Film and education; a symposium on the role of the film in the field of education ([1948])

FILM AND EDUCATION Physical conditions underlying seeing are very similar to those of a photographic camera. Light is reflected from an object and projected upon a sensitized plate which when developed constitutes a production of the object photographed. Adequate light, focus and orientation are necessary pre-requisites in providing images without distortion for both the human eye and the mechanical camera. Seeing Is a Sensory Experience It is obvious that to see is to experience a sensation. This sensation is evidently the response of the nervous system to such variables as color, size, distance, motion, etc. The sensitized plate of a camera reproduces a relatively uniform image, but the human eye, due to mental interaction, may suppress certain areas of the sensitized cell area and enhance others. The more intense the focus of a given field, the more sketchy and obscure the adjoining areas. Our eyes are essentially compository devices, and do not as commonly believed collect and transmit accurate indices of the physical stimuli in the external enviroment. There is no one-to-one relationship between the neural response and the physical events which produce them. Impulses from other senses (ears, muscles, nose, skin) relay and add their respective reports to complete the picture. Thus the act of seeing is not a single response to retinal stimuli but is contingent upon and modified by other sensory and moto'r processes. Sensory experience coupled with habit patterns provide cues for judging objects near and far as well as for estimating size, and angles of areas and lines respectively. Seeing Is a Motor Experience Contrary to common belief, the eye does not glide over a picture or along the line of print when reading. It covers the area in jumps and stops which are known as fixations and excursions or eye movements. The human eye makes an aver [42]