Un modello cognitivo delle emozioni estetiche

This essay proposes a cognitive model of aesthetic emotions. Their nature, forms, functions are explained on the basis of empirical and theoretical results of neurocognitive sciences about ordinary emotions, integrated with concepts selected from aesthetics. The proposed explanation confirms the essential role of aesthetic emotions in cultural learning and creation, dissolving the paradox of fiction

Lev Vygotsky's Theory of Aesthetic Experience

In his chapter on the contributions of Lev Vygotsky to twentieth century aesthetics João Pedro Fróis provides insights into Russian and Eastern European psychology and philosophy from around the time of the Russian Revolution, into the 1950s, when Vygotsky’s work was first introduced to Western readers. Frois introduces us to the historical context of Vygotsky’s education and brief but highly influential academic career. (Vgotsky died at age thirty-eight, of tuberculosis.) While educators outside the field of art education are familiar with Vygotsky’s theories on language development, less familiar is his work on aesthetics. Thus, in The Psychology of Art, (1926/1971) the result of his work over the years 1915–1922, Vygotsky addressed the following questions: “What is the relation between aesthetic response and all other forms of human behavior? How do we explain the role and importance of art in the general behavioral system of man?” (p. 240). His text is an investigation into those questions. Frois’s chapter draws our attention to what Vygotsky considered to be key elements of human behavior. These include imagination, creativity, and Vygotsky’s particular interpretation of catharsis as it emerges from aesthetic response.As Fróis points out, Vygotsky’s work was not only influential in his day, even anticipating the work of some of his contemporaries, but continues to have an impact on writers in the fields of education, psychology and aesthetics today. What is unusual about Vygotsky’s work is the breadth of his influences and interests. Thus Fróis introduces us to Vygotsky’s early studies of literature, particularly of Hamlet, and shows how Vygotsky branched out from literature to incorporate the other arts into his spectrum of interests. Indeed, the arts seemed to provide Vygotsky with the grounding for his theory development from three perspectives— instrumental, cultural, and historical. Revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russia was a fertile ground for cultural and societal self-examination, after all, and the arts lent themselves to such examination. But Vygotsky’s interests spanned the human sciences as well as the arts. In particular, Vygotsky began to examine the psychology of the day and to bring it to bear on his study of the arts. Thus, his Psychology of Art (1926) draws heavily on his earlier critiques of Hamlet. It is in this text that Vygotsky draws analogies between perception and artistic creation, from the perspective of psychology. That is, he sees creativity as emerging from “those sensations that arise in the nervous system”, in other words perception, but that these only hint at possibilities there for development. Vygotsky’s assertion that “our capacities exceed our activity” foreshadows his theory of the zone of proximal development, a theory that educators today still find compelling. Perhaps the most surprising component of Vygotsky’s work, however, was his insistence upon a focus on the artwork as opposed to the viewer, in order to arrive at an understanding of aesthetic response as a general principle, as opposed to an isolated instance of idiosyncratic behavior. This gives Vygotsky’s work a distinctly empirical flavour, one with which Fróis obviously sympathizes. Fróis does an admirable job of guiding us through Vygotsky’s thinking in this regard. The point of being able to arrive at some kind of general principle of aesthetic experience is, as Fróis points out in his conclusion, that then aesthetic responses are capable of not only individualized meanings but of shared realities as well. The capacity for shared meanings puts aesthetic experience firmly within the educational realm.Essays on Aesthetic Education for the 21st Century, co-edited by Tracie Costantino and Boyd White, brings together an international collection of authors representing diverse viewpoints to engage in dialogue about the ongoing critical relevance of aesthetics for contemporary art education. Inspired by a conference symposium in which the four authors in the first section of the text, titled Initiating a Dialogue, explore a range of concepts including aesthetic experience, beauty, wonder, and aisthetics, this book enlarges the dialogue with eight additional chapters by authors from North America and Europe. In addition to chapters that address issues of social awareness, curriculum theory and research, and applications to practice with pre-service teachers, there are several chapters that acknowledge historical influences on current notions of aesthetics as a basis on which to open the gate into the twenty-first century. This book will be a valuable resource for graduate students in art education and curriculum studies, as well as practicing art educators, pre-service teachers, and anyone interested in the significance of aesthetics, not only in contemporary art education but the wider field of general education as well

Fundamental Principles of Neural Organization of Cognition

The manuscript advances a hypothesis that there are few fundamental principles of neural organization of cognition, which explain several wide areas of the cognitive functioning. We summarize the fundamental principles, experimental, theoretical, and modeling evidence for these principles, relate them to hypothetical neural mechanisms, and made a number of predictions. We consider cognitive functioning including concepts, emotions, drives-instincts, learning, “higher” cognitive functions of language, interaction of language and cognition, role of emotions in this interaction, the beautiful, sublime, and music. Among mechanisms of behavior we concentrate on internal actions in the brain, learning and decision making. A number of predictions are made, some of which have been previously formulated and experimentally confirmed, and a number of new predictions are made that can be experimentally tested. Is it possible to explain a significant part of workings of the mind from a few basic principles, similar to how Newton explained motions of planets? This manuscript summarizes a part of contemporary knowledge toward this goal

