CARICATURE,
LIKENESS AND IDENTIFICATION:
A
COGNITIVE “PARADOX”?
Renato Cocchi, a neurologist and a medical psychologist
Abstract
Caricature,
a form of representation with a documented history lasting about 4000 years,
presents a curious “paradox”. As Baldinucci, 1681, wrote “is the way of
producing a figure that resembles the subjects. But, either in fun or sometimes
mischievously, the defects of the subjects are exaggerated out of all
proportion so that on the whole they are themselves, but in part they are not."
It seems that it has reference to two neuropsychological phenomena, ie., the
perceptive distortion of the represented subjects and his cognitive alignment.
In such a way, although there is not a true likeness, the person is perfectly
identifiable. A cognitive mechanism, aiming to identification, cuts down the
raise of some physical traits.
The neuropsychological skills that permitted
the birth of caricature are the recognition of faces, and mechinisms of
identification. In man, we know these skills mainly towards their pathologies:
prosopagnosia, dysmorphofoby; Capgras’ syndrome, Fregoli’s syndrome and
syndrome of intemetamorphosis.
We do not exaclty know what is the main
function of these skills, but the more likely hypothesis is that they helps in
defending the integrity of individual
and the species.
Key words: Caricature;
identification; similarity; cognition; paradox; facial recognition,
prosopagnosia, dysmorphophob,; Capgras’ syndrome,; Fregoli’s syndrome, syndrome
of intermetamorphosis.
Theoretical and research bases
Home
Page / / / Pagina
iniziale
Caricature
in fine arts got his own name in the second half the 17th century, between
Baldinucci, in 1681, writes: "Caricature, in the language of artists and
sculptors, is their way of
producing a figure that resembles
the subjects. But, either in fun or sometimes
mischievously, the defects of the subjects are exaggerated out of
all proportion, so that on the whole they are themselves, but in part
they are not." (2)
Already
in these words we find a
reference to a sort of "paradox" raised by
two phenomena, ie., the perceptive
distortion and the cognitive
alignment of the caricature. In such a way, although there is
not a true likeness, the person is
perfectly identifiable.
A cognitive mechanism, aiming to
identification, cuts down the raise of
some physical traits.
Some
historical remarks.
This way to
represent a subject, making its "caricature", surely started
up before it was christened. To come
back to fine
arts' history, we cannot
ignore the contribution of
Leonardo, nearly a century before the Carracci. Like Moliere's
"Burgeois Gentilhomme" who spoke
in prose without realising
it, Leonardo drew caricatures
without any specific consideration to
the problem, which Gombrich later
called: "likeness and perceptive equivalence." (3)
From
the Carracci's family, fully
aware of this expressive
form, through Bernini, Callot, PL
Ghezzi, AM Zanetti, Hogarth and
Goya we reach the splendid and florid
19th century. Of this
time we have to remember the
works of
Daumier, Gavarni,
Grandville, Cham, Forain,
Toulouse-Lautrec, and finally the works
of Alberto Martini, in our
century.
In
its heyday
"caricaturists" widely produced caricatures and very
much in demand due to
their success. This people cultivated
the technique, although they may not have been necessarily
gifted as artists.
Therefore, they reduced the caricature to a
less refined state from a finer artistic level. However, this fact did not
detract anything from the perceptive and cognitive impact of this form of
representation.
However,
Grose in last quarter of the 18th century
outlined the technique required for caricature, which of maintaining
the identity while altering
the likeness.(4) In 1845,
Toepffer gave to it the
final coding. (5)
We have to note that in ancient times, in the
classic age, somebody produced sound
caricatures along the same lines as in the rules that Grose
later went to discover.
The example reported here (Fig.1)
is probably the most famous and
was found in the excavation of Pompei.
Fig. 1: Rufus est (He is
Rufus).
Of course, in the pre-Christian era, what we call caricature does not
belongs to cultured forms. This is perhaps less true for
Egyptians (Fig. 2)
Fig. 2. Egyptian caricature
and Romans, but more evident
in Greece, where ceramics, an art
form judged of lesser value, shows to us the disquieting presence of caricature. (1,6; Fig. 3)
Fig. 3: Greek caricature.
