Seeing the World Differently: An Analysis of Descriptions of Visual Experiences Provided by Visual Artists and Nonartists

ABSTRACT: This project examined nonartists', hobby artists', student artists', and professional artists' responses to questions about the visual games and visual analyses they engaged in as adults and their recollections of these experiences from childhood. Findings indicate that in comparison to nonartists, (a) more artists reported these visual perceptual experiences, (b) artists reported having these experiences more often (particularly as adults), and (c) artists provided better examples of these perceptual experiences that were also more vivid and detailed (particularly as adults). These findings suggest an important connection between artists' reports of past and current visual experiences and actual performance on attention and object perception tasks. Our long-term goal is to understand the importance of visual perceptual abilities to the development of artistic talent.