Vertigo

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano D’Aloia
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Embodied Simulation ◽  
Contemporary Cinema ◽  
Contemporary Film

The chapter ‘Vertigo. Towards a Neurofilmology’ offers an introduction to the book’s contents and methods. The implementation of psychology of perception, philosophy of mind, and suggestions from cognitive neuroscience (in particular the role of ‘mirror neurons’ and the hypothesis of ‘embodied simulation’) has the capability to renew contemporary film theory and to reduce the distance between competing approaches (i.e. cognitivist and phenomenological film studies). ‘Neurofilmology’ adopts an enactive and embodied approach to cognition and provides interpretative tools for the exploration of contemporary cinema. Through a series of recurrent ‘aerial motifs’ in which the film character loses his/her equilibrium—acrobatics, fall, impact, overturning, and drift—the cinema offers an intense motor and emotional experience that puts the spectator’s somatosensory perception in tension. At the same time, it provides compensation by adopting embodied forms of regulation of stimuli and a dynamic restoration of gravity and orientation (the so called ‘disembodying-reembodying’ dynamic).

Neurofilmology of the Moving Image

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano D'Aloia
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Perceptual Psychology ◽  
Contemporary Cinema

A walk suspended in mid-air, a fall at breakneck speed towards a fatal impact with the ground, an upside-down flip into space, the drift of an astronaut in the void… Analysing a wide range of films, this book brings to light a series of recurrent aesthetic motifs through which contemporary cinema destabilizes and then restores the spectator’s sense of equilibrium. The ‘tensive motifs’ of acrobatics, fall, impact, overturning, and drift reflect our fears and dreams, and offer imaginary forms of transcendence of the limits of our human condition, along with an awareness of their insurmountable nature. Adopting the approach of ‘Neurofilmology’—an interdisciplinary method that puts filmology, perceptual psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive neuroscience into dialogue—, this book implements the paradigm of embodied cognition in a new ecological epistemology of the moving-image experience.

Mirror Neurons and Film Studies

Projections ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Turvey
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Mirror Neuron ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Recent Application ◽  
Empathic Response

This article surveys some of the major criticisms of mirror neuron explanations of human behavior within neuroscience and philosophy of mind. It then shows how these criticisms pertain to the recent application of mirror neuron research to account for some of our responses to movies, particularly our empathic response to film characters and our putative simulation of anthropomorphic camera movements. It focuses especially on the “egocentric” conception of the film viewer that mirror neuron research appears to license. In doing so, it develops a position called “serious pessimism” about the potential contribution of neuroscience to the study of film and art by building upon the “moderate pessimism” recently proposed by philosopher David Davies. It also offers some methodological recommendations for how film scholars should engage with the sciences.

The role of embodied change in perceiving and processing facial expressions of others

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 437-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Briñol ◽  
Kenneth G. DeMarree ◽  
K. Rachelle Smith
Keyword(s):  
Motor Activity ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Emotion Perception ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Embodied Simulation

AbstractThe embodied simulation of smiles involves motor activity that often changes the perceivers' own emotional experience (e.g., smiling can make us feel happy). Although Niedenthal et al. mention this possibility, the psychological processes by which embodiment changes emotions and their consequences for processing other emotions are not discussed in the target article's review. We argue that understanding the processes initiated by embodiment is important for a complete understanding of the effects of embodiment on emotion perception.

Affect, or Postmodern Sentimentalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Burnetts
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Stanley Cavell ◽  
Contemporary Film

Chapter Four provides a wider theoretical basis for the ‘sophistication’ and self-consciousness that characterises post-classical or postmodern forms of sentimentality in US film culture, with particular attention paid to notions of ‘excess’ and distanciation. It accounts in particular for the influence of key modernists like Adorno, Benjamin and Brecht on taste categories that persist in contemporary film studies, with particular reference to the ‘ideological stoicism’ that is alleged to predominate in critical film culture. The discussion will provide context for a discussion of the ‘affective’ turn in film theory, around which the contributions of Gilles Deleuze and Stanley Cavell loom large in their centralisation of a film-as-thought paradigm.

scholarly journals Perspectives: A dialogue upon the question of value in film education

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Bernstein ◽  
Andrew Robert Burn
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Multimodal Approach ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Film Education ◽  
Contemporary Film ◽  
Relativist Approach

The question of aesthetic value remains a source of tension within diverse film education environments. While film-makers and audiences have visceral experiences of the value of cinema, these experiences are troubled by a contemporary film studies that tends to adopt a more relativist approach, suggesting that the experience of value is reflective of sociocultural subjectivity. Speaking from two different perspectives, Alan Bernstein and Andrew Burn explore the role of value in film education, and film culture more widely, in 2019. While Bernstein argues for a reinstatement of value as a fundamental aspect of how film is experienced and understood in educational contexts and beyond, Burn contextualizes questions of value within a wider framework of semiotic and aesthetic theory, arguing for a multimodal approach that takes into account the multifaceted nature of film.