Classical Greek art, with its
emphasis on the ideal of perfection of the human body, could hardly have
accepted, through choice, the idea of caricature that represents exactly the
opposite.Greek artists deliberately avoided representing physical defects (see:
Polycletes' "canon of beauty") or to exaggerate the very
same ones that, even
if slight, render every face as
different. Nevertheless a strong debate
occurred, and Aristotle referred to it,
in his Poetics, when he wrote about "to represent man worse than they are" and
quoted Pausones as a painter of this kind of art.
In his Politics, in the
fifth chapter of the fifth tome, Aristotle
wrote again: "... it shall never be suggested to young people to gaze
at the Pausones' works ..."
Roman art, having inherited from the Etruscans
more attention to the physical aspects of the individuals, showed lesser
refusal. This was not always the case though: "Graecia
capta," also in Roman sculpture we
can observe a tendency to the idealisation of the human form.
However,
we could push on this historical
backtrack to pre-historical times.
Some researchers in facts pointed up few
caves' drawings as early essays of caricature (1,6; Fig.
4). Here we can refer the first
caricatures about to 15.000 years ago.
Fig. 4: Pre-historical
caricature.
A
perceptive and cognitive "paradox."
What we
must note here is that the presence
of caricatures, even before
Carracci's or Leonardo's works, drives
to a
"technique" to produce
them. Of course, we cannot speak of a codified technique, like that Grose and
Toepffer made later. It had always been in terms of visual or verbal trivial
communication,
which outlines physical
defects in a playful manner rather than in
an offending way.
Moreover, from as far back of
If we
make reference at least to Egyptian specimens, this technique seems to
have unchanged for about 4000 years.
As such, gives that the end result, from a
perceptive and cognitive viewpoint, is always
the same, this technique can only be based on an invariant.
So, we
have to hypothesize a two-steps biological
mechanism, which gives a
precise accentuation to every
physical defect, especially
facials, but without denying the
identity of the subject. This could be
an explanation to the "paradox" of caricature.
The
same Gombrich wrote at length and in depth about caricature and the
perceptive and cognitive mechanisms on which it is
based. "I mentioned the
possibility that even man [like
many animals] shows traces of such inborn responses, that,
in particular, our reaction to
faces and physiognomic expression may
not be wholly due to learning, and that mental set which makes up read faces
into blots, rocks, or wallpapers may be biologically
conditioned." (3)
An insight into biological mechanisms.
As we
consider caricature as based on biological mechanisms, we can ask
ourselves if there are research on this topic. Of course, we do not expect to find research carried out with this
purpose.
I think that we can dig for it in at least two
fields of research: 1. The recognition
of faces and its pathology; 2. The pathology
of the two-steps biological
mechanism previously mentioned.
We can start from two rough assumptions. We
can say: When there is a special
skill, we have to expect also a special pathology
of it. Conversely, when there is
a special pathology, then we have to figure that also the related special skill
exists.
There is a special skill to recognize faces,
either the discrimination and the
identification of them. This well-known phenomenon, verified also in rhesus monkeys (7-11), gained
attention from researchers because of its
pathological forms (loss of ability to recognize faces).
CT and
autoptic studies confirmed
that the loss of this skill can be
produced in occipital-temporal
regions, not only by bilateral lesions, but even by a right half brain's lesion alone (11).
Prosopagnosia,
alias the loss of the ability to
recognize familiar faces, had
its first report by two
Italian ophthalmologists (12). Although the
trouble had a long history (13), only in 1947 it got its current
name (14).
Usually this failure goes with the impairment
in the discrimination of
unfamiliar faces, even if the two
defects had been found separable
and independent (15-16).
As for caricature, one of the mechanisms
involved is that permitting to recognize
familiar faces. When we watch at an
unfamiliar face's drawing we
cannot always say if it is a caricature
or a realistic portrait. So,
because we had never seen the real face it represents, even
in photo.
As
also involved, I
hypothesized a two-steps
mechanism giving a
precise accentuation to every
physical defect, especially facials, but without denying the identity of the subject.
If so,
we should find either the pathological accentuation of facial
traits, and the pathological impairment of the identification process.
I
think that dysmorphofoby
on one hand,
and Capgras' syndrome
as hypoidentification, Fregoli's syndrome
and intermetamorphosis, as yperidentifications, could fit what we
are in search of.
Dysmorphofoby,
now called as Body
Dysmorphism Disorder (DSM-IV: F45.2) (17),
is a preoccupation of imagined defects
in physical appearance, in well shape individuals. This
preoccupation cannot be attributed to
another mental illness, as it
happens for no satisfaction of own body
aspect in Anorexia Nervosa.
