Consider the writer as a superior subject for your thesis. Choose a creative writer you know and who you can contact with through writing and occasional meetings. Give the writer a prompt, such as describing a scene she sees through her bedroom window. Then ask the writer to photograph that scene in a plain, documentary style, without diffused lighting or any too dramatic angles. Continue asking the writer, or a few writers, to send descriptions they write of scenes, of introductions to movies, the neighborhood, a friend's face and so on. Two or three weeks later, send the photograph of the scene they shot through their window. Ask them to write about it in words. Concentrate on the ways this person sees the same objects and space through his own photograph. Decide what moods, angles and other variables affect his visual perception.
According to an Ohio State visual perception study, the visual world relies on an individual's perception or understanding of what they see through an elapse of time and cognition through the brain and eye. Consider studying the work of a painter you like, either historic or contemporary. Study the way in which the painter tends to see objects, persons and places in fragmented patterns. Reference John Berger's revolutionary text "Ways of Seeing," which dissects works of art to see how the viewer experiences paintings. Use his findings when studying the mental patterns mapped out on a painting.
Perform a study with groups of people to discover why people have a taste for certain objects and images and not of others. Invite a group of 10 people of various ages and backgrounds to participate in your project. Set up a series of objects and pictures of images and ask each viewer, in a private session, which they prefer and why. Allow your research to swing toward the artistic. Do not only record the choices people make and reference previous studies documenting preferences. Use your own perception to understand why we humans are drawn to rounder objects and objects with symmetry, for example. Explore a number of opinions and experiences before beginning your paper.
Ask four or five people to become participants in a movie watching study. Choose a movie that is full of visual energy, maybe an action movie or an old black and white war movie or a slapstick comedy. Make sure the movie is no longer than an hour at most. Make sure the viewers have not seen the movie before and know nothing about it before seeing it. Play the movie without sound. Ask the viewers to answer a series of questions about their visual experience of the movie. Create questions that move the viewer to remember what he saw in detail, like a female character's dress or the look on a hero's face, in the questionnaire. Afterward, meet with each movie-goer individually to discuss their visual understanding of the film. A week or two later, invite the same group back to see the movie again, with sound. Perform the same questions and individual meetings with the participants after the movie-with-sound presentation. Write your thesis comparing the two studies, noting how sound affects visual perception.