The science of art: a neurological theory of aesthetic experience
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Reference
Ramachandran, V., Hirstein, W.: The science of art: a neurological theory of aesthetic experience. Journal of Consciousness Studies 6(1–2), 15–52 (1999).
DOI
Abstract
We present a theory of human artistic experience and the neural mechanisms that mediate it. Any theory of art (or, indeed, any aspect of human nature) has to ideally have three components. (a) The logic of art: whether there are universal rules or principles; (b) The evolutionary rationale: why did these rules evolve and why do they have the form that they do; (c) What is the brain circuitry involved? Our paper begins with a quest for artistic universals and proposes a list of ‘Eight laws of artistic experience ’ — a set of heuristics that artists either consciously or unconsciously deploy to optimally titillate the visual areas of the brain. One of these principles is a psychological phenomenon called the peak shift effect: If a rat is rewarded for discriminating a rectangle from a square, it will respond even more vigorously to a rectangle that is longer and skinnier that the prototype. We suggest that this principle explains not only caricatures, but many other aspects of art. Example: An evocative sketch of a female nude may be one which selectively accentuates those feminine form-attributes that allow one to discriminate it from a male figure; a Boucher, a Van Gogh, or a Monet may be a caricature in ‘colour space ’ rather than form space. Even abstract art may employ ‘supernormal ’ stimuli to excite form areas in the brain more
Extended Abstract
Bibtex
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http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~dyer/ah336/papers/ramachandran-science-art.pdf
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http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.108.2599