Neurofilmology of the Moving Image

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano D'Aloia
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Perceptual Psychology ◽  
Contemporary Cinema

A walk suspended in mid-air, a fall at breakneck speed towards a fatal impact with the ground, an upside-down flip into space, the drift of an astronaut in the void … Analysing a wide range of films, this book brings to light a series of recurrent aesthetic motifs through which contemporary cinema destabilizes and then restores the spectator's sense of equilibrium. The 'tensive motifs' of acrobatics, fall, impact, overturning, and drift reflect our fears and dreams, and offer imaginary forms of transcendence of the limits of our human condition, along with an awareness of their insurmountable nature. Adopting the approach of 'Neurofilmology'—an interdisciplinary method that puts filmology, perceptual psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive neuroscience into dialogue—, this book implements the paradigm of embodied cognition in a new ecological epistemology of the moving-image experience.

What does cinema think that nothing but it can think?

Maska ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (200) ◽  
pp. 68-77
Author(s):  
Anja Banko
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
American Film ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Contemporary Film

The article deals with questions of contemporary film theory by explaining and reflecting on the theses as proposed by the American film and literary critic Nico Baumbach in his work Cinema/Politics/Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 2018). Baumbach is able to analyse the questions of what status film has in relation to politics, philosophy and art in a contemporarily relevant way, approaching film studies through reading authors such as Rancire, Badiou and Agamben in dialogue with Althusser, Deleuze and Benjamin. The article focuses on the positioning and meaning of Baumbach’s thought in the contemporary field of film theory. We position the author’s thought as necessarily dependent on historical context and emphasise its potential for further contemplation, especially as regards the fruitful connection of the dominant branches of film theory that understand film in other ways than merely as the ‘seventh art’.

Embodied Simulation

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-52
Author(s):  
Vittorio Gallese ◽  
Michele Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Motor System ◽  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
Personal Space ◽  
Object Perception ◽  
Motor Cognition ◽  
Embodied Simulation ◽  
Canonical Neurons ◽  
The Aesthetic

This chapter provides the key neuroscientific data that enable the reader to follow the case studies. The subheadings are “Cinema, brain and empathy,” in which the reception of film is discussed, and the notion of empathy is introduced with an outline of its history; “Body, brain and neuroscience,” provides a critical account of neuroscience and details of the specific approach used; “From classic cognitivism to embodied cognition,” discusses two mainstream approaches to social cognition, classic cognitivism, and evolutionary psychology; “Motor cognition: Movements and motor goals,” explains why and how the cognitive role of the motor system and its role in visual perception should be reconceived; “Motor cognition: Area F4 and peri-personal space,” provides evidence for the role of the motor system in mapping space; “Motor cognition: Canonical neurons and objects ‘close to hand’,” discusses canonical neurons and their role in object perception; “Motor cognition: Mirror neurons and mirroring mechanisms,” introduces mirror neurons in macaques and mirror mechanisms in humans, and outlines their role in social perception; “Emotions, sensations and embodied simulation,” describes the role of embodied simulation in the perception of the emotions and sensations of others; “The person as a corporeal form between the real world and the world of fiction: Liberated simulation,” introduces the aesthetic specificity of the visual perception model with an explanation of how it could be applied to film viewing in particular and more generally to fiction; and “Brain–body and cinema,” discusses how neuroscience has been applied to the study of film and cinema.

Empathy, Rationality, and Explanation

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-162
Author(s):  
Karsten Stueber ◽  
Mark Bevir
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Causation ◽  
Folk Psychology ◽  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Historical Understanding ◽  
Action Explanation ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

AbstractThis paper describes the historical background to contemporary discussions of empathy and rationality. It looks at the philosophy of mind and its implications for action explanation and the philosophy of history. In the nineteenth century, the concept of empathy became prominent within philosophical aesthetics, from where it was extended to describe the way we grasp other minds. This idea of empathy as a way of understanding others echoed through later accounts of historical understanding as involving re-enactment, noticeably that of R. G. Collingwood. For much of the late twentieth century, philosophers of history generally neglected questions about action explanation. In the philosophy of mind, however, Donald Davidson inspired widespread discussions of the role of folk psychology and rationality in mental causation and the explanation of actions, and some philosophers of history drew on his ideas to reconsider issues related to empathy. Today, philosophers inspired by the discovery of mirror neurons and the theory of mind debate between theory theorists and simulation theorists are again making the concept of empathy central to philosophical analyses of action explanation and to historical understanding.

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