Aestheticized Tragedy (Karuṇarasa) as an Intellectual Virtue

In contemporary virtue epistemology, responsibilist intellectual virtues in the tradition of Aristotle\u27s moral theory are acquired character traits involving a motivational component and a success component. The motivational component is an emotion that regulates inquiry but which would ordinarily, and problematically, carry bias. In order to monitor the patterns of fallibility in emotions, reflection can correct beyond perceptual errors or logical fallacies. Emotions which survive reflection are less partial and hold more epistemic valance than egotistical emotions. Since the framework of virtue epistemology might be at a loss for monitoring emotions reflectively, given the fact emotions operate rapidly and tend to bypass cognitive functions, a theory of non-cognitive, egoless emotions, such as the Sanskrit aesthetic theory of rasa is a useful paradigm for epistemic value. Aestheticized emotions (rasa-s) have a place in emotion-evaluation. In particular, Abhinavagupta\u27s realistic analysis of the aestheticized emotion of pathos (karuṇarasa) in the Abhinavabhāratī, shows that, “aestheticized tragedy,” unlike ordinary compassion or pity, is an immersive but moving higher-order affective response that involves evaluating the transitions from one unreflective emotion to the next. The cognitive fallout for related virtues, such as compassion, is that karuṇa affords insight into the process of transformation. Subsequently, it is possible to articulate a new kind of intellectual virtue, one that regulates observation, anticipates attunement with sentient beings, and adds insight to the evaluative structure of pathos

Emotional eloquence : the argument from pathos in deliberation

The argument from pathos is one of the three normative modes of persuasion in deliberation. The argument from pathos in deliberation serves six functions. It serves as a perceptual capacity; it is a constituent element of deliberative judgment: it communicates importance: it is a powerful motivator: it serves several aesthetic functions, and it is expressive. An examination of the cognitive structure of the emotions reveals the epistemic potential of the emotions. The success conditions necessary for an emotion to grasp its object yields three epistemic results. The apprehension of particular object of an emotion confers salience: the formal object names a quality that conceptually relates the emotion to a normative principle, and the propositional object provides the connection to semantic matters. The semantic properties of emotional language help structure and determine the sophistication of one’s emotional responses

Aesthetic Emotions in Music

Theories and methods that investigate aesthetic emotions in music listening have been shaped by certain assumptions concerning the context and function in which such music appreciation takes place. This chapter summarises main understanding and debates in this area and reflects on what changes in approach are required for psychological research to be sensitive and more applicable to a variety of musical practices. We propose an embodied and dynamic approach to aesthetic emotions, built on the bodily, cognitive, and functional affordances of music. We argue that such an approach will help define a flexible framework for cross-cultural research, reducing reliance on implicit assumptions of (passive) aesthetic contemplation, and instead advancing the notions of situated goals and active listening. Aesthetic emotions may be distinguished from everyday emotions by functional context, close interaction with musical properties, and the functions and engagements afforded by music that listeners value and experience as meaningful

Dance and emotion in posterior parietal cortex: a low-frequency rTMS study

Background: The neural bases of emotion are most often studied using short non-natural stimuli and assessed using correlational methods. Here we use a brain perturbation approach to make causal inferences between brain activity and emotional reaction to a long segment of dance. <p>Objective/Hypothesis: We aimed to apply offline rTMS over the brain regions involved in subjective emotional ratings to explore whether this could change the appreciation of a dance performance.</p> <p>Methods: We first used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify regions correlated with fluctuating emotional rating during a 4-minutes dance performance, looking at both positive and negative correlation. Identified regions were further characterized using meta-data interrogation. Low frequency repetitive TMS was applied over the most important node in a different group of participants prior to them rating the same dance performance as in the fMRI session.</p> <p>Results: FMRI revealed a negative correlation between subjective emotional judgment and activity in the right posterior parietal cortex. This region is commonly involved in cognitive tasks and not in emotional task. Parietal rTMS had no effect on the general affective response, but it significantly (p<0.05 using exact t-statistics) enhanced the rating of the moment eliciting the highest positive judgments.</p> <p>Conclusion: These results establish a direct link between posterior parietal cortex activity and emotional reaction to dance. They can be interpreted in the framework of competition between resources allocated to emotion and resources allocated to cognitive functions. They highlight potential use of brain stimulation in neuro-æsthetic investigations.</p&gt