Applies research on how humans perceive, process and store information to the viewing and interpretation of art. The author argues that the clearest view of the mind comes from creating or experiencing art. The illustrations cover a range of examples but focus primarily on Western art.
Fully updated, the second edition of Neuropsychology of Art offers a fascinating exploration of the brain regions and neuronal systems which support artistic creativity, talent and appreciation. This landmark book is the first to draw upon neurological, evolutionary, and cognitive perspectives, and to provide an extensive compilation of neurological case studies of professional painters, composers and musicians. The book presents evidence from the latest brain research, and develops a multidisciplinary approach, drawing upon theories of brain evolution, biology of art, art trends, archaeology, and anthropology. It considers the consequences of brain damage to the creation of art and the brain’s control of art. The author delves into a variety of neurological conditions in established artists, including unilateral stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and also evidence from savants with autism. Written by a leading neuropsychologist, Neuropsychology of Art will be of great interest to students and researchers in neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and neurology, and also to clinicians in art therapy.
Psychologist Ellen Winner studies the creative, nonliteral discourse of children's spontaneous speech, examining how their abilities to use and interpret figurative language change as they grow older, and what such language shows us about the changing feature's of children's minds.
Through the use of case studies and more than 150 illustrations of patient artwork, this book summarizes findings of cognitive development and art therapy practices.
A book that produces sensory experiences while bringing the concept of experience itself into relief as a subject of criticism and an object of contemplation. Experience offers a reading experience like no other. A heat-sensitive cover by Olafur Eliasson reveals words, colors, and a drawing when touched by human hands. Endpapers designed by Carsten Höller are printed in ink containing carefully calibrated quantities of the synthesized human pheromones estratetraenol and androstadienone, evoking the suggestibility of human desire. The margins and edges of the book are designed by Tauba Auerbach in complementary colors that create a dynamically shifting effect when the book is shifted or closed. When the book is opened, bookmarks cascade from the center, emerging from spider web prints by Tomás Saraceno. Experience produces experience while bringing the concept itself into relief as an object of contemplation. The sensory experience of the book as a physical object resonates with the intellectual experience of the book as a container of ideas. Experience convenes a conversation with artists, musicians, philosophers, anthropologists, historians, and neuroscientists, each of whom explores aspects of sensorial and cultural realms of experience. The texts include new essays written for this volume and classic texts by such figures as William James and Michel Foucault. The first publication from MIT's Center for Art, Science, & Technology, Experience approaches its subject through multiple modes. Publication design by Kimberly Varella with Becca Lofchie, Content Object Design Studio. Cover concept by Olafur Eliasson in collaboration with Kimberly Varella (Content Object). Contributors Tauba Auerbach, Bevil Conway, John Dewey, Olafur Eliasson, Michel Foucault, Adam Frank, Vittorio Gallese, Renée Green, Stefan Helmreich, Carsten Höller, Edmund Husserl, William James, Caroline A. Jones, Douglas Kahn, Brian Kane, Leah Kelly, Bruno Latour, Alvin Lucier, David Mather, Mara Mills, Alva Noë, Jacques Rancière, Michael Rossi, Tomás Saraceno, Natasha Schüll, Joan W.Scott, Tino Sehgal, Alma Steingart, Josh Tenenbaum, Rebecca Uchill
This volume addresses key questions related to how content in thought is derived from perceptual experience. It includes chapters that focus on single issues on perception and cognition, as well as others that relate these issues to an important social construct that involves both perceptual experience and cognitive activities: aesthetics. While the volume includes many diverse views, several prominent themes unite the individual essays: a challenge to the notion of the discreet, and non-temporal, unit of perception, a challenge to the traditional divide between perception and cognition, and a challenge to the traditional divide between unconscious and conscious intentionality. Additionally, the chapters discuss the content of perceptual experience, the value of traditional notions of content, disjunctivism, adverbialism, and phenomenal experience. The final section of essays dealing with perception and cognition in aesthetics features work in experimental aesthetics and unique perspectives from artists and gallerists working outside of philosophy. Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics is a timely volume that offers a range of unique perspectives on debates in philosophy of mind surrounding perception and cognition. It will also appeal to scholars working in aesthetics and art theory who are interested in the ways these debates influence our understanding of art.
Creative Cognition combines original experiments with existing work in cognitive psychology to provide the first explicit account of the cognitive processes and structures that contribute to creative thinking and discovery. Creative Cognition combines original experiments with existing work in cognitive psychology to provide the first explicit account of the cognitive processes and structures that contribute to creative thinking and discovery. In separate chapters, the authors take up visualization, concept formation, categorization, memory retrieval, and problem solving. They describe novel experimental methods for studying creative cognitive processes under controlled laboratory conditions, along with techniques that can be used to generate many different types of inventions and concepts. Unlike traditional approaches, Creative Cognition considers creativity as a product of numerous cognitive processes, each of which helps to set the stage for insight and discovery. It identifies many of these processes as well as general principles of creative cognition that can be applied across a variety of different domains, with examples in artificial intelligence, engineering design, product development, architecture, education, and the visual arts. Following a summary of previous approaches to creativity, the authors present a theoretical model of the creative process. They review research involving an innovative imagery recombination technique, developed by Finke, that clearly demonstrates that creative inventions can be induced in the laboratory. They then describe experiments in category learning that support the provocative claim that the factors constraining category formation similarly constrain imagination and illustrate the role of various memory processes and other strategies in creative problem solving.
'Art Practice as Research' presents a compelling argument that the creative and cultural inquiry undertaken by artists is a form of research. The text explores themes, practice, and contexts of artistic inquiry and positions them within the discourse of research.