Speaking quite in general, I note two ways in which people tend to judge the illustrations.
One is deductive. Try to understand what is there without any prejudice. Allow for several different interpretations.
The other is more like projection. The observer has an overall hypothesis or theory, and wants to see how this illustration fits with that theory.
Now the deduction / projection approaches do not necessarily stand on their own.
It can be illustrated with the overall work of Tucker, Talbert and Janick.
First they (probably just Arthur Tucker) was struck by the resemblance of one plant to some native meso-American plant. This would have been deductive.
But then in a later stage all illustrations were judged, based on how well they could be made to fit this theory. This is where the 'projection' set it.
This also fits with Koen's comment on confirmation bias:
the (not really) scientific process would be like this.
1) We are testing our hypothesis X
2) Let's see if illustration Y fits our hypothesis (projection on-going)
3) Indeed, it seems to fit, so our hypothesis more likely to be correct (confirmation bias on-going)
This process also works with text interpretation theories.
Cheshire's mapping of everything to some kind of proto-italic language is a good example.
One is deductive. Try to understand what is there without any prejudice. Allow for several different interpretations.
The other is more like projection. The observer has an overall hypothesis or theory, and wants to see how this illustration fits with that theory.
Now the deduction / projection approaches do not necessarily stand on their own.
It can be illustrated with the overall work of Tucker, Talbert and Janick.
First they (probably just Arthur Tucker) was struck by the resemblance of one plant to some native meso-American plant. This would have been deductive.
But then in a later stage all illustrations were judged, based on how well they could be made to fit this theory. This is where the 'projection' set it.
This also fits with Koen's comment on confirmation bias:
the (not really) scientific process would be like this.
1) We are testing our hypothesis X
2) Let's see if illustration Y fits our hypothesis (projection on-going)
3) Indeed, it seems to fit, so our hypothesis more likely to be correct (confirmation bias on-going)
This process also works with text interpretation theories.
Cheshire's mapping of everything to some kind of proto-italic language is a good example.