scholarly journals The nature of perception and emotion in aesthetic appreciation: A response to Makin’s challenge to Empirical Aesthetics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Skov ◽  
Marcos Nadal
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Emotional Processes ◽  
Distinct Kind ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Mainstream Psychology

Alexis Makin argued in a recent paper that Empirical Aesthetics is unable to properly advance our understanding of the mechanisms involved in aesthetic experience. The reason for this predicament, he claims, is an inability of current research methods to capture the psychological properties that truly characterize aesthetic experience, especially the unique perceptual and emotional processes involved in the aesthetic experience. We show that Makin’s argument rests on assumptions that are at odds with scientific knowledge of the neurobiological mechanisms involved in the appreciation of sensory objects. We thereafter show that such mechanisms are rooted in shared neurobiological systems, and operate according to computational principles that are common to many domains of experience. This casts doubt on the notion that aesthetic experiences constitute a distinct kind of experiences that can be defined according to a set of special and unique qualities. Finally, we discuss how attributing this specialness to “aesthetic” experiences leads Empirical Aesthetics astray from mainstream psychology and neuroscience.

Nature, aesthetic appreciation of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Western World ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Ideal Object ◽  
The Third ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Aesthetic

In the Western world, aesthetic appreciation of nature and its philosophical investigation came to fruition in the eighteenth century. During that time, aestheticians made nature the ideal object of aesthetic experience and analysed that experience in terms of disinterestedness, thereby laying the groundwork for understanding the appreciation of nature in terms of the sublime and the picturesque. This philosophical tradition reached its zenith with Kant, while popular aesthetic appreciation of nature continued primarily in terms of the picturesque. In the late twentieth century, renewed interest in the aesthetics of nature has produced various positions designed to avoid assimilating appreciation of nature with traditional models for aesthetic appreciation of art. Three are especially noteworthy. The first holds that the appreciation of nature is not in fact aesthetic; the second rejects the traditional analysis of aesthetic experience as disinterested, arguing instead that the aesthetic appreciation of nature involves engagement with nature; the third attempts to maintain the traditional analysis, while distinguishing aesthetic appreciation of nature by dependence on scientific knowledge. These positions have a number of ramifications. In freeing aesthetic appreciation of nature from artistic models, they pave the way for a general environmental aesthetics comparable to other areas of philosophy, such as environmental ethics. Moreover, the significance given to scientific knowledge in the third position both explains the aesthetic appreciation associated with environmentalism and provides aesthetic appreciation of nature with a degree of objectivity that may make aesthetic considerations more effectual in environmental assessment.

scholarly journals The Biological Basis of Mathematical Beauty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Semir Zeki ◽  
Oliver Y. Chén ◽  
John Paul Romaya
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Mathematical Culture ◽  
Extensive Experience ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Biological Basis ◽  
Mathematical Beauty ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Biological Category

AbstractThrough our past studies of the neurobiology of beauty, we have come to divide aesthetic experiences into two broad categories: biological and artifactual. The aesthetic experience of biological beauty is dictated by inherited brain concepts, which are resistant to change even in spite of extensive experience. The experience of artifactual beauty on the other hand is determined by post-natally acquired concepts, which are modifiable throughout life by exposure to different experiences (Zeki, 2009). Hence, in terms of aesthetic rating, biological beauty (in which we include the experience of beautiful faces or human bodies) is characterized by less variability between individuals belonging to different ethnic origins and cultural backgrounds or the same individual at different times. Artifactual beauty (in which we include the aesthetic experience of human artifacts such as buildings and cars) is characterized by greater variability between individuals belonging to different ethnic and cultural groupings and by the same individual at different times. In this paper, we present results to show that the experience of mathematical beauty (Zeki et al 2014), even though it constitutes an extreme example of beauty that is dependent upon (mathematical) culture and learning, belongs to the biological category and obeys one of its characteristics, namely a lesser variability in terms of the aesthetic ratings given to mathematical formulae experienced as beautiful.

