Chapter
Aesthetics and the philosophy of art
Artistic understanding and appreciation
First notes for a rapprochement
The neuroscience of dance and film: two case studies
4 Theoretical foundations for an empirical aesthetics
Pragmatic and aesthetic experiences
Two contrasting perspectives: information theory and Gestalt psychology
The reactive mode of response and affective covariation
The reflective mode of response and emotional elaboration
The roots of empirical aesthetics
The great aesthetic shift
Mining the depths of stimulus structure: linear versus painterly dimension
Reconciling edges and blobs embedded in fractal structure
The time course of aesthetic experience: cognitive and affective implications
Experiencing the passage of time in aesthetic episodes
Long-term recollections of artworks
Searching for emotional and intellectual meaning
The roots of pleasure and interest
Trait absorption and negative affective state influence aesthetic preferences
Reconciling conflicting traditions
Assessing aesthetic constructs
Measures of greatness: creators and creations
Characteristics of aesthetic artifacts
Objective laboratory tasks
Summary: objective measures
Quantitative measures: the Consensual Assessment Technique
Qualitative measures: open-ended interviews
Summary: subjective measures
How to explain human aesthetic judgment, preference and experience
How to explain dynamic trends in the evolution of the arts
Part II Perspectives and approaches to art and aesthetics
6 Beyond perception - information processing approaches to art appreciation
What does experimental aesthetics consider as art?
Toward an understanding of art: a very brief history of art
Psychology of the arts: the artwork and the perceiver, from below and above
Perception of art: direct exploration
Visual appearance: complexity
What parts are visually important? Mapping saliency
Aesthetics from above: the perceiver
Art-specific features? Artists'
styles
Extra information from the context: titles
7 Psychodynamics and the arts
Freud: art as Pleasurable Disguise
The role of object relations theory
A successful Freudian analysis of a theme in art
A persuasive psychodynamic view of a painter
On not being able to paint: an object relations perspective
Vermeer's
sublime works and the hint of object relations
The psychodynamics of reading and viewing, in a controlled setting
The psychodynamics of art making
Art and its psychodynamics: concluding remarks
8 Evolutionary approaches to art and aesthetics
Approaches to the evolution of art and aesthetics
Imagination, pretense and fiction
Relief of tension and anxiety
Enhancement of group cohesion and cooperation
A new framework for the evolution of art and aesthetics
Defining the object of study
Assembling the evidence: neuroscience
Assembling the evidence: comparative neuroanatomy
Assembling the evidence: archaeology
Sketching a framework for the evolutionary cognitive neuroscience of art and aesthetics
9 The walls do speak: psychological aesthetics and the museum experience
Considering art in the museum context
As museum visits begin: characteristics and motivations of museum visitors
A typology of visitors to museums
What museum visitors are seeking in their visit
During museum visits: factors that influence the museum visit
A side step to the laboratory: physiological responses while looking at art
Behaviors within the galleries
As museum visits end: future directions in research on museum visitation, art and aesthetics
Part III Objects and media
10 Empirical investigation of the elements of composition in paintings: a painting as stimulus
The structural organization of a painting's
composition - an overview
First-order pictorial elements of paintings
Holistic second-order perceptual qualities of paintings
The pictorial depth dimension
The semantic level of organization
Accessibility of a painting's
content and processing fluency
Painting styles and subject matter
Additional stimulus conditions that influence the perception and aesthetic judgment of paintings
The original and reproduction formats of paintings
The subjective approach to aesthetics
11 "Mute, motionless, variegated rectangles":
aesthetics and photography
Photography as a technical process
Photography as an aesthetic skill
The perception and the aesthetics of light, objects and photographs
The ecology of light intensities
Patterns of light and shade within photographs
Early gaze within photographs
Do people differ in their cropping ability?
What determines cropping location?
What is the role of expertise?
Gestalt theory, balance and photography
Left and right in photographs
The ubiquitous 50-mm lens
Depth of focus and fake tilt-shift miniaturization
Memory for photographic images
Emotion in photographs and emotions in response to photographs
12 Aesthetic responses to design: a battle of impulses
The function of aesthetics
"Attractive things work
better"
Why do we like what we like?
