The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Aesthetics

by Nadal, Marcos; Vartanian, Oshin

• ISBN13: 9780198824350
• ISBN10: 0198824351
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-01-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Humans have engaged in artistic and aesthetic activities since the appearance of our species. Our ancestors have decorated their bodies, tools, and utensils for over 100,000 years. The expression of meaning using color, line, sound, rhythm, or movement, among other means, constitutes a fundamental aspect of our species' biological and cultural heritage. Art and aesthetics, therefore, contribute to our species identity and distinguish it from its living and extinct relatives. Science is faced with the challenge of explaining the natural foundations of such a unique trait, and the way cultural processes nurture it into magnificent expressions, historically and ethnically unique. How do the human mind and brain bring about these sorts of behaviors? What psychological and neural processes underlie the appreciation of painting, music, and dance? How does training modulate these processes? Are humans the only species capable of aesthetic appreciation, or are other species endowed with the rudiments of this capacity? Empirical examinations of such questions have a long and rich history in the discipline of psychology, the genesis of which can be traced back to the publication of Gustav Theodor Fechner's Vorschule der Aesthetik in 1876, making it the second oldest branch in experimental psychology.

The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Aesthetics brings together leading experts in psychology, neuroimaging, art history, and philosophy to answer these questions. It provides the most comprehensive coverage of the domain of empirical aesthetics to date. With sections on visual art, dance, music, and many other art forms and aesthetic phenomena, the breadth of this volume's scope reflects the richness and variety of topics and methods currently used today by scientists to understand the way our mind and brain endow us with the faculty to produce and appreciate art and aesthetics.

Author Biography

Marcos Nadal, University of the Balearic Islands,Oshin Vartanian, University of Toronto

Marcos Nadal received his B.Sc. in Psychology from the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain) in 2000, and his Ph.D. in Psychology: Human Evolution and Cognition from the same university in 2007. From 2012 to 2015 he enjoyed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Basic Psychology and
Research Methods of the University of Vienna. He is Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of the University of the Balearic Islands. He is the Executive Editor of Empirical Studies of the Arts, and serves on the editorial board of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the
Arts. He is the co-editor of Art, Aesthetics, and the Brain (OUP Press). His research is devoted to characterizing the psychological, neural, and evolutionary foundations of humans' capacity for aesthetic appreciation and creation.

Oshin Vartanian received his PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Maine under the supervision of Colin Martindale. He is the Co-Editor of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, and past Editor of Empirical Studies of the Arts. He is the recipient of the American
Psychological Association's (APA) Division 10 Daniel E. Berlyne Award in recognition of outstanding research by a junior scholar. His co-edited volumes include “Neuroaesthetics” (Baywood Publishing Company), “Neuroscience of creativity” (The MIT Press), “Neuroscience of decision making” (Psychology
Press), and most recently “The Cambridge handbook of the neuroscience of creativity” (Cambridge University Press). His main areas of interest include the cognitive and neural bases of aesthetics and creativity.

Table of Contents

Preface, Marcos Nadal and Ohsin Vartanian
SECTION 1. FOUNDATIONS
1. Empirical Aesthetics: An overview, Marcos Nadal and Oshin Vartanian
2. 100 years of Empirical Aesthetics: 1876 - 1976, Marcos Nadal and Esther Ureña
3. Revisiting Fechner's methods, Gesche Westphal-Fitch
4. The link between Empirical Aesthetics and philosophy, William P. Seeley
5. Appreciation modes in Empirical Aesthetics, Rolf Reber
6. Exploring the landscape of emotion in aesthetic experience, Gerald C. Cupchik
7. The neurobiology of sensory valuation, Martin Skov
8. The evolution of aesthetics and beauty, Dahlia W. Zaidel
SECTION 2. METHODS
9. Historiometric methods, Dean Keith Simonton
10. Observation method in Empirical Aesthetics, Pablo P. L. Tinio and Eva Specker
11. Observational drawing research methods, Justin Ostrofsky
12. Implicit measures in the aesthetic domain, Letizia Palumbo
13. The study of eye movements in Empirical Aesthetics, Paul Locher
14. Electrophysiology, Thomas Jacobsen and Stina Klein
15. Functional neuroimaging in Empirical Aesthetics and Neuroaesthetics, Tomohiro Ishizu
16. Noninvasive brain stimulation. Contribution to research in Neuroaesthetics, Zaira Cattaneo
17. Integrated methods: A call for integrative and interdisciplinary aesthetics research, Martin Tröndle, Steven Greenwood, Chandrasekhar Ramakrishnan, Folkert Uhde, Hauke Egermann, and Wolfgang Tschacher
SECTION 3. OBJECT FEATURES
18. The use of visual statistical features in Empirical Aesthetics, Daniel Graham
19. Color, Oshin Vartanian
20. The role of collative variables in aesthetic experience, Manuela Marin
21. Processing fluency, Michael Forster
22. The study of symmetry in Empirical Aesthetics, Marco Bertamini and Giulia Rampone
23. The curvature effect, Guido Corradi and Enric Munar
24. Facial attractiveness, Aleksandra Mitrovic and Jürgen Goller
SECTION 4. ARTFORMS
25. The empirical aesthetics of music, Elvira Brattico
26. The aesthetics of action and movement, Emily S. Cross and Andrea Orlandi
27. The aesthetics of dance, Beatriz Calvo-Merino
28. The audio-visual aesthetics of music and dance, Guido Orgs and Claire Howlin
29. Aesthetic responses to architecture, Alexander Coburn and Anjan Chatterjee
30. Aesthetics, technology, and popular movies, James E. Cutting
31. Empirical Aesthetics of poetry, Winfried Menninghaus and Stefan Blohm
32. Aesthetic responses to the characters, plots, worlds, and style of stories, Marta M. Maslej, Joshua A. Quinlan, and Raymond A. Mar
SECTION 5. THE PERSON
33. The role of attention, executive processes, and memory in aesthetic experience, John W. Mullennix
34. Children's appreciation of art, Thalia R. Goldstein
35. The influence of expertise on aesthetics, Aaron Kozbelt
36. The influence of personality on aesthetic preferences, Viren Swami and Adrian Furnham
37. Aesthetic sensitivity, Nils Myszkowski
38. Cross-cultural empirical aesthetics, Jiajia Che and Xiaolei Sun
SECTION 6. THE CONTEXT
39. The general impact of context on aesthetic experience, Matthew Pelowski and Eva Specker
40. Empirical Aesthetics - Context, extra information and framing, Helmut Leder and Matthew Pelowski
41. Studying Empirical Aesthetics in museum contexts, Jeffrey K. Smith and Lisa F. Smith
42. Aesthetic experience in everyday environments, Paul J. Silvia and Katherine N. Cotter
43. The impact of the social context on aesthetic experience, Stefano Mastandrea
SECTION 7. APPLICATIONS
44. Design and aesthetics, Paul Hekkert
45. The role of Empirical Aesthetics in consumer behavior, Vanessa M. Patrick and Henrik Hagtvedt
46. On the Empirical Aesthetics of plating, Charles Spence