Most
claims have the
face as privileged field of
preoccupation, namely, imagined
defects of nose, mouth, chin, jaw, eyebrows, cheek and so on.
In
few cases a little physical
anomaly exists, but the
patient's preoccupation is roughly excessive.
Although
lacking of separation, in body dysmorphism disorder we can found
either claims of having a part of the face too large or the
opposite. I think them two distinct perceptive phenomena, the
first leading to blow up physical traits, while the second goes
towards the opposite way.
As for misidentifications, "The essence
of the syndrome of Capgras is the
delusional negation of identity of a familiar person. The patient believes that a person related to him has been
replaced by a double.
Although he
does not dispute the
misidentified person's extreme resemblance to the familiar person,
he nevertheless believes that they are,
in fact, different." So stated Christodoulou, in 1977, updating this "psychiatric delusion",
first reported by Capgras & Reboul-Lachaud (18-19).
Today it is less usual to speak of
"delusion" but better of
"misidentification", because
of shifting this event from
psychiatry to neuropsychology (20).
In the
syndrome of Capgras it
seems to
be a failure of the equivalence process mechanism.
This compares the present
face's perception to all memorized perceptions of that
same face, affirming, or denying, that the present face and memorized
clues belong to the same person.
The dis-integration between the global perception of a face
and the perception of the features of it analysed by
particulars, deals to a failure of the
equivalence process.
The
result cannot fit the memorized clues of that same
face and produces the
syndrome of Capgras. A personal unreported case
of a schizoaffective psychotic
young adult said the eyes
what had been changed in those he identified as the
doubles of his parents.
The
syndrome of Fregoli (21), although a
rarer phenomenon than Capgras' syndrome, belongs to the
opposite pole of misidentifications.
Its hallmark
is the belief that an unfamiliar person is actually
a familiar person in disguise
(22). As a hyper-identification too, the
syndrome of intermetamorphosis (23) drives individuals to assert that people, familiar or unfamiliar, had
assumed the physical appearance of another person familiar to them (24).
The
syndromes of Capgras, Fregoli and intermetamorphosis are clearly troubles of an existing skill that provides
to identification and works in sequence
with the recognition of faces. This skill permits to identify a
person, even when some physical traits have changed.
This
review of possible biological
mechanisms able to justify the
perceptive and cognitive bases of
caricature was fruitful. There is a
punctual counterpart of all these.
A
possible functional explanation.
A whole series of neuropsychological research
on the subject pointed up that the
processes of physiognomical recognition in man take place mainly
in the right half-brain (11).
This is the home of the oldest
perceptive mechanisms, phylogenetically speaking, which are preverbal and nearer to our animal rather
than our human roots.
The
question is what is the point? What purpose can serves such a
biological
mechanism?
We can exclude the possibility that the aim
was one day to allow the caricature to
be born. This can only be
regarded as a collateral
effect, amusing as it may
be but nevertheless irrelevant
compared to any
eventual primary motif.
In
the same way we must exclude the
supposition that it does
not serve to anything.
It is a too specialised process to be of no
use at all. Moreover,
even if this were true and we
were dealing with a
typical human skill casually acquired over a few thousand years, newer
difficulties arise. Then,
it would be
in its way
to genetic extinction, and would
not be universally diffused.
Disregarding
to throw improbable hypotheses
out, and
shifting to propose likely
hypotheses, there is only one
possible answer. A complex mechanism of this type can help in
defence of the individual and the species; in our case, to have ensured that
the human species did not become
extinct. For the individual the recognition of face has
two aims:
i.
to split familiar from unfamiliar faces;
ii.
to split friendly from not
friendly faces.
As for the second one, many consistent findings support
the idea that face
identification and processing information about facial
expressions are two separable mechanisms (25).
In
case of not friendly face, early
emotional recognition allows a
proper response of flight or attack and reduces the risks of fatal
errors.
For the defence of the species, perhaps this
mechanism does not work alone, but it comes out as a part of a larger one. To
illustrate it, we first refer to mammal
animals, as, in evolution, the nearest
to the species Homo Sapiens.