The Aesthetic Triad

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
Oshin Vartanian ◽  
Anjan Chatterjee
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Emergent Property ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Large Scale Systems ◽  
Sensory Motor ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Meaning System ◽  
The Brain

Following the rapid growth of neuroaesthetics, there was a need to systematize and organize the findings into a coherent and testable framework. With the “aesthetic triad,” the authors presented a model according to which aesthetic experience was viewed as the emergent property of the interaction of three large-scale systems in the brain: sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and knowledge-meaning. Features that distinguished this model from others was that it was meant to apply to all aesthetic episodes (e.g., art, faces, architecture, etc.) and it acknowledged explicitly that a large variety of aesthetic experiences can emerge as a function of the specific ways in which these systems interact in the course of their emergence. To probe the model, the contribution of the knowledge-meaning system is likely of greatest interest, at least in part because that system encapsulates a large breadth of factors ranging from the personal to the cultural.

A Farewell to Art: Aesthetics as a Topic in Psychology and Neuroscience

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 630-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Skov ◽  
Marcos Nadal
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Behavioral Control ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
Hedonic Value ◽  
Hedonic Valuation ◽  
Emotional Processes ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Definition Of

Empirical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics study two main issues: the valuation of sensory objects and art experience. These two issues are often treated as if they were intrinsically interrelated: Research on art experience focuses on how art elicits aesthetic pleasure, and research on valuation focuses on special categories of objects or emotional processes that determine the aesthetic experience. This entanglement hampers progress in empirical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics and limits their relevance to other domains of psychology and neuroscience. Substantial progress in these fields is possible only if research on aesthetics is disentangled from research on art. We define aesthetics as the study of how and why sensory stimuli acquire hedonic value. Under this definition, aesthetics becomes a fundamental topic for psychology and neuroscience because it links hedonics (the study of what hedonic valuation is in itself) and neuroeconomics (the study of how hedonic values are integrated into decision making and behavioral control). We also propose that this definition of aesthetics leads to concrete empirical questions, such as how perceptual information comes to engage value signals in the reward circuit or why different psychological and neurobiological factors elicit different appreciation events for identical sensory objects.

An Aesthetic Theory of Vandalism

1978 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon L. Allen ◽  
David B. Greenberger
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Previous Theory ◽  
Discriminative Stimuli ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Destructive Behavior ◽  
Initial Appearance ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Practical Implications

An aesthetic theory of vandalism is proposed. The theory posits that the variables accounting for the enjoyment associated with socially acceptable aesthetic experiences are similarly responsible for the pleasure associated with acts of destruction. Previous theory and research in aesthetics have identified many important factors, such as complexity, expectation, novelty, intensity, and patterning, which are responsible for the pleasure that accompanies an aesthetic experience. These same psychological processes are involved in the destruction of an object. Furthermore, aesthetic variables implicated in an object's initial appearance and in its appearance after being vandalized may serve as eliciting or discriminative stimuli for destructive behavior. Several studies provide support for hypotheses derived from the aesthetic theory of vandalism. In conclusion, we examine the theory's practical implications for reducing vandalism in the schools.

scholarly journals Associating With Art: A Network Model of Aesthetic Effects

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Specker ◽  
Eiko I. Fried ◽  
Raphael Rosenberg ◽  
Helmut Leder
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Psychological Constructs ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Active Interaction

In recent years, understanding psychological constructs as network processes has gained considerable traction in the social sciences. In this paper, we propose the aesthetic effects network (AEN) as a novel way to conceptualize aesthetic experience. The AEN represents an associative process where having one association leads to the next association, generating an overall aesthetic experience. In art theory, associations of this kind are referred to as aesthetic effects. The AEN provides an explicit account of a specific cognitive process involved in aesthetic experience. We first outline the AEN and discuss empirical results (Study 1, N=255) to explore what can be gained from this approach. Second, in Study 2 (N=133, pre-registered) we follow calls in the literature to substantiate network theories by using an experimental manipulation, and found evidence in favor of the AEN over other alternatives. The AEN provides a basis for future studies that can apply a network perspective to different aesthetic experiences and processes. This perspective takes a process-based approach to aesthetic experience, where aesthetic experience is represented as an active interaction between viewer and artwork. If we want to understand how people experience art, it is central to know why people have different experiences with the same artworks, and, also, why people have similar experiences when looking at different artworks. Our proposed network perspective offers a new way to approach and potentially answer these questions.