The perceptual level: unity-in-variety
The cognitive level: typicality in novelty
Typicality and familiarity
The social level: connectedness in uniqueness
Interaction and intention
A unified model of aesthetics
Conditions affecting the trade-off
Proximal versus distant senses
Safe versus risky products
Public versus private consumption
Promotion versus prevention goals
13 From music perception to an integrative framework for the psychology of aesthetics
Auditory feature extraction
Echoic memory and Gestalt formation
When intelligence comes into play: syntactic structure building
Neural correlates of music-syntactic processing
Interactions between language- and music-syntactic processing
Processing of phrase boundaries
Structural reanalysis and repair
Vitalization: effects of music on the autonomic and the endocrine system
Effects of music on the immune system
Premotor processes evoked by music perception
Extrapolation to other domains
Extra-musical meaning and the N400
Intra-musical meaning and the N5
14 Theater and dance: another pathway to understanding human nature
Who is the actor or dancer?
Cognitive and social skills
Cognitive and social skills
Transfer of arts skills to non-arts skills
Conclusions, gaps and future directions
15 Arts education, academic achievement and cognitive ability
Training in the arts and academic achievement
Arts and general cognitive ability
Arts training and language skills
Music training and language skills
Drama lessons and language skills
Visual arts training, dance training and language skills
Arts training and visuospatial skills
16 Aesthetics and the built environment: no painting or musical piece can compare
Evolving definitions of the built environment
The pinnacle of the built environment: architecture
Widening the scope: cities
Past the pavement: landscapes and the "natural"
environment
Different perspectives on aesthetics and the built environment
The psychological perspective: a focus on internal processes
The design perspective: a focus on behavior outcomes
Bringing the perspectives together
What makes the built environment beautiful?
Intrinsic aesthetic elements
Architecture as art and engineering
Context: fitting in or standing out
Audiovisual representations of the built environment and their limitations
The intractable problem of self-selection
Improving medical outcomes with aesthetics
Servicescapes: commercial applications of aesthetics in the built environment
Streetscapes and landscapes: perspectives from public health and transportation
The built environment as everything
17 Mirror, mirror on the wall, who´s the fairest one of all? Influencing factors and effects of facial attractiveness
Why are faces attractive?
What makes faces attractive?
Sexual dimorphic characteristics
Effects of eye gaze and emotional expression on attractiveness
Eye gaze and attractiveness
Emotional expression and attractiveness
Attractiveness in the brain
fMRI studies on facial attractiveness
Facial attractiveness and the core system
Facial attractiveness and the extended system
The time course of responding to facial attractiveness: effects measured using EEG
Attractiveness and attention
Are attractive faces remembered more?
How attractiveness affects our real-world behavior
18 An aesthetics of literary fiction
What happens: four scholars
Faulkner: complexity described
The literature of literary reading: a broad view
Part IV Contemporary issues and debates
19 Neuroaesthetics: descriptive and experimental approaches
Descriptive neuroaesthetics
Anecdotal neuropsychology
Experimental neuroaesthetics
Quantifying the neuropsychology of art
Promising directions in neuroaesthetics
20 How emotions shape aesthetic experiences
What is an emotion? Utilitarian versus aesthetic emotions
The component process theory of emotion
The component process in aesthetic emotions
The cognitive component (appraisal)
The physiological activation (arousal)
The motivational component or tendency for action
The subjective experience
21 Unusual aesthetic states
Traditional aesthetic states
Crying and feeling like crying
A pluralistic psychology of aesthetics
22 Personality and aesthetic experiences
Aesthetic experiences and the visual arts
Openness to Experience and the visual arts
A brief note on art judgment
Aesthetic experiences in other domains
Personality and aesthetic behaviors
23 Hokusai and Fuji: cognition, convention and pictorial invention in Japanese pictorial arts
Complicity and cognitive stock: Hokusai and his audiences
Hokusai, Fuji and pictorial development
Hokusai´s Japanese vision - Yamato-e in ukiyo-e
Calligraphic craftsmanship
Asobi: Fuji, Hokusai and artistic play
The playful potentials of repetition and reflection
The playful engagement with media
Part V Pulling it all together
24 And all that jazz: rigor and relevance in the psychology of aesthetics and the arts
Art forms and aesthetics phenomena
Methodology: unity in diversity
Modeling the gamut of human aesthetic experience
Self-reflection, invigoration and future directions
The Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Aesthetics and the Arts
( Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology )
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