SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Debate over the underlying nature of thought takes essentially two positions: (1) thought as propositional logic (e.g., Pylyshyn, 1984) versus (2) thought based in abstract visual–spatial imagery (e.g., Arnheim, 1969; Hunt, 1995; Lakoff, 1987; Johnson, 1987; Shepard, 1978). Hunt (1995) explains how Gibson’s theory of ecological perception, especially his notions about self-in-the-world and perceptual

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fl ow, is linked to the development of consciousness. Gibson locates a unitary space– time in the here–there, whither–whence fl ow of the perceptual array itself. He also views awareness as a direct resonance with the fl ow of the world. Hunt notes that Gibson’s direct perception specifi es where we are in relation to the navigational affordances of a display and navigation produces changes in the gradients of fl ow, surface, and texture. He continues that it is diffi cult to imagine a creature oriented in an array in which it does not recognize selected patterns as especially relevant. Therefore, Hunt argues that, “If self-refl ective symbolic cognition is, as Neisser (1976) and Bartlett (1932) have insisted, based on the reorganization and recom- bination of perceptual processes, then we might expect Gibson’s fl ow dynamics to reemerge as part of the organizing template for higher mental processes” (p. 70). Hunt (1995) argues that consciousness is a capacity involving direction, choice, and synthesis of nonconscious processes, exemplifying the deep structure of a kind of intelligence that directly reuses and reorganizes the structures of perception. Spatial abilities are the framework needed for its full development (Hunt, 1995, p. 46).

A number of theorists have contributed to our understanding of the visual–spatial basis of thought. Arnheim’s (1969, 1974) view that abstract visual imagery is the deep structure of verbal and nonverbal conceptual thought is based on his work in aesthetics. He states that felt meanings of visual art (whether naturalistic or abstract-expressionist) are most immediately conveyed by the abstract “visual dynamics” or “skeleton of forces” embedded in the painting at the most basic level of fi gure/ground differen- tiation. Using stroboscopic exposures, Arnheim showed that rapid oscillations did not provide enough time to identify specifi c objects in a painting. Rather, its most basic physiognomic or expressive structure was a looming fundamental dynamic shape. For Arnheim, visual dynamics are “felt” as much as they are seen. Some art- ists agree. Kandinsky (see Knight, 2001) describes content as the inner element, the emotion in art, while form, the external element, must serve as its embodiment.

Some research has linked shapes with emotions. Bang (1991) has shown that predominantly horizontal line dynamics tend to convey stability and calm, verti- cals are more exciting and upward striving, and diagonals convey greater tension. Arnheim believed that abstract diagrams and imagery were important to scientifi c discovery and Shepard (1978) documented that physical scientists think in spontaneous geometric dynamic imagery. As Hunt argues (1995, p. 174), “the apparent lack of communication in abstract dynamics alone shows that they refl ect primarily the inner and microgenic processes of felt meaning and less the conventional, culturally dictated codes for referential pointing.” In other words, geometric shapes and abstract drawings may permit insights by virtue of the fact that they contain felt meaning without referential constraints.

Arnheim’s analysis suggesting that fundamental shapes convey felt meaning, not detailed perceptual realism, has important implications for constructing media designed to encourage the development of consciousness. This perspective stands

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in contrast to VR and VG designers, who traditionally place great importance on realism. Players also rate realism (of sound, graphics, and setting) as an important characteristic of VGs (Wood et al., 2004), and new products to enhance realism are popular, such as the optical head tracker, allowing the gamer to use slight head movements to look around the game environment. Early VGs contained simple shapes due to the limitations of displays. With improved graphics, available details increased and this made pattern recognition easier. Further advances have resulted in more complex environments and more complex games requiring players to master considerable learning during repetitive play. VR designers also had early display quality problems, and a link between sensory fi delity and performance was

a common assumption not always achieved in practice. Biocca (1996) has suggested that, to affect performance, virtual design might selectively highlight relevant cues, effectively simulating how we think rather than simulating reality. To do this, we need to identify metaphors for thinking.

Arnheim states that only geometric dynamics are suffi ciently complex, pre- cise, and ultrarapid enough to be a primary medium of thought. He asserted that “the perceptual qualities of shape and motion are present in the very acts of thinking” (Arnheim, 1969, p. 118). He continues that they are the medium in which thinking itself takes place. For Arnheim, ultrarapid geometric–dynamic imagery is basic to all thought and he provided many examples of drawings refl ecting individuals’ understandings of abstract verbal concepts such as time. As Hunt notes, such drawings demonstrate that the logic of semantic relations can be translated into abstract forms, but they lack referential pointing. Arnheim argued that referential pointing is the main function of language while abstract dynamic imagery refl ects the inner and microgenic processes of felt meaning. That is, for Arnheim, visual–spatial metaphor is the basis of abstract thought, an idea that was further developed by Lakoff and Johnson.

