. Many of my images are right to left as opposed to left to right and vice-a-verse. I didn't know people limited themselves in this manner. As a throughly Westernized American, I didn't know that I was supposed to be ruled by these rules of non-multi-culturalism. Sometimes I go so far as to not have a central point-of-view so the viewer has to scan the image and put the scene together for themselves. Oh silly me:)<p>

 

Below is a link to my last image where I did both, bring the viewer in on the center point and then draw the viewer to the left all the while leaving them to wonder about the empty on the right so they have to move around the image as opposed to having one center point of thought.<p>

 

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/3184852&size=lg">McKean Rd</a><p>

 

I can't help you with your question in that it's not a question I've been held sway too. Hope my above comment helps you with your question.<p>

I very much doubt this proposition. Attention to visual stimuli, based upon evolutionary principles, would not have us scanning from left to right (at least not for long!). Our attention would be more likely driven firstly by elements of movement or their suggestion. Then perhaps by objects that somehow stand out in differentiated ways. My opinion is not researched, but I would put bet money that the original proposition is not true.

When using a large format camera, images appear upside down and reversed on the ground glass, thereby making the juxtaposition of shapes and other compositional elements the driving concern. The eye naturally flows from dominant to less dominant, independently (in my opinion) from any left-to-right (or top-to-bottom) bias.

I should add that we would also be highly biased to search out faces when present...

I would agree that people brought up in a culture with left-to-right writing tend to scan the image from left to right, and with right-to-left writing -- from right to left.

 

I believe when the following image was shown to Westerners, they almost uniformly called it "stairs going up". Same image shown to Arabs had them almost as uniformly call it "stairs going down"...

Thank you all for putting your thoughts to 'paper'. <br>

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This is certainly a fascinating discussion. Many of you have suggested that how an individual views a photo is not contingent upon the cultural reading norms of that person - linear/spatial.<br>

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Still others have suggested that it does ? the example given of the stairs is an interesting one. In fact, I?m going to present this image to my work mates and see how they interpret it. Will let you know the results later.<br>

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M

sey

I printed out (in colour) the image supplied by .KAA and did a really quick survey of how my work mates interpreted the image. Here are the results:<br>

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Number of people surveyed: 14<br>

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Of the 14 people, 12 were from 'European' descent, 1 was 'Eurasian' and, 1 was Persian.<br>

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13 people (including the Eurasian and Persian) stated that it was an image of stairs going up. Only one person stated that it was going down - and that person was from 'European' descent.<br>

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Interestingly, the person of Persian descent indicated that even though they read from right to left, they processed mathematics from left to right as per the universal convention.<br>

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The survey size is very small and strongly biased towards left to right reading cultures but it does hint at an interesting correlation between reading methods and visual processing. <br>

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Now, I wonder how illiterate people would interpret the image? <br>

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Would be interested to read your thoughts on all of this.<br>

<br>

M

This example has nothing to do with the question of how we process visual stimuli. This example relates rather specifically to how we 'interpret' visual ambiguity. A different problem altogether. You can not correctly infer from this that we (westerners) process images left to right. (The correct answer of course is that the stairs are going up and down, but that was not an option given. The results are forced to begin with...)

Your assumption that "we" read photographs from left to right is flawed. There are some excellent studies showing that how a picture is read depends on the content of the picture, just as one reads a face by moving from point to point, not linearly at all. It would appear that the only people who read photographs from left to right are PSA judges at the local cattle...er, I mean camera, clubs.

I'm dubious about the set of stairs example. It's a stylized image of a set of steps with no context whatsoever. Either answer is correct, and one has to made the decision on whether they're "going up" or "going down" based purely on imagination. This is, in fact, very much like the glass half-full/glass half-empty question they use in psych tests.

 

The real world and photographs of it generally have context; a set of steps is not just an isolated object suspended in blank space - it's connected to something at both ends that removes the need for us to use our imaginations to fill in the missing context. A photograph containing a set of steps in its environment would not cause the same response as the contrived example illustration.

This is an excellent question - I've been around photo.net for years and am sorry I haven't found this forum before now!

 

I would challenge the notion that most folks scan/view images from left-to-right, up-to-down, right-to-left, whatever. I think it would be highly unnatural to even try it. I would also dare to say that anyone who composes to accomodate this method of 'reading' photographs, as suggested, is putting huge constraints on their work.

 

The visual language is a very powerful means of communication that we have been using for thousands of years. We're well equipped to process visual images without the asstance of text. It's something that is natural to us, and it will always be with us, at the ready when called upon, just like our native verbal languages.

 

When we are faced with a photograph, the composition guide us instead of words and grammar. Our ability to read images just takes over, naturally. To try and read the image as text would be going against that which is natural to us.

 

If you'll indulge me: All an artist needs to do is add a big red spot on the right side of an image and the whole "read a photo from left-to-right" philosophy flies out the window. Our eye is going to jump on that big red spot, passing everything on the left side of the photo. Our brains have been processing pictures for thousands of years. You can't just turn that off when you decide to try and read from left-to-right. It just won't work.

 

The visual language is altogether different from the written/spoken word. They are governed by different sets of guidelines, and 'reading' the two 'languages' requires two entirely different skill sets. I just don't see someone seriously trying to read a photo from left-to-right.

"...Our eye is going to jump on that big red spot, passing everything on the left side of the photo. Our brains have been processing pictures for thousands of years..."

 

And the advertising/psychology/perception researchers have been looking at that processing for more than a few years too, using eye-tracking gadgets.

 

If anyone wants hard information they need to do some research in the scientific literature. If all that's wanted is a rough idea then a visit to some markets catering to different ethnic groups is indicated.

 

Near as I can tell, red and yellow trump everything else.