– A psychology student’s photographic autobiography

Does thinking determine seeing,
or does seeing determine thinking?

The psychology of vision has long asserted that cognitive systems influence visual perception, which echoes the discourse in photography and art theory emphasizing how context and knowledge affect the viewing experience. However, recent vision science research has challenged this, arguing that the current paradigm has many methodological flaws and lacks sufficient evidence to support the strong claims of “cognitive penetration" (For a review, see Firestone & Scholl, 2016). Meanwhile, new evidence has emerged, revealing that basic visual information has a decisive influence on higher-order cognitive activities in many aspects, shaking the theoretical relationship between the two. This work aims to express the awareness of such tension and to reflect on the internal mechanisms of photographic activity.

(This work was part of the “無序狀態：在成像之前" photography exhibition at the National Taiwan Library in September 2024.)