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Title: Why did Rubens add a parrot to Titian's The Fall of Man ? A pictorial manipulation of joint attention
Almost 400 years ago, Rubens copied Titian's The Fall of Man, albeit with important changes. Rubens altered Titian's original composition in numerous ways, including by changing the gaze directions of the depicted characters and adding a striking red parrot to the painting. Here, we quantify the impact of Rubens's choices on the viewer's gaze behavior. We displayed digital copies of Rubens's and Titian's artworks—as well as a version of Rubens's painting with the parrot digitally removed—on a computer screen while recording the eye movements produced by observers during free visual exploration of each image. To assess the effects of Rubens's changes to Titian's composition, we directly compared multiple gaze parameters across the different images. We found that participants gazed at Eve's face more frequently in Rubens's painting than in Titian's. In addition, gaze positions were more tightly focused for the former than for the latter, consistent with different allocations of viewer interest. We also investigated how gaze fixation on Eve's face affected the perceptual visibility of the parrot in Rubens's composition and how the parrot's presence versus its absence impacted gaze dynamics. Taken together, our results demonstrate that Rubens's critical deviations from Titian's painting have powerful effects on viewers’ oculomotor behavior.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1734887
PAR ID:
10501886
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Journal of Vision (jov)
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of Vision
Volume:
24
Issue:
4
ISSN:
1534-7362
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1-13
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
joint attention, renaissance art, microsaccades, fixational eye movements, artwork analysis, shared gaze, troxler fading, viewer interest, gaze behavior, eye movement patterns, oculomotor dynamics
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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