scholarly journals Aesthetics in motion: The beauty of action paintings as revealed by Parkinson’s disease

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacey Humphries ◽  
Jacqueline Rick ◽  
Daniel Weintraub ◽  
Anjan Chatterjee
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Motor System ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Visual Metaphor ◽  
Embodied Simulation ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Subjective Value ◽  
The Aesthetic

Visual art offers cognitive neuroscience an opportunity to study how subjective value is constructed from representations supported by multiple neural systems. A surprising finding in research on aesthetic judgment is that functional activation of motor areas of the brain often occurs in response to static, abstract stimuli, such as paintings. This motor activity has variously been hypothesised to reflect the embodied simulation of an artist’s painting movements or emotions, as well as possible preparatory approach-avoidance responses to liked and disliked artworks. However, whether this motor involvement functionally contributes to aesthetic appreciation has not been addressed. Here, we examined whether motor system dysfunction alters the aesthetic experiences of patients with Parkinson’s disease. 43 people with Parkinson’s disease and 40 controls made preference decisions and rated the motion content and their aesthetic appreciation of a set of high-motion action paintings (by Jackson Pollock) and a set of low-motion neoplastic paintings (by Piet Mondrian). People with Parkinson’s disease demonstrated stable and internally consistent preferences for abstract art, but their perception of movement in the paintings was significantly lower in both conditions than that of controls. In addition, people with Parkinson’s demonstrated enhanced preferences for high-motion art, and a fundamentally altered relationship between motion and aesthetic appreciation. Our results do not accord well with a straightforward embodied simulation account of aesthetic experiences, because artworks that did not include visual traces of the artist’s actions were still experienced as lower in motion by Parkinson’s patients. We suggest that the ability to form movement representations from static abstract images is more akin to a process of visual metaphor comprehension that is mediated through the motor system. Overall, we find support for hypotheses linking motion, motor responses and aesthetic appreciation, and provide clear evidence that altered neural functioning changes the way art is perceived and valued.

The Aesthetics of Emptiness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuriko Saito
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Chinese Character ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Ubiquitous Presence

Art is the most effective vehicle for unearthing and highlighting the aesthetic potentials of the everyday life that generally do not garner attention because of their ubiquitous presence and ordinary familiarity. Recent art projects, termed ‘sky art’ for the purpose of discussion in this chapter, illuminate the aesthetics of the sky and celestial phenomena. This chapter analyzes several examples of ‘sky art’ by utilizing the notion of ‘emptiness,’ deriving an inspiration from the identical Chinese character used for both ‘sky’ and ‘emptiness,’ as well as the Buddhist notion of ‘emptiness.’ Despite the connotation of ‘emptiness’ that is devoid of any content or substance, different ways in which sky art facilitates the act of ‘emptying’ enrich the aesthetic experience of the sky and sky art. Sky art thus illustrates how art helps turn the otherwise ordinary into the extraordinary and facilitates its aesthetic appreciation.

Implicit Measures in the Aesthetic Domain

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Letizia Palumbo
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Implicit Measures ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Implicit Processes ◽  
The Aesthetic

The current chapter is concerned with implicit levels of information processing underlying hedonic responses. Commencing with an overview of the processes involved in the formation of the aesthetic experience, the discourse will focus on models that ascribe a role to the implicit dimension, a role that is marginal but necessary. We will see how a range of experimental procedures have contributed to measure automatic components of the aesthetic appreciation. The aim is to assign a specific place to the study of implicit processes within the broader debate on aesthetic experience. Ultimately, this will lead to some general remarks for the discipline of empirical aesthetics.

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