Art, Aesthetics, and the Brain

by Huston, Joseph P.; Nadal, Marcos; Mora, Francisco; Agnati, Luigi F.; Conde, Camilo Jose Cela

• ISBN13: 9780199670000
• ISBN10: 0199670005
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-09-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Joseph P. Huston, Institute of Experimental Psychology, University of Dusseldorf, Germany,Marcos Nadal, Postdoc University Assistant, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria,Francisco Mora, Professor of Human Physiology, Departamento de Fisiologia, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense, Spain,Luigi F. Agnati, Emeritus of Human Physiology, Department of BioMedical Sciences, University of Modena, Italy,Camilo Jose Cela Conde, Director, Laboratory of Human Systematics, University of the Balearic Islands, Spain

Joseph P. Huston is Professor of Physiological Psychology at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany. He obtained his PhD in Experimental Psychology at Tufts University, Boston. Was National Academy of Sciences - Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences exchange scientist at the Institute of Physiology in Prague, then at the Institute of Pharmacology, University of Zurich. He has published more than 400 books and scientific articles in areas of behavioral neurosciences with focus on brain mechanisms of addiction, memory and reward; animal models of neuropsychiatric and degenerative diseases. He is chief editor of the journals Behavioural Brain Research (Elsevier) and Reviews in the Neurosciences (Degruyter) and the book series Handbook of Behavioral Neuroscience (Elsevier).

Marcos Nadal obtained his degree in Psychology at the University of the Balearic Islands, and his PhD in Humanities and Social Sciences (Human Cognition and Evolution Program) (2007). He has been employed at the Department of Psychology of the University of the Balearic Islands since 2004, and occupied a lecturing position from 2010 to 2012. Since then he has been Assistant Professor at the Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods of the University of Vienna. Since their creation in 2001 he has been a member of the Laboratory of Human Systematics and the Human Evolution and Cognition research group. The main objective of that group was the advancement of our understanding of distinctively human cognitive traits. Marcos Nadal's main research has centered on the evolution, the neural correlates and function of cognitive and affective processes involved in aesthetic preference and art appreciation, as well as moral judgment and metaphoric language.

Francisco Mora is Doctor of Medicine (1972, University of Granada, Spain) and Doctor of Philosophy (Neuroscience) (1977, University of Oxford, UK). He is professor of Human Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine, University Complutense of Madrid, Spain and adjunct professor at the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, USA. He has written numerous articles for scientific journals including Science and Nature and several books among them The hot brain, MIT Press (2000); Neurocultura, Alianza Editorial (2007); and Neuroeducacion, Alianza Editorial (2013). He has received a Helen C. Levitt Professorship Award of the University of Iowa, USA in 2011. He is currently a member of the "Common Room" of the Wolfson College, University of Oxford (2009- ). His field of research is related to the Neurobiological Basis of Aging.

Luigi F. Agnati is Professor of Human Physiology at University of Modena, Italy. He currently holds degrees in Medicine, Pharmacy, and Statistics as well as post-graduate specializations in Electronic Calculus (CNUCE, Pisa, Italy), Clinical Neurology (University of Bologna, Italy) and an honoris causa degree from the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Luigi F. Agnati has published more than 620 papers in refereed international journals and seven textbooks. He has been a member of the Italian Society of Physiology, Italian Society of Pharmacology, Italian Society of Endocrinology, Italian Society of Neuroscience, Italian Association for the study of pain, European Society of Neuroscience, and European Society of Neuroendocrinology.

Camilo Cela-Conde is professor of Anthropology at the University of Balearic Islands, Spain. He received his PhD in philosophy from the Barcelona University, Spain. He has been visiting professor at the University of California, Davis, USA, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa, Mexico, Amazonica University, Belem, Brazil, and Universidad de Bogota, Colombia. He is Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Section of Biology, USA, Elected in November, 1999, and member of the Center for Academic Research and Teaching in Anthropogeny, Salk Institute and University of California, San Diego, USA, elected in March, 2008. His publications include On Genes, Gods and Tyrants, Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands (1989), and Human Evolution. Trails from the Past, New York, Oxford University Press (2007). He is director of the Laboratory of Human Systematics, University of the Balearic Islands, Spain.

Table of Contents

Section One: Foundational Issues
1. Neuroculture: A new cultural revolution?, Francisco Mora
2. Art, meaning, and aesthetics: the case for a cognitive neuroscience of art, William P. Seeley
3. States, People, and Contexts: Three Psychological Challenges for the Neuroscience of Aesthetics, Kirill Fayn and Paul J. Silvia
4. Aesthetic appreciation - convergence from experimental aesthetics and physiology, Helmut Leder, Gernot Gerger and David Brieber
5. The Moving Eye of the Beholder. Eye-Tracking and the Perception of Paintings, Christoph Klein and Raphael Rosenberg
Section Two: Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Aesthetics and Art
6. Neural Mechanisms for Evaluating the Attractiveness of Faces, Spas Getov and Joel S. Winston
7. Indeterminate Art Works and the Human Brain, Robert Pepperell and Alumit Ishai
8. Contextual bias and insulation against bias during esthetic rating: the implication of VMPFC and DLPFC in neural valuation, Ulrich Kirk and David Freedberg
9. Neuroimaging Studies of Making Aesthetic Products, Oshin Vartanian
Section Three: Cognitive Neuroscience of Dance
10. Beautiful embodiment: The shaping of aesthetic preference by personal experience, Emily S. Cross
11. Sensorimotor aesthetics: Neural correlates of aesthetic perception of dance, Beatriz Calvo-Merino
12. Towards ecological validity in empirical aesthetics of dance, Julia F. Christensen and Corinne Jola
Section Four: Cognitive Neuroscience of Music
13. Liking music: Genres, contextual factors, and individual differences, Kathleen A. Corrigall and E. Glenn Schellenberg
14. Tension-resolution patterns as a key element of aesthetic experience: psychological principles and underlying brain mechanisms, Moritz Lehne and Stefan Koelsch
15. From Pleasure to Liking and Back: Bottom-up and Top-down Neural Routes to the Aesthetic Enjoyment of Music, Elvira Brattico
16. Effects of expertise on the cognitive and neural processes involved in musical appreciation, Marcus T. Pearce
Section Five: Neuropsychology of Art and Aesthetics
17. The Neuropsychology of Visual Art, Anjan Chatterjee
18. The Creation of Art in the Setting of Dementia, Indre Viskontas and Suzee Lee
19. Hemispheric Specialization, Art, and Aesthetics, Dahlia W. Zaidel
Section Six: The Evolution of Art, Aesthetics, and the Brain
20. Towards a comparative approach to empirical aesthetics, Gesche Westphal-Fitch and W. Tecumseh Fitch
21. Art and Brain Coevolution, Camilo J. Cela-Conde and Francisco Ayala
22. Art as a human "instinct-like" behaviour emerging from the exaptation of the communication processes, Luigi F. Agnati, Diego Guidolin, and Kjell Fuxe
Section Seven: Integrative Approaches
23. Neurobiological foundations of art and aesthetics, Edmund T. Rolls
24. Aesthetic evaluation of art: a formal approach, Alexander J. Huston and Joseph P. Huston
25. Tempos of Eternity: Music, Volition, and Playing with Time, Barbara G. Goodrich