For Lakoff (1987) and Johnson (1987), basic perception provides “basic level structures” as well as “image schemas.” These more abstract forms are regularly occurring embodied patterns of experience, including container, center–periphery, source–goal, up–down, and balance Conceptual structure becomes meaningful because abstract spatial metaphors are kinesthetically embodied. According to Lakoff (1987), image schemas are as basic to the self-referential conceptualization of human experience as they are to the representations of the structures of the external world.

Hunt (1995, p. 175) notes that Lakoff and Johnson both treat image schemas as amodal rather than synesthetic. (See Hunt’s Ch. 7, “Synesthesia: The Inner Face of Thought and Meaning,” for a fuller discussion.) He argues that there must be a step beyond the manifestation of these structures in movement that is needed to raise them to the status of organizing spatial metaphors, simply because movement structures (path, near–far, etc.) are also organizing behavior principles for nonsym- bolic creatures. This missing step is “their abstraction for symbolic use by means of

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cross-modal translations and transformations” (p. 175). As cross-modal emergents, they would be more complex than simple synesthesias and “would be the fundamental structures out of which representational semantics and syntax could emerge, on the one hand, along with the more structurally intricate patterns of abstract conceptual thought and spontaneous presentational states, on the other” (p. 175). Hunt points out that Arnheim and others suggest that the concept of openness of consciousness could not be thought, let alone realized as felt meaning, without the metaphors afforded by the perception of sky, space, and glowing light or luminosity. “The openness of space constitutes the closest metaphoric approximation to the categories that representational self-reference can ever fully encompass—consciousness, self, and time” (p. 209). Hunt (2004a) further argues that heightened self-awareness is based on the forms of consciousness itself and becomes visible through the embodiment of synesthetic metaphors derived from more abstract properties of nature. For example, ecstatic states can

be induced in individuals who are “suitably open to their kinesthetic embodiment and resonance” with the contemplation of “light, wind, fi re, and fl owing water, the heights and depths of ravines and mountains, etc.” (Hunt, 2004a, p. 20).

Hunt distinguishes a more impersonal experience or presence such as the glow of luminous open space becoming, with cross-modal translation, the metaphor for the openness of time. Vital presence is a more personal experience that not only emerges at a symbolic level, but is a basic structure of perception involving both orientation toward horizontal openness and the propriolocation of specifi c position within the array. Similarly, Almaas (1986) distinguishes two aspects or poles of essence: fi rst, presence–openness or “felt transcendence,” that is more impersonal and based on the experience of openness and space, and second, a more personal sense of presence or “I am.” Almaas also tells us what consciousness feels like: It is essence—fi lled with a fl owing substance and opening out into an expanded sense of spaciousness. The two aspects of presence point to an interesting issue for media creators. The personal sense of presence is a more representational self-referential awareness, one subordinated to the instrumental set (Hunt, 1995), the presence often found in VGs and VRs. The more impersonal presence appears as spontaneous imagery arising in an expressive symbolic medium and whose facilitating content, suggested by Arnheim, is geometric shapes and nature. This presence is more intuitive and linked to a medium conducive to inferencing.

Hunt (1995, p. 213) argues that presence–openness is “not some sort of psychological process, but an existential fact. We really are here….” Presence–openness is the basic organization of perception itself; thus, it is not created but rather revealed by processes of symbolic self-reference.” As Hunt (1995, p. 244) summarizes: Space, time, causality, and self are codetermined and inseparable aspects of a single seamless ecological array. This may help us understand the task of media creation—how to present visual dynamics in a comprehensible sequence, a time–space continuity, of Gibson’s nested spaces where occluded objects become visible while visible objects disappear as we move and behave.

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In his discussion of time as fl ow, Hunt points out that psychological moments synthesize into longer periods of felt continuity similar to James’ streams of consciousness (James, 1890). There are various media techniques that can help us achieve fl ow or introspection or other states that may develop consciousness. For example, the resulting editing of the sound and visuals of the 1996 fi lm The English

Patient 3 can induce a hypnogogic state in some viewers. Instead of high stimulation common to action VGs, Suedfeld developed a reduced environmental stimulation technique (REST) that used a chamber or capsule as environment and found that mood improved and arousal was reduced (Suedfeld et al., 1985–6). This technique enhanced scientifi c creativity (Suedfeld et al., 1987) and produced more pleasant and intense autobiographical memories (Suedfeld & Eich, 1995). Perhaps the low stimulation encouraged spontaneous imagery.

