tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post8139758008633670929..comments2024-01-13T08:01:37.708+00:00Comments on Postcognitive Topics: Neuroarthistory : What Neuroscience can tell us about ArtPostCog Topicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06744695402349056096noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-25328230214326199442013-04-23T21:48:52.445+01:002013-04-23T21:48:52.445+01:00You guys might like this recent article I found on...You guys might like this recent article I found on PLOS biology entitled 'Neuroaesthetics and the trouble with beauty':<br /><br />http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001504Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-87887814865465771952013-03-09T10:06:12.034+00:002013-03-09T10:06:12.034+00:00I'm with Tallis and Poehls on this one. Neuroa...I'm with Tallis and Poehls on this one. Neuroarthistory may tell us something (I'm not denying that there is probably a 'raw' aesthetic element to the appreciation of some art), but it completely omits the historical and social context and disregards the process of interpretation that a person presumably brings to bear when they engage with a work of art. <br /><br />Everything higher-order is ignored - as Tallis says, we reflect on art, we don't just enjoy the 'tingle' it gives us, so it falls short as a description of how the individual's experience and judgements are formed. <br /><br />And of course, these individual experiences and judgements are not formed in a vacuum. The approach ignores how the varieties in art-taste map so neatly onto socioeconomic classes and subcultures, and why public taste changes over time. Why do we have the tastes we do? 'Art appreciation' may also often involve allowing oneself to like or dislike things in a way that will demonstrate group affiliation or exclusivity. If this is unclear in the realm of visual art, just think how clouded with identity politics music appreciation has become. Neuroaesthetics could explain certain basic features of visual appreciation (features that would be shared by natural scenes I imagine), but I don't see how it could explain variation in art-taste, or the regularities to be seen in that variation.<br />Hugh Turpinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17652077683560563501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-61428539527214285662013-03-08T22:24:25.341+00:002013-03-08T22:24:25.341+00:00I found this an interesting post - and the (quite ...I found this an interesting post - and the (quite long) statements of Onions and Tallis behind the links are worth reading, too. <br />But after reading all this I'd like to come back to the beginning claim of Onions that his research will "answer with a new level of precision some of the most challenging questions about both the creative process and the response to art".<br />This sounds exciting, but I am still not too sure in what way neuroscience really "can enhance our understanding of a r t": So what does it mean if different areas in the brain lit up when viewing works by different artists? Does that not merely show that some discrimination is taking place, as all our experiences of the world can be perceived as more similar or different to one another? <br />Onions is also using the example of an unfinished sculpture of Michelangelo, saying that we respond to it because our brain needs to deal with and resolve the indeterminate. While it might be that this is the case, in my opinion that doesn't tell us much about art or art critique: This "neural effort" as one could call it, could result in the art being seen as interesting, but also as stressful and therefore not pleasant. Or it could have no effect on our judgment of the piece of art at all. <br />Thus, these neural techniques don't tell us anything about how we perceive the art work, what our response to it would be. Certainly there can't be a rule drawn from this (although Onions/Zeki seem to believe so), stating that "unfinished art pieces are artistically more interesting and more valuable". <br />So what can this research really tell us about the response to art? <br />Maybe that there might be certain preferences that might be inborn (such as being drawn to human faces). But this then seems to merely be an attention phenomenon - and it doesn't have to do anything with what is ultimately perceived when looking at an art work as a whole or when making a judgement about it.RLV Poehlshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11028821925273537599noreply@blogger.com