For the purpose of justifying this thought, the following post is largely referred to with Régis Debray’s Vie et mort de l’image (Life and death of Image, 1995) in mind.
Images have always had an intrinsic, underlying and unconscious input on the way people perceive them. Thereby, an invisible presence is established apart from the human perception process which attributes a deliberate meaning to images in the outer world (Carolyn M. Bloomer, Principles of visual perception). Consequently, every image does not only embody an evident message but also an effect on people which varies along the human history and the representational techniques.
Since the prehistoric naturalism, the effect of this invisible presence has been decreasing gradually. Its power decline is inversely proportional to its use. In other words, the excessive use has deteriorated dramatically the image power by system forms such as theocracy, monocracy, mediacracy and technocracy. It can be argued that the cause of this decline is the human progress but it contrarily shows that images have saturated the human eye. Evidence for this is provided by Art.
During the Palaeolithic Age, primitive hunters struggled to earn an appropriate livelihood as they inhabited in an unproductive and parasitic community where an economic system and a religious belief did not exist. As a consequence, they drew themselves hunting and chasing their preys because food was their main objective day to day. Nevertheless, most of the drawings were depicted and superimposed on unseen walls in the caves repeatedly. In that case, the primitive hunters did not have any artistic or pleasant purposes, in fact, they used images as a magical technique to achieve their aim. Hence, images took part in the process of hunting as one more stage instead as a representation. To put it simpler, this technique was a real trap because the portrayed prey was the dead animal itself. In conclusion, they truly believed in alive images rather than a representation of the outer world. (Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art, Vol. 1).
[Post in development]