In article <3244F12D.E07@utoronto.ca>, eug.hsieh@utoronto.ca says...
>oblong@nonsense.net wrote:

>> Somewhere I know I have read about someone who took a camera with him
>> in visiting a so-called primative culture (in Africa??) that had never
>> before been exposed to photography. When he showed pictures of their
>> friends and themselves to the people who lived there, he discovered
>> that they had no idea how to look at pictures and couldn't recognize
>> even familiar people and objects in the prints. They had to be taught
>> how to see flat pictures as a respresentation of three-dimensional
>> reality.
>> I need to cite this experience in a book I'm working on but can no
>> longer find the reference. Who wrote it--C.G. Jung? Edwin Land?
>> Beaumont Newhall? I have no recollection. I've been told that this
>> experience is included in a course taught at NYU, but I've been unable
>> to learn which one. How does one research such a question on the
>> Internet?

>Check out the basic high school or undergrad psychology textbooks. I
>vaguely remember reading about this in the perception sections of a
>psych textbook eons ago. They always give the example of a picture with
>a guy with a spear and an elephant far in the background. Is the normal
>sized elephant far away or is the guy actually spearing a 3 foot tall
>elephant? African tribes unexposed to our technologies and culture
>usually perceived it as the latter.

Hmmm, the second example seems more believable to me than the first,
since even my cat finds any cat on the TV interesting, but ignores
all else.....
Hope This Helps