Outline Picture Perception by the Songe of Papua

Abstract

The Songe of Papua New Guinea have little or no indigenous pictorial art. Nevertheless, Songe subjects of both sexes of varying ages and degrees of Western contact were able to identify a wide range of outline drawings depicting objects, animals, and human forms. ‘Kinetic’ scenes and outline drawings portraying colour and texture discontinuities presented some difficulty for the Songe, especially for those over forty years old. Informants over forty in general made significantly more errors than those under forty. It was noted that this has been found in research in many other cultures.