Visual perception, ambiguity and illusion: an approach to the concept of spatial depth and its application in visual arts

Abstract

Visual perception is an almost essential phenomenon to fully comprehend our reality. But, can we really claim that we have a completely objective knowledge of what we perceive? In this paper we discuss the agents involved in the visual perception of space and the existent possibilities to determine its own degree of objectivity based on the analysis and critical-comparative studies of various written works by a wide range of philosophers, psychologists, scientists and historians, which show studies and theories about visual perception. Depth, one of the key concepts in this article, can be interpreted and inferred in various ways and it can also lead to visual illusions, given the high degree of ambiguity in it. Our contribution has the aim of analyzing and emphasizing the connection between the perception of an external reality to the own subject and the self-knowledge about themselves, that is at the same time determined by the spatial temporal and socio-cultural context. This complexity is also reflected in numerous visual illusions, which began to be studied in ancient history and gained a lot of relevance during the 20th century in psychology studies with the introduction of the Gestalt psychology. We will finish the article referring to the existent possibilities and strategies to create visual illusions in the field of plastic arts, specifically in the alteration of the sensation of depth perceived by an observer.