Question

You walk by the same art gallery everyday on your way home from work. Sometimes when walking by the gallery, you glance through the store window, but all you are able to see is that there is something painted on the back wall. You see it clearly enough to describe it very well yet you have no idea what it is. One day you decide to go inside the gallery. You find out that what you were seeing was the nose from a wall mural of a woman’s face. Why were you unable to identify what you had seen until you went inside the gallery?

Answer 1

You couldn't identify the mural by seeing only the nose because without the full context provided by the rest of the face, your brain was unable to interpret the whole image.

Step-by-step explanation:

The reason you were unable to identify the mural of the woman's face by just looking at the nose through the gallery window relates to context in visual perception and partial object recognition. When you only see a fraction of an artwork like a nose without the context of the face, it is challenging to interpret the whole image correctly. Your brain tries to form an understanding based on limited information, but without the context provided by the additional facial features, it's difficult to deduce that the nose is part of a larger portrait. This is akin to the concept of visual rhetoric in the arts, where meaning is conveyed through visual images and full comprehension requires seeing the complete composition to understand its intent and meaning.