Two
forms of behaviours
must be considered. One hand,
the propagation of the
species achieves its
aims by selecting
the strongest and best looking
male exemplars. This long lasting
evident fact is most readily seen in mammals, which form themselves into pack or
groups, in particular those
groups based on hierarchical order.
Conversely,
new born off-springs with some physical
defect, sometime not immediately
apparent to man, are left to
die by
mothers who deliberately refuse to suckle them. There are many
anecdotal reports on this phenomenon
from breeders and vets, as for dogs, cats, pigs and sheep. When a man fed this deserted offspring,
finally the physical defect came out.
This means that there exists in those animals
a great discriminatory skill towards
a harmonic physical
conformation. So mainly
the strongest and the best exemplars
are chosen to propagate the specie,
while those with defects are prevented
to do so. In order for such a mechanism
to be effective, even the slightest physical defect must be pointed up to elicit the desired reaction.
Is this
then a behaviour only to be found in
animals? Ethnological research
has shown that the elimination of defective new born children was a
practice reported in many societies. About our own
culture, it is possible this practice of leaving disabled
new born children on
Moreover,
working with problematic children, some mothers told me about their intuitive feelings of bad health of their
babies, soon after delivery and months before the slightest defect clearly
appeared. A recent survey on
Internet's newsgroup <bit.listserv.autism> brought me at
least a
very convincing replay (see: Appendix).
Turning
back to caricature
and its perceptive
and cognitive
"paradox," there remains the question of why such a
mechanism has risen to an art form.
Moreover, not only to caricature, because
in classical Greek sculpture the "canon of
beauty" advocates for
the presence of the other pole of
this discriminatory skill (26). We can
only note this fact, having not any explanation of it. Nevertheless, such a cultural outcome is not
unique.
Motion in cinema and television is an optical
illusion. It was made possible by the human visual ability to merge
separate pictures when they
are presented in sequence at a
rate of more than 12 per second.
This is what we name "flicker fusion." We
have no answers on
what purpose this visual feature serves if any at all. One
could hardly imagine however,
that the answer
is it was
genetically programmed to let the invention of cinema and television.
References
(1) GEC (Gianeri E.): Storia della caricatura. Omnia, Milano 1959.
(2)
Baldinucci F.: Vocabolario italiano dell'arte del disegno, Firenze 1681. (consulted
edition:
Classici Italiani, Milano 1808-1812).
(3) Gombrich E.C.: Art and illusion. A study
in the psychological and pictorial representation. Trustees of the National
Gallery of Art,
(4) Grose F.: Rule for drawing Caricatures.
Mercier & Co.,
(5) Toepffer R.: Essai de physiognomy, Genéve
1845 ( In: Cailler P., Giller H. (eds): Oeuvres complétes de R. Toepffer. T.
IX, Genéve 1945.
(6) Fuchs E.: Die Karikatur der Europaeischer
Volker. Erster teil: Vom Altertum bis zum Jahre 1848. Langen, Muenchen, 1921.
(7) Haecaen H., Albert M.L.: Human
neuropsychology. Wiley & Sons,
(8) Rosenfeld S.A., Van Hoesen G.W.: Face
recognition in the rhesus monkey. Neuropsychologia
1979, 17: 503-509.
(9) Benton A.: The neuropsychology of facial
recognition. Am. Psychologist 1980,
35: 176-186
(10) Davies G., Ellis H., Sepherd J. (eds):
Perceiving and remembering faces. Academic Press, London 1981.
(11) Benton
A.: Facial recognition 1990. Cortex
1990, 26: 491-499.
(12) Quaglino
A., Borelli G.: Emiplegia sinistra con amaurosi, guarigione, perdita totale
della percezione dei colori e della memoria della configurazione degli oggetti.
Gionale Italiano di Oftalmologia
1867, 10: 106-117.
(13) De Renzi
E.: Current issues on prosopagnosia. In: Ellis D.H.,
Jeeves M.A., Newcombe F., Young A. (eds): Aspects of face processing. Martinus
Nijhoff,
(14) Bodamer J.: Die Prosop-Agnosie. Archive fuer Psychiatrie und
Nervenkrankenheiten 1947, 179: 6-54.
(15) Warrington E.K., James M.: An
experimental investigation on facial recognition in patients with unilateral
cerebral lesions. Cortex 1967, 3:
317-326.
(16) Benton A.L., Van Allen M.W.:
Prosopagnosia and facial discrimination. J.
