• Demonstrate knowledge of the basic properties and functions of the human visual system, including how vision potentially relates to the psychological systems involved in decision making and emotion.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the fundamental properties of visual communication, and how visual communication differs from linguistic communication.
• Describe the basic characteristics and building blocks of different types of visual media.
• Provide illustrative examples of the role that visual communication plays in everyday interactions, and the advertising and marketing of commercial products and political ideas.
• Analyse relevant theories, models, and empirical findings in a coherent and critical way, while observing academic conventions regarding the presentation of arguments and the use of references.

Vision is one of the primary human senses and the ‘distance sense’ par excellence, while visual communication is one of the main forms of human communication along with language. Instances of visual media are to be found everywhere we look. Examples of visual media include static images (e.g., drawings and photographs), moving images (e.g., film and television), and a variety of ‘new media’ and associated platforms (e.g., the internet, iPhones, computer games, and virtual reality). In a business and society context, meanwhile, advertising and marketing can be thought of, first and foremost, as exercises in competing for the visual attention of the user or consumer.

Despite the prevalence of the visual in everyday life, visual communication often does not receive the attention that it deserves. One of the reasons for this is that purely visual images lack the symbolic and syntactic devices typically associated with language. As a result, images are less suited to making explicit propositional statements, less assessable in terms of truth and falsity, less easy to legislate for in legal and ethical terms, and less conducive to understanding in general. Research suggests, however, that the human visual system is intimately connected – in both functional and neurobiological terms – to the psychological systems responsible for decision making, emotion, and numerous other response tendencies.
 
The general objective of this elective course is to understand the role of visual communication/media in everyday interactions, with a particular focus on the perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processes of the user/consumer. An additional objective is to understand the role of visual communication/media in the advertising and marketing of commercial products and political ideas, from the perspective of both the manufacturer (the ‘sender’) and the user/consumer (the ‘receiver’), again with a focus on perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processes.
 
The first part of the course will give an overview of the basic properties and functions of the human visual system, with reference to research in both perceptual psychology and cognitive neuroscience. It will also give an account of how the human visual system relates to, and potentially impacts upon, the psychological systems involved in decision making and emotion. In the second part of the course, we will examine the fundamental properties of visual communication, and how visual communication differs from linguistic communication, with reference to work on visual literacy and persuasion (e.g., Messaris, 1994, 1997), visual semiotics (Sonesson, 1989), visual rhetoric (e.g., Scott, 1994), and visual metaphor (e.g., Forceville, 1996).

The third part of the course will give an overview of the basic characteristics and building blocks of different types of visual media, including static images (e.g., drawings and photographs) and moving images (e.g., film and television). For example, the basic principles for constructing film sequences (cinematography and editing) will be discussed. In the fourth and final part of the course, we will consider how the above (traditionally analogue) media have been employed and developed in ‘new’ (or digitally-based) media and associated platforms (e.g., the internet, iPhones, computer games, and virtual reality).

This elective course references and partially overlaps with the proposed elective course ‘Cognition and communication: An Introduction’ (BA-DB2_IBC).

 

The following list of readings is preliminary and based on monographs and edited anthologies. The final list of readings will include specific book chapters and journal articles.
 
 
Understanding visual perception
 
Eysenck, M. W., & Keane, M. T. (2010). Cognitive psychology: A student’s handbook (6th Ed.). Selected chapters. Hove: Psychology Press.
 
Gazzaniga, M. S., Ivry, R. B., & Mangun, G. R. (2008). Cognitive neuroscience: The biology of the mind (3rd Ed.). Selected chapters. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
 
 
Visual literacy and persuasion
 
Messaris, P. (1994). Visual literacy: Image, mind, and reality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
 
Messaris, P. (1997). Visual persuasion: The role of images in advertising. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
 
 
Visual semiotics, visual rhetoric, and visual metaphor
 
Sonesson, G. (1989). Pictorial concepts: Inquiries into the semiotic heritage and its relevance for the analysis of the visual world. Lund: Lund University Press.
 
Scott, L. (1994). Images in advertising: The need for a theory of visual rhetoric. Journal of Consumer Research,21, 252–273.
 
Forceville, C. (1996). Pictorial metaphor in advertising. London: Routledge.
 
 
Communications research
 
J. Bryant, & D. Zillmann (Eds.) (1991). Responding to the screen: Reception and reaction processes. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
 
 
Film and television
 
Anderson, J. D. (1996). The reality of illusion: An ecological approach to cognitive film theory. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
 
C. Plantinga, & G. M. Smith (Eds.) (1999). Passionate views: Film, cognition, and emotion. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
 
Nannicelli, T., & Taberham, P. (Eds.) (2014). Cognitive media theory. Routledge/AFI Film Reader. New York: Routledge.
 
 
New media
 
Siapera, E. (2012). Understanding new media. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.