[accessibleimage] Accessible visual aesthetics

Hi Chris et al.

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----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Hofstader" <chris.hofstader@xxxxxxxxxxx>
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I struggle with dance without being able to see.

I think dance typifies the fundamental problem with access to art compared to media that is more orientated towards communicating semantic content. It is relatively easy to extract semantic content from visual media, but I consider it to be very difficult, if not impossible, to convey visual aesthetics in another form. Aesthetics are associated with patterns of sensory stimuli, with people liking certain patterns whilst disliking others. The problem with attempting to convert visual aesthetics to another sensory modality is that the different sensory systems have different characteristics. The sensory memory associated with the different types of stimuli is thought to have different characteristics, the different types of stimuli have different threshold values, and have differing spectrums. So, I would consider a direct mapping to be out of the question.

I don't know of any work that has investigated non-direct mappings between visual aesthetics and aesthetics for other forms of sensory stimuli. It would be an interesting avenue of exploration to see if there were mappings that not only were visually pleasing, but also resulted in stimuli patterns that were pleasing in other forms of sensory stimuli.

Will


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