Developmental Theory and VTS

• VTS is influenced by Rudolf Arnheim’s theory of "visual thinking" — the connection between visual perception and thought

• VTS also looks to the work of James Mark Baldwin and Jean Piaget, who all identified stages of development

• Piaget, Vygotsky, and Jerome Bruner proved that learning results from interactions with the environment

• Vygotsky posited that interactions with others — particularly more capable peers — enables learning

• Vygotsky also showed a strong connection between language and thinking

VTS Theory and Method

• Abigail Housen, a co-author of VTS, is a cognitive psychologist who focuses on the development and nature of aesthetic thought

• Housen’s field of study is how people interact with art — in particular their thoughts and verbal reactions

• Housen and DeSantis have studied thousands of art-viewers through her Aesthetic Development Interview (ADI)

• All viewers of art studied fall into one of five stages or five transitional stages:

• Most children and most adults are in Stage I, I/II, or Stage II — they are inexperienced viewers

How VTS Affects Learning

• VTS addresses the interests and strengths of viewers at their stages — it is particularly helpful for beginning viewers

• Most beginners are "accountive viewers" — they search for a story in works of art — and VTS images provide narrative content

• Art can have many meanings, allowing students to debate, with teacher facilitation

• VTS involves peer learning: students learn from their classmates how to observe, support assertions with evidence, and think critically

• These are the skills needed to develop critical and creative thinking strategies

VTS Research findings

• VTS consistently moves students forward aesthetically, from stage to stage, everywhere the curriculum has been studied

• VTS skillls have been shown to "transfer" to other skill areas, as shown by a second research tool, the Material Object Interview (MOI)

• Housen has now begun to study the effect of VTS training (professional development) on teaching effectiveness

• Abigail Housen's research methodology has proven robust and reliable; in other words, it has worked with a wide range of populations (for example, visually impaired, bilingual, non-US populations) in a wide range of sites

Click here for information about Highlights of Findings.

VTS Research and Theory

Stage I

Accountive viewers have an immediate response to what they see. They start by naming objects and phenomena recognized from life experience. Their lists of observations are usually short and random; these viewers seem satisfied with a quick inventory of what is obvious to them, named in an unsystematic way. They see concretely: a painted ball is a ball, not a representation of a ball. Their simple observations are often idiosyncratic—they will find things that are clear to them but not necessarily to others. They make sense of images using their senses and personal associations, and if they go beyond short inventories, they tend to find narratives—a person depicted is about to take a shower for example—though these may or may not be intended by the artist. If any, judgments are based on what they know and like. Obvious emotions are identified, as viewers seem to enter the work of art and personalize story elements that capture their attention.

Stage II

Constructive viewers’ comments reveal a vague sense about what art is and may indicate some awareness of the process of looking. Similarly, they might make vague references to artists. While they often briefly mention narratives they find, their overriding focus is on building frameworks to make sense of what they see using the most logical and accessible tools: their own perceptions; their knowledge of the natural world and of the limited amount of art they have seen; and the standards of their social, moral and conventional milieu. If a work does not look the way it is “supposed to”—if skill, technique, hard work, utility, and functionality do not conform to their expectations, or if the subject seems objectionable—these viewers judge the work to be “weird” and/or lacking in value.  The standard most frequently invoked is realism: this does or does not look as it would in reality. Though not systematic or consciously analytical, they describe more of a work’s setting making general reference to space. Comments on emotions begin to disappear.

Stage III

Classifying viewers adopt the analytical and critical stance of the art historian. They want to identify the work as to place, school, style, time and provenance. They decode the work using their library of facts and figures which they are ready and eager to expand. This viewer believes that properly categorized, the work of art’s meaning and message can be explained and rationalized.

Stage IV

Interpretive viewers seek a personal encounter with a work of art. Exploring the work, letting its meaning slowly unfold, they appreciate subtleties of line and shape and color. Now critical skills are put in the service of feelings and intuitions as these viewers let underlying meanings of the work–what it symbolizes–emerge. Each new encounter with a work of art presents a chance for new comparisons, insights, and experiences. Knowing that the work of art’s identity and value are subject to reinterpretation, these viewers see their own processes subject to chance and change.

Stage V

Re-creative viewers, having a long history of viewing and reflecting about works of art, now "willingly suspend disbelief." A familiar painting is like an old friend who is known intimately, yet full of surprise, deserving attention on a daily level but also existing on an elevated plane. As in all important friendships, time is a key ingredient, allowing Stage V viewers to know the ecology of a work–its time, its history, its questions, its travels, its intricacies. Drawing on their own history with one work in particular, and with viewing in general, these viewers combine personal contemplation with views that broadly encompass universal concerns. Here, memory infuses the landscape of the painting, intricately combining the personal and the universal.

Bibliography

Arnheim, R. Toward a Psychology of Art. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972.

Baldwin, J. M. Thought and Things: A Study of the Development and Meaning of Thought or Generic Logic, (Volumes III and IV). New York: Arno Press, 1975.

Bruner, Jerome. Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Singer, Dorothy G. and Revenson, Tracey A. A Piaget Primer: How a Child Thinks, revised edition. New York: Plume/Penguin, 1996.

Vygotsky, L. Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962.