Re: Reading Images

Craig, Jacqueline (JCraig@NENTMCS1.TELECOM.COM.AU)
Fri, 5 Jan 1996 09:55:00 EST

I know this is diverging from the origingal point somewhat, but I couldn't
resist...

>Whoa, Bob! I don't know about your cats, but mine certainly know a bird
>is a bird is a bird whether its on the windowsill or the television.
>One of my cats even tries to hunt animated birds when displayed on a
>hi-res computer. Can't say what dogs see though.
>Happy New Year!

>Jessie

I've also seen my cats 'hunt' birds and mice on tv, but I'm not sure that
they actually realise that what they are patting with their paw is a bird or
a mouse. I believe that cats (I'm not sure about dogs) respond to certain
types of movements (sudden, jerky) more than to what is actually doing the
moving. That is, if you pull a piece of string slowly and steadily, a cat
may lose interest. But if you pull it in fits and starts and zig-zag all
over, they suddenly get very interested indeed.


Now back to a more relevant topic!

>Let me put it this way; if you had never seen the English alphabets before
>in your life and you were confronted with it for the first time. What would
>you see? Would you see the shapes of each individual letter? or could you
>only see it (and identify it as the letter "A") if you had been taught that
>this is the letter "a"- apple begins with the letter.....

I think that if I were a literate person in another language, I would
certainly recognise the English alphabet as an alphabet even if I didn't
know what the letters represented. Certainly, I can recognise letters in
the Cyrillic and Arabic alphabets even though I have no idea what sounds
they correspond to.

However, if I came from a culture that had no history of writing, then what
I would see when confronted with the English alphabet is much more complex!
I don't know if an individual in that situation would be able to discern
individual letters or not, or if they could, what they would mean to them.
Pretty lines I suppose.

However, I don't think that photographs and alphabets are really comparable
things, because one is based on vision and perspective, things that humans
use every day; while the other depends heavily on a specialised knowlege
that takes a long time to learn and is not necessarily linked to vision.

cheers,
Jacqui