The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

e2 eZ ee the washington post.tuesday, november 12 , 2019

science scan

Jackson Pollock’s distinctively

drippy style earned him a spot in

the pantheon of abstract expres-

sionists.

So what does he have to do

with physics? A lot, it turns out.

In a recent paper in the journal

PLOS One, a group of physicists

from Mexico and the United

States looked at the artist’s fa-

mous drips. They wanted to un-

derstand how his works were

created and use physics to cap-

ture his unique style.

They analyzed Pollock’s paint-

ing technique using fluid dynam-

ics, a branch of physics that

explores how liquids and gases

move. To do so, they watched

films of the painter at work,

measured his hand speed and

re-created it in the lab.

It turns out that Pollock didn’t

actually drip his paint. Some-

times he poured straight from the

can; he also used brushes, sticks

and syringes to layer paint on a

canvas beneath him. Instead of

creating individual droplets, he

manipulated paint so that it fell

toward the canvas in long, unbro-

ken filaments.

That technique allowed Pol-

lock to avoid coiling instability, i n

which a viscous liquid like paint

curls up and coils like a rope

when it falls on a surface. (Think

of how honey becomes ropelike

when you pour it on toast, piling

up in a coil before settling into a

liquid that spreads across the

bread.)

It’s not the first time physicists

have tackled Pollock, and it prob-

ably won’t be the last. So why

bother? It’s not just fun and

games, the researchers imply — a

better understanding of Pollock’s

painting physics could help au-

thenticate paintings in the fu-

ture.

Curious? You can read the pa-

per at bit.ly/pollockphysics

— Erin Blakemore

the physics of art

Paper: Clues about famous artist’s technique

may help authenticate paintings in the future

physics and Jackson pollock

bit.ly/pollockphysics

alessandra tarantino/associated Press

Jackson Pollock’s “Number 27” (1950), an abstract expressionist

work. Scientists analyzed his technique using fluid dynamics, a

branch of physics that explores how liquids and gases move.

BY JEREMY DEATON

I f you spend enough time look-
ing at t he sky, y ou will start seeing
shapes in the clouds — a hippo, a
dragon, a human face. The phe-
nomenon is so common that it
has its own hashtag: #cloudsthat-
looklikethings.
The reason we see animals,
monsters and people in the sky
has nothing to do with meteorolo-
gy and everything to do with the
mechanics of the human brain.
We a re just as likely to see familiar
objects in trees, toast or Cheetos.
This tendency is called pareidol-
ia, and it’s a byproduct of the
peculiar way we process visual
information.
“I think sometimes people
imagine that the way vision
works, say, is that there’s a step-
wise process,” said Kara Feder-
meier, a cognitive neuroscientist
at the University of Illinois. Such
a process would work this way:
You see a white, fluffy mass. You
identify this shape as a cloud and
then retrieve any relevant infor-
mation about clouds.
But that’s not actually how it
works, Federmeier said. Rather,
when you lay eyes on an object,
you search your memories for
anything that might resemble
that object. If you spy a cloud, you
will recall memories of clouds,
but you might also gather memo-
ries of marshmallows, cotton can-
dy or whipped cream. You will
then sort through those memo-
ries to determine that you are
looking at t he sky and not dessert.
“The visual system is constant-
ly sending messy, only partially
analyzed information forward
into memory. It’s sort of saying:
‘Here’s some stuff. What do you
have that looks anything like
this?’ ” Federmeier said.
Because clouds so often look
like cotton candy or whipped
cream, we tend not to remark on
the resemblance. But sometimes
a cloud calls forth memories of
something unexpected, like a
horse, and we take notice. That’s
pareidolia at work.
“Many of the shapes we can see
in the clouds are honestly not that
novel,” Federmeier said. “The
thing that makes them novel is
whether they coalesce into some-
thing that we know about, and

that we don’t e xpect to find in that

particular place.”

The thing we tend to think the

most about, researchers say, is

other people, which is why we are

particularly suited to seeing faces

in clouds.

“Our brains are so well-tuned

to the detection and the percep-

tion and the processing of faces

because they are so important to

us as a species,” said David Rob-

ertson, a research psychologist at

the University of Strathclyde in

Scotland.

“They’re important so we know

who’s happy with us, who’s angry

with us,” he said. “They’re impor-

tant for biological reasons, so that

we know who we find attractive

and who we want to go and

procreate with to ensure our

genes continue.”

Not everyone is equally in-

clined to noticing faces, however.

Research suggests that children

with autism are less likely to see

faces where there are none, while

people with a history of using

LSD are more likely to see them.

Notably, Robertson’s research

found that people who are partic-

ularly skilled at identifying faces

— those able to tell Reps. Tim

Ryan (D-Ohio) and Seth Moulton

(D-Mass.) apart, for instance —

are no more likely than others to

see faces in the clouds.

If you are among those inclined

to see faces where they don’t e xist,

you might occasionally see faces

you recognize — your spouse,

your mom or Michael Jackson. If

this feels meaningful, it’s because

when you see a person’s f ace, your

brain brings up memories of

them. And that’s true whether

you see their face in a photo or in a

cloud.

Federmeier investigated this

tendency in a 2012 study titled

“The potato chip really does look

like Elvis! Neural hallmarks of

conceptual processing associated

with finding novel shapes subjec-

tively meaningful.” The paper

concluded, “To the brain, the

vaguely Elvis-like potato chip tru-

ly can provide a substitute for the

King himself.”

She emphasized that you can’t

infer too much from which faces

you see. If you spot Elvis in the

sky, as opposed to Buddy Holly,

that doesn't reveal much about

you. It’s m erely a reflection of who

or what you tend to think about.

“You’re going to be more likely

to see patterns that are activated a

lot or activated recently,” Feder-

meier said. So if you see a cumulo-

nimbus cloud that reminds you of

Presley’s pompadour, it doesn’t

(necessarily) mean you have a

profound, spiritual connection to

the King.

“A lthough it is interesting to

think, ‘Well, why did I see this

particular thing?’ it’s not a Freud-

ian sort of interesting thing. It’s

not revealing something deep

about your psyche or your soul,”

Federmeier said. “It’s really just

telling you something about how

your visual system is working and

how your brain works.”

 More at washingtonpost.com/

capital-weather-gang

Do you see marshmallows or Elvis?

What we observe in clouds has more to do with how our brains function than with meteorology

salwan georges/the washington Post

People often can see familiar objects in the sky, such as animals, monsters and people. This tendency is

called pareidolia. It is a byproduct of the peculiar way we process visual information.

We usually think about

other people, experts

say. This is why we are

particularly suited to

seeing faces in clouds.

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