Neurol. Sci. 1972, 15: 167-172.
(17) Diagnostic and statistic manual of mental
disorders. Fourth Edition (DSM-IV). Am. Psychiat.
(18) Christodoulou G.N.: The syndrome of
Capgras. Brit. J. Psychiatry 1977,
130: 556-564.
(19) Capgras J., Reboul-Lachaud J.: Illusion
des sosies dans un délire systématisé‚
chronique. Bulletin de
(20) Rapcsak S.Z., Polster M.R., Comer J.F.,
Rubens B.: False recognition and misidentification of faces following right
hemisphere damage. Cortex 1994, 30: 565-583.
(21) Courbon
P., Fail G.: Illusion de Frégoli. Bulletin
de
(22) De Pauw K.W.,
Szulecka T.K., Poltok T.L.: Fregoli syndrome after cerebral infarction. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis.
1987, 175: 433-438.
(23) Courbon P., Tusques J.: Illusion
intermétamorphose et de charme. Ann. Méd.-Psychol. 1932, 14: 401-406.
(24) The syndrome of intermetamorphosis. In:
Christdoulou G.N. (ed): The delusional misidentification syndromes. Bibliotheca
Psychiatrica no. 164, Kargel,
(25) Magnussen S., Sunde B., Dyrnes S.:
Patterns of perceptual asymmetry in processing facial expressions. Cortex
1994: 30: 215-229.
(26) Cocchi
R.: I guerrieri di Riace e la fascinazione delle masse. Formazione Psichiatrica 1982, 3: 87-93.
Already
printed on It. J. Intellect. Impair. 1966, 9: 55-64.
Posted
on internet on 11 May 2008. Copyright by Renato Cocchi
2008.
Author’s address dr Renato COCCHI, via Rabbeno, 3
42100 Reggio Emilia
email: renatococchi@libero.it
Theoretical and research bases
Home
Page / / / Pagina
iniziale
Appendix
Articles
from the newsgroup "bit.listserv.autism"
Date:
Sat, 6 Apr 1996 22:00:31 CEST
From:
Renato Cocchi <MC7057@MCLINK.IT>
Subject:
Feelings Of Bad Health
Hi all
list-mates.
May I
ask your help?
Has anyone had the feeling of something going
wrong the first 3-6 months after delivery of your autistic son or
daughter? Of course, no clear signs were present and no other
people observed anything irregular, and your physician(s)
said that all was going well.
In my opinion, soon after delivery, the mothers
have an increased skill to note very
subtle signs of bad health, as it happans in
some animals (dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, etc.)
If you experienced similar feelings, please
inform me, in list or mailbox.
Thank
you in advance.
Renato
Cocchi
Neurologist & Medical Psychologist
Date:
Wed, 10 Apr 1996 22:17:43 CEST
From: Renato Cocchi <MC7057@MCLINK.IT>
Subject: Feelings Of Bad Health
I hate
to waste time and money of all list-mates, but I need come back once again on
my article about Feelings of Bad Health.
!. The
feelings were referred to the
baby health, and NOT to
the mother's health.
2. NONTHING,
at the moment of this kind of feelings,
justified to have them.
3. It was
a sensation WITHOUT any apparent
relationship with the ongoing state of health of the baby.
4. It was
something of irrational, a feeling not substantiated
by any kind of proofs, or signs
or symptoms.
5. Only after some time. weeks or months, signs
or symptoms of bad health appeared, and ONLY at this time
these feelings found support on the real state of health of the baby.
6. These
feelings were a forewarning, WITHOUT any support by the real state of the baby.
I am not
interested at all of: 1. Bad health of
the mothers; 2. Arguments
between the mother and the paediatrician
about evident signs, first not
considered by this latter; 3. Symptoms of autism in the first 18 months of life
of an infant.
I am searching the traces of an ethological
behaviour seen in some animals.
Thank
you for your understanding.
Renato Cocchi
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 14:26:56 EDT
From: bhaglich@EUSTIS-AATDS1.ARMY.MIL
Subject:
Re: feelings of bad health
For me,
the answer is yes.
Early in my son's life I
had this irrational feeling
that something was very wrong.
My son appeared healthy and
robust. Since it was my first
child my pediatrician attributed my
feelings to being nervous about caring
for my first child,
but these feelings persisted. My
son was diagnosed
with moderate to severe autism at 22 months.
Brenda