Design features of media are implemented to achieve particular effects. The mimetic ideal is necessarily the goal for some mediated environments, such as sim- ulators for pilot testing, but other considerations direct the creation of the wide variety of media. What choices might facilitate participants’ development of consciousness? Detailed realism does not seem the direction to go. Geometric shapes, open horizons, and opportunities for inferencing have been suggested. Gibson points to navigation, orientation, and nested places that support these activities. Active exploration is associated with the development of fl ow in both VGs and VRs. However, this type of fl ow is described as an optimal level of experience that the player wishes to maintain (Choi & Kim, 2004), and thus seems more similar to personal presence and instrumental set. However, a few VG studies have linked play variables with indices of consciousness development (Chou & Ting, 2003; Gackenbach, personal communication, Nov. 2005; Gackenbach & Preston, 1998; Nery & Preston, 2005) and VGs have been developed using biofeedback techniques to allow us to explore media events using breath and voice, etc. (See http: // www.wilddivine.com for a game designed to elicit a meditative state.) We need more media that permit navigation free from the usual instrumental controls like joysticks. Once we have identifi ed the appropriate visual and spatial–navigational metaphors, there may be many kinds of mediated environments that we can create to provide suffi cient opportunities for the development of consciousness, and exist- ing media provide prototypes.

Space and navigation involve eye movement and/or self motion. Still images permit visual exploration of a section of a scene and, therefore, may facilitate development of consciousness even if they do not permit motion. Kandinsky’s Composition 8 is known as his masterpiece and consists of geometric shapes with

3 The English Patient, 1996, received 9 Oscars including double Oscars to Walter Murch for sound and fi lm editing, John Seale for Cinematography, and Stuart Craig/Stephanie McMillan for Art

Direction, making it a visually stunning fi lm. More information is available at the Internet Movie Data Base (http://www.imdb.com/)

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perspective and occlusions. When shown this painting, some of my students report that it refers to music, to abstract problem solving, etc. That is, it permits inferencing. Others had diffi culty making meaning. Abstract impressionist painters have provided us with a rich and varied landscape to explore the idea that image schemas are synesthetic metaphors, as suggested by Hunt (1995). Some art was created

to intentionally represent transcendence 4 (e.g., the work of artist Gordon Onslow Ford, based on his “line, circle, dot” theory, described in Bogzaran, 2003). If Arnheim is correct, that fundamental shapes convey felt meaning, pictures, composed of lines and shapes, should be translated or transformed crossmodally, for symbolic use. Perhaps, as Hunt suggests, individual differences come into play. Those higher in absorption or openness-to-experience may be more willing or better able to infer meaning of abstract stimuli. In 1974, Stein published a physiognomic cue test, con- sisting of line drawings and two interpretations of each. For example, a line draw- ing:\\\/// had a rating scale with end points labeled sunrise/sunset – slanted lines. He observed wide individual differences in the degree to which subjects were willing to endorse higher inferential labels.

Installation artist, Gary Hill, in his 1998 exhibition (viewed at Montreal’s Musée d’Art Contemporain), created a variety of environments. In one installation that was completely pitch black so that participants had no visual information, sounds were played. Participants tended to sway, and focus on proprioceptive information. Some experienced dizziness or disorientation in the installation and dis- equilibrium upon exiting. Another installation contained several television screens placed in a line, a few feet apart. Each TV showed a fi lm of a snake that appeared to move from one TV screen to the next in a slow undulating fashion that seemed to mesmerize viewers. What appeared on screen one, moved to screen 2 (and so forth) at a pace consistent with the time it would take to cross the distance between TV sets, and eventually the head would be on one screen, tail on another and the body on some intervening screens. The undulating movement of the snake and the slow pace of the sequence seemed to induce a hypnogogic state in some observers, while others seemed to visibly relax. Slow pace is typically found in dramatic media since it is thought to provide time for a viewer to access deeper and/or personal meaning. In contrast, fast pace requires viewers to attend to rapidly changing perceptual information and this increases arousal and excitement. Degree of narrative structure is also important, because less structure or instrumental set, including more nonlinearity and greater ambiguity, elicits more inferencing by viewers (see Blanchard-Fields et al., 1986). Popular media are typically high structure to nudge viewers toward the producer/director intended interpretations.

With faster computers, advanced graphical software and other technological innovations have come a multitude of individuals and groups experimenting with media space and developing ingenious virtual environments. For example, at the

4 For example, see (http://www.lucidart.org)

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University of Illinois, the NCSA Visualization and Virtual Environments Group has developed CAVE, a virtual research environment with true stereoscopic capabilities for researcher–data interaction. Use of 3-D in movies has extended to TV with a November 2005 episode of Medium broadcast in high defi nition 3-D, using tech- nology developed by Sensio Montreal.

