Art historian Amy E. Herman teaches a class called The Art of Perception to help doctors and police detectives sharpen their observational and communication skills. In “Visual Intelligence: Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life’’ (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), she presents assignments and recounts discussions from the teaching she does, not in classrooms, but in art museums. The book features more than 50 reproductions of paintings by artists such as Edward Hopper and Hieronymous Bosch. Not only can better powers of observation help a doctor diagnose a patient or a detective analyze a crime scene but, Herman argues, they can help all of us in our daily lives.

JAN GARDNER