• Demonstrate knowledge of the basic properties of visual communication, and how visual communication differs from linguistic communication.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the basic properties and functions of the human visual system, including how vision potentially connects to the psychological systems involved in action, emotion, and decision making.
• Have a good understanding of 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, political ideas, and social causes.
• 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 main human senses and visual communication one of the main forms of human communication along with language. Examples of visual media are to be found everywhere we look: they include still images (e.g., drawings, paintings, and photographs), moving images (e.g., film and television), and an ever increasing number of digital images and associated platforms (e.g., computer-generated imagery, internet web pages, video 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/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 action, emotion, and various other response tendencies.

The primary objective of this elective course is to understand the role of visual communication 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 in the advertising and marketing of commercial products, political ideas, and social causes.

The first, and introductory, part of the course will examine the basic properties of visual communication, with reference to work on communication theory, semiotics, and visual literacy. In particular, the question of how visual communication differs from linguistic communication will be addressed. The second 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 cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. It will also give an account of how the human visual system is potentially connected to the psychological systems involved in action, emotion, and decision making.

The goal of the third part of the course is to give students an overview of the basic characteristics and building blocks of different types of visual media, including examples of the still images, moving images, and digital images cited above. For example, the basic principles for constructing film sequences (cinematography and editing) will be discussed and recent digital developments will be considered.

The following list of readings is indicative and based on monographs and edited anthologies. The final list of readings will include specific book chapters and journal articles.

Communication theory, semiotics, and visual literacy

Fiske, J. (1990). Introduction to communication studies (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge.

Messaris, P. (1994). Visual “literacy”: Image, mind, and reality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, Inc.

Smith, K., Moriarty, S., Barbatsis, G., & Kenney, K. (Eds.) (2005). Handbook of visual communication: Theory, methods, and media. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Understanding visual perception

Fodor, J. A. (1983). The modularity of mind: An essay on faculty psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Eysenck, M. W., & Keane, M. T. (2010). Cognitive psychology: A student’s handbook (6th ed.). Selected chapters. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

Land, M. F., & Tatler, B. W. (2009). Looking and acting: Vision and eye movements in natural behaviour. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Film, television, and visual media

Anderson, J. D. (1996). The reality of illusion: An ecological approach to cognitive film theory. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

Plantinga, C., & Smith, G. M. (Eds.) (1999). Passionate views: Film, cognition, and emotion. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Nannicelli, T., & Taberham, P. (Eds.) (2014). AFI film reader in cognitive media theory. New York, NY: Routledge.

Visual persuasion and visual metaphor

Messaris, P. (1997). Visual persuasion: The role of images in advertising. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Forceville, C. (1996). Pictorial metaphor in advertising. London, UK: Routledge.

Wedel, M., & Pieters, R. (Eds.) (2008). Visual marketing: From attention to action. New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.