Aesthetic Science

Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience

Edited by Arthur P. Shimamura and Stephen E. Palmer

Offers an introduction to the way art is perceived, interpreted, and felt
A ground breaking volume that connects mind, brain, and aesthetics
Philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists address the nature of aesthetic experiences from their own discipline's perspective

Aesthetic Science

Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience

Edited by Arthur P. Shimamura and Stephen E. Palmer

Description

What do we do when we view a work of art? What does it mean to have an "aesthetic" experience? Are such experiences purely in the eye (and brain) of the beholder? Such questions have entertained philosophers for millennia and psychologists for over a century. More recently, with the advent of functional neuroimaging methods, a handful of ambitious brain scientists have begun to explore the neural correlates of such experiences. The notion of aesthetics is generally linked to the way art evokes an hedonic response--we like it or we don't. Of course, a multitude of factors can influence such judgments, such as personal interest, past experience, prior knowledge, and cultural biases. In this book, philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists were asked to address the nature of aesthetic experiences from their own discipline's perspective. In particular, we asked these scholars to consider whether a multidisciplinary approach, an aesthetic science, could help connect mind, brain, and aesthetics. As such, this book offers an introduction to the way art is perceived, interpreted, and felt and approaches these mindful events from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Aesthetic Science

Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience

Edited by Arthur P. Shimamura and Stephen E. Palmer

Introduction
1. Toward a Science of Aesthetics: Ideas and Issues
Arthur P. Shimamura

Part I: Philosophical Perspectives

2. The Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics, Psychology, and Neuroscience: Studies in Literature, Visual Arts, and Music
Noël Carroll, Margaret Moore, & William P. Seeley

3. Aesthetic Theory and Aesthetic Science: Prospects for Integration
Vincent Bergeron and Dominic McIver Lopes

4. Triangulating Aesthetic Experience
Murray Smith

5. Art and the Anthropologists
Gregory Currie

6. Aesthetic Science and Artistic Knowledge
Blake Gopnik

Part II: Psychological Perspectives

7. Empirical Investigation of an Aesthetic Experience with Art
Paul J. Locher

8. Hidden Knowledge in Aesthetic Judgments: Preferences for Colors and Spatial Compositions
Stephen E. Palmer, Karen B. Schloss, and Jonathan S. Gardner

9. Processing Fluency, Aesthetic Pleasure, and Culturally Shared Taste
Rolf Reber

10. Human Emotions and Aesthetic Experience
Paul J. Silvia

11. Artistic Development: The Three Essential Spheres
Kimberly M. Sheridan and Howard Gardner

Part III: Neuroscience Perspectives

12. Neuroaesthetics: Growing Pains of a New Discipline
Anjan Chatterjee

13. The Modularity of Aesthetic Processing and Perception in the Human Brain: Functional Neuroimaging Studies of Neuroaesthetics
Ulrich Kirk

14. Art Compositions Elicit Distributed Activation in the Human Brain
Alumit Ishai

15. A Cognitive and Behavioral Neurological Approach to Aesthetics
Zachary A. Miller & Bruce L. Miller

16. Neurology of Visual Aesthetics: Indian Nymphs, Modern Art, and Sexy Beaks
V. S. Ramachandran and Elizabeth Seckel

Aesthetic Science

Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience

Edited by Arthur P. Shimamura and Stephen E. Palmer

Author Information

Arthur P. Shimamura is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He investigates human memory and cognition using neuroimaging techniques and by studying individuals with memory disorders. Dr. Shimamura is a founding member of the Society for Cognitive Neuroscience, has been a scientific advisor for the San Francisco Exploratorium Science Museum, and received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship to explore art, aesthetics and brain.

Stephen E. Palmer, is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research and teaching focus is on visual perception, a topic closely related to his color photography. He is the author of Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology, an advanced, interdisciplinary textbook on visual perception. He is currently working on a new book about color: Reversing the Rainbow: Reflections on Color and Consciousness.

Contributors:

Vincent Bergeron
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, ON, Canada

Noël Carroll
Distinguished Professor
Graduate Center of the City University of New York
New York, NY

Anjan Chatterjee
Professor of Neurology
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Gregory Currie
Professor of Philosophy
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, UK

Howard Gardner
Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Cambridge, MA

Blake Gopnik
Special Correspondent, Arts
Newsweek
New York, NY

Alumit Ishai
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
Institute of Neuroradiology
University of Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland

Ulrich Kirk
Human Neuroimaging Laboratory
Virginia Tech University
Carilion Research Institute
Roanoke, VA, USA and
Centre for Addition and Mental Health
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON, Canada

Paul J. Locher
Professor Emeritus of Psychology
Montclair State University

Dominic McIver Lopes
Department of Philospophy
University of British Columbia

Bruce L. Miller
A.W. Clausen Distinguished Professor of Neurology
Director, Memory & Aging Center
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA

Zachary A. Miller
Clinical Instructor
UCSF Memory and Aging Center
Department of Neurology
San Francisco, CA

Margaret E. Moore
Post-doctoral Researcher
Philosophy Department
University of Leads
Leeds, UK

Stephen E. Palmer
Professor of the Graduate School
Psychology and Cognitive Science
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Director, Center for Brain and Cognition
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA

Rolf Reber
Professor of Cognitive Psychology
University of Bergen
Bergen, Norway

Jonathan Sammartino
Lecturer
Psychology Department
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

Elizabeth Seckel
UCSD Center for Brain and Cognition
San Diego, CA

William P. Seeley
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Bates College
Lewiston, ME

Karen B. Schloss
Department of Psychology
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

Kimberly M. Sheridan
Assistant Professor
College of Education and Human Development and
College of Visual and Performing Arts
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA

Arthur P. Shimamura
Professor of Psychology
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

Paul J. Silvia
Associate Professor of Psychology
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, NC

Murray Smith
Professor of Film Studies
Director of Research, Humanities
University of Kent
Canterbury, Kent, UK

Aesthetic Science

Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience

Edited by Arthur P. Shimamura and Stephen E. Palmer

Reviews and Awards

"Shimamura and Palmer's excellent book resurrects Gustav Theodor Fechner's plan from the 1870s for an empirical science of art and aesthetics, a project which briefly flourished before withering during the 20th century. In a millennial renaissance, the cognitive sciences have readdressed art and aesthetics, in what Shimamura and Palmer aptly call 'Aesthetic Science'." -- Chris McManus, Professor of Psychology and Medical Education at University College London