Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Huston, Joseph P
• Nadal, Marcos
• Mora, Francisco
• Agnati, Luigi F
• Conde, Camilo José Cela

Titel

Art, Aesthetics, and the Brain

Auflage

First edition.

Ort / Verlag

Oxford: Oxford University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Oxford University Press Books All Titles

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Humans have engaged in artistic and aesthetic activities since the appearance of our species. The expression of meaning using color, line, sound, rhythm, or movement constitutes a fundamental aspect of our species’ biological and cultural heritage. All known human societies have developed aesthetic systems that use diverse forms of visual representation, body art, music, literature, or performance to convey culturally important meaning. Art and aesthetics are, therefore, inherent constituents of the human mind, and contribute to our species’ identity, distinguishing it from its living and extinct relatives. Science faces the challenge of explaining the foundations of this trait and the way cultural processes nurture it into expression. How does the human brain bring about these sorts of behaviours? What neural processes underlie aesthetic appreciation? How does training modulate these processes? How are they impaired by brain lesions and neurodegenerative diseases? How did such neural underpinnings evolve? Are humans the only species capable of aesthetic appreciation, or are other species endowed with the rudiments of this capacity? Scientific aesthetics is today a thriving and respected research field. It has made substantial contributions to basic understanding of some of the unique features of the human mind, and to practical issues related to consumers’ decisions, judgments about others, and mate choice.