Char Davies 5 has developed virtual spaces that incorporate many of the principles and ideas of perception identifi ed by Gibson as well as self-awareness and image schemas described in the consciousness literature. She created Osmose and Ephémère as bodily experiential works (Davies, 2004). They are described as

a “mode of access to an ephemeral yet embodied experience” of self in place. Participants wear a head-mounted display and walk through a virtual environment, where real-time motion tracking is based on breathing and balance.

“As a means of subverting the conventional VR aesthetic of hard-edged-objects- in-empty-space,” Davies used semi-transparency and translucency visuals, where one can see through more than 20 layers simultaneously. Both content and form are important. For example, Klee (1973) describes content as the impetus for form, but it is form that is process-oriented as in genesis, growth, and essence. Davies states that her intent was to create an all-enveloping fl ux and fl ow. Here, “the usual perceptual cues by which we objectify the world — simply disappear, dissolved into an ambiguous enveloping spatiality of soft, semi-transparent, intermingling volumes of varying hues and luminosities.” According to Davies, this creates a perceptual state where one becomes acutely aware of one’s own embodied presence inhabiting space. This is akin to the heightened self-awareness that, as Hunt (2004a) suggests, becomes visible when more abstract properties of nature become embodied in synesthetic metaphor.

Davies also designed her virtual spaces to counter the medium’s bias toward control. To navigate within Osmose and Ephémère, the individual breathes in to rise, out to fall, and alters one’s center of balance to change direction. Making the immersive experience dependent on the intuitive visceral processes of breath and balance deliberately countered conventional ways of navigating and interacting in virtual space. Davies argues that relying on hand-based devices such as joysticks, pointers, or data gloves, tends to “reinforce an instrumental, dominating stance toward the world.” This is an important design issue because Hunt and Almaas both have linked instrumental set to the more personal, representational sense of presence rather than the expressive, presentational presence of consciousness. Davies also points out that the experience of breathing in to rise and out to fall facilitates

a convincing sensation of “fl oating,” and the sensation of fl oating tends to evoke euphoric feelings of disembodiment and immateriality, which “we intentionally amplify through our enabling the participant to see through and virtually fl oat

5 Char Davies’ Osmose premiered at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal in 1995, and Ephémère premiered at the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa) in 1998. Davies website (includes

articles) is at (http://immersence.com)

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through everything around them.” As Davies notes, “the effect for the immersant is of fl oating within a world which is neither wholly representational (i.e., recogniz- able) nor wholly abstract, but hovering in between.”

For Davies, Osmose is a space for exploring the perceptual interplay between self and world, that is, a place for facilitating awareness of one’s own self as consciousness embodied in enveloping space. The fi rst virtual space encountered in Osmose is a three- dimensional orientation space. With the immersant’s fi rst breaths, this grid gives way to

a clearing in a forest which gives access to a dozen “world-spaces.” These spaces were based primarily on metaphorical aspects of nature, including: Clearing, Forest, Tree, Leaf, Cloud, Pond, Subterranean Earth, and Abyss. “Immersants” use their own breath and

balance to journey within these worlds or hover in ambiguous areas in between. Ephémère is also grounded in “nature” as metaphor and uses recurring arche- typal elements of root, rock, and stream, but it is extended to include body organs, blood vessels, and bones. Unlike Osmose, Ephémère has three hierarchical levels: landscape, earth, and interior body. The ever-changing river is the only constancy and provides a nonlinear means of navigation through the three realms, in addition to that of the immersant’s breath and balance. When the immersant “surrenders to the pull of its fl ow, it metamorphosizes [sic] from river to underground stream or artery/vein and vice versa.”

Davies (2004) reports that between 1995 and 2001, more than 20,000 people have been individually immersed in the virtual environments Osmose and Ephémère, and many people experience a heightened awareness of self-presence, describing their experience in euphoric terms or as the sensation of consciousness occupying space. Individual differences in openness-to-experience remind us that presence–openness is a dimension not a point. High absorbers, because they prefer stimulus conditions that encourage focus on internal events (see Roche & McConkey, 1990; Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974), may readily embrace media that are open or ambiguous.

Hunt (1995) has argued that image schemas are synesthetic metaphors derived from abstract properties of nature (p.175). It is not enough for them to

be manifested in movement, but rather they need to become spatial metaphors by means of cross-modal translations and transformations. Cross-modal emergents may be easier to achieve with moving audiovisual images, especially those with open horizons and geometric shapes. However, we will need to develop many mediated environments representing differing points on the continuum. Popular media are designed to elicit the director-intended message from a wide audience, and those who initially are uncomfortable in mediated situations without a strong instrumental set may begin with more structured media before trying more open experiences. As technological advances continue and media creators seek innova- tive ways of expressing felt meaning, especially spatially embodied environments, we may soon be able to identify the contents and formats best able to encourage the development of consciousness in people with differing skills, abilities, and pref- erences for media engagement.

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SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS