Visual Perception 1 / Top-Down Visual Processing

                                                                              Note: My goal-directed eye movements

"We Can Do It!" is an American wartime propaganda poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943.

"The poster was seen very little during World War II. It was rediscovered in the early 1980s and widely reproduced in many forms, often called "We Can Do It!" but also called "Rosie the Riveter" after the iconic figure of a strong female war production worker. The "We Can Do It!" image was used to promote feminism and other political issues beginning in the 1980s." (Taken from Wikipedia)

How it is related to this week’s topics?

This "We Can Do It!" poster is related to our topics, for it involves: 

• Top-down visual processing
• Goal-biased attentional looking 
• Goal-directed eye movements.

How top-down visual processing operates in its design?

When I started looking this poster, the bold yellow and blue background attracted me, which was my response to "yellowness and Blueness" according to “Visual Queries” chapter from Colin Ware’s “Visual Thinking for Design.” Then, my attention was drawn to the top headline "We Can Do It!”, which are largest fonts in the poster. It catches my attention because of its size. (Top-down visual processing) Next, I wondered what is about "We can do it!" and I started getting interested to find out what the poster is about (Goal-biased attentional looking ). I scanned down and looked for details. I saw a female's face with a confident facial gesture. I moved on looking at her left hands and noticed that she is holding her sleeve and showing her bicep with her right fist closed, which implies that she is a strong women. I looked into the small details and discovered that there is a badge with an image of a female face on it, which is attached to the women's collar. I realized that this could be a poster that promotes feminism or something about women right. Therefore, I scanned down to the bottom of the poster to see the publisher information. (Goal-directed eye movements.) By studying the poster top-down, I successful found out the information that I wondered.

Work Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Do_It!