Exploring Responses to Art in Adolescence: A Behavioral and Eye-Tracking Study

Adolescence is a peculiar age mainly characterized by physical and psychological changes that may affect the perception of one's own and others' body. This perceptual peculiarity may influence the way in which bottom-up and top-down processes interact and, consequently, the perception and evaluation of art. This study is aimed at investigating, by means of the eye-tracking technique, the visual explorative behavior of adolescents while looking at paintings. Sixteen color paintings, categorized as dynamic and static, were presented to twenty adolescents; half of the images represented natural environments and half human individuals; all stimuli were displayed under aesthetic and movement judgment tasks. Participants' ratings revealed that, generally, nature images are explicitly evaluated as more appealing than human images. Eye movement data, on the other hand, showed that the human body exerts a strong power in orienting and attracting visual attention and that, in adolescence, it plays a fundamental role during aesthetic experience. In particular, adolescents seem to approach human-content images by giving priority to elements calling forth movement and action, supporting the embodiment theory of aesthetic perception

The Effect of Simple Melodic Lines on Aesthetic Experience: Brain Response to Structural Manipulations

This fMRI study investigates the effect of melody on aesthetic experience in listeners na \u308\u131ve to formal musical knowledge. Using simple melodic lines, whose syntactic structure was manipulated, we created systematic acoustic dissonance. Two stimulus categories were created: canonical (syntactically \u201ccorrect,\u201d in the Western culture) and modified (made of an altered version of the canonical melodies). The stimuli were presented under two tasks: listening and aesthetic judgment. Data were analyzed as a function of stimulus structure (canonical and modified) and stimulus aesthetics, as appraised by each participant during scanning. The critical contrast modified versus canonical stimuli produced enhanced activation of deep temporal regions, including the parahippocampus, suggesting that melody manipulation induced feelings of unpleasantness in the listeners. This was supported by our behavioral data indicating decreased aesthetic preference for the modified melodies. Medial temporal activation could also have been evoked by stimulus structural novelty determining increased memory load for the modified stimuli. The analysis of melodies judged as beautiful revealed that aesthetic judgment of simple melodies relied on a fine-structural analysis of the stimuli subserved by a left frontal activation and, possibly, on meaning attribution at the charge of right superior temporal sulcus for increasingly pleasurable stimul

Is Aesthetic Good? A Study on the Aesthetic and Vitality Judgment of Pictorial Representations of the Dead, Saints and Non-Saints

In the history of the Western world, there has always been an association between good and beautiful. Starting from a brief history of beauty, two questions arise: is beauty linked to good even in art? How important are people's religious beliefs in aesthetic and vitality judgments? The psychology of art could answer these questions by studying people's reactions to the images of Saints as testimonials of goodness. Moreover, the study of Saints' paintings would allow us to investigate vitality, understood as one's perception of a living being. The research aimed to investigate the aesthetic and vitality judgments of faces representing the dead, Saints and non-Saints. More than a hundred participants were asked to evaluate the aesthetics and vitality of these paintings; moreover, two tests assessing spirituality and religiosity were administered. Overall, these data suggest Saints were judged more beautiful than non-Saints, and non-Saints were judged more vital than Saints. This might suggest a relationship between ethics and aesthetics, also in the perception of art, and offers reflections on the theme of vitality. The religion and spirituality of participants are not correlated to aesthetic or vitality judgments; this fact could support that these judgments are linked to the basic bottom-up reactions to images

Detecting and Characterising atmospheric gravity waves on Mars' atmosphere - Final results using data from OMEGA/Mars Express

We present the final results from the detection and characterisation of mesoscale waves on the lower clouds of Mars [1] using images from the Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l’Eau, les Glaces et l’Activité (OMEGA) [2] onboard the European Mars Express (MEx) space mission [3]. We used image navigation and processing techniques based on contrast enhancement and geometrical projections to characterise morphological properties of the detected gravity waves (GW), such as horizontal wavelength or packet length. Our study covers 25 months of data spanning from Jan. 2004 to Jan. 2006, and from June to July 2007, corresponding to a one Martian year [MY26- MY27]. Out of 148 detected wave packets, we were able to characterise 61 across more than 4000 images covering a broad region of the Martian globe. Our results reveal that waves exhibit an average horizontal wavelength of 23 km, which is consistent with previous observations [4,5]. We also extend the study by characterising their packet width, length and orientation. Taking advantage of the large dataset available from the OMEGA instrument, we also conducted a spatial and temporal investigation of the waves, namely their occurrence in specific local times and solar longitudes. Our characterisation showed a higher frequency of GW during daytime hours, particularly within the 13-15 LTST range. Concerning the solar longitude that is a measure of the Martian seasons, we noted that GW activity is prevalent during the winter season in both hemispheres, suggesting a relationship between seasonal variations and gravity wave generation, which was previously mentioned in the literature [6–8]. We will also present the preliminary results of GW using the HRSC instrument

Religious and sacred art: Recent psychological perspectives

The psychology of art has had an enormous development since the middle of the last century; however, no much work has been done in association with religious and sacred art. This paper aims to provide a brief history of the use of images in the three great monotheistic religions, i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All three religions have been influenced by the commandment (Exodus20:4), which prohibits idolatry. Nevertheless, when it comes to the use of images with religious content, the commandment is interpreted differently by the three. If in Judaism and Islam the use of images is not particularly widespread and is bound to precise conditions, in Christianity a strong relationship with the visual arts has developed, at least until the Reformation. After this split, the use of images was only encouraged by the Catholic Church even though, with the Enlightenment, religious and sacred art suffered a decline even in Catholic culture. It was not until the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that the Catholic Church returned to support and encourage art in the religious context. It will then be necessary to distinguish between religious art and sacred art because they serve different functions. Precisely because it is a field in which deepening is possible, it could be very interesting for the psychology of art to study the perception of religious and sacred images, for example investigating constructs associated with the perception of vitality and aesthetic judgment

When Art Moves the Eyes: A Behavioral and Eye-Tracking Study

The aim of this study was to investigate, using eye-tracking technique, the influence of bottom-up and top-down processes on visual behavior while subjects, na \u308\u131ve to art criticism, were presented with representational paintings. Forty-two subjects viewed color and black and white paintings (Color) categorized as dynamic or static (Dynamism) (bottom-up processes). Half of the images represented natural environments and half human subjects (Content); all stimuli were displayed under aesthetic and movement judgment conditions (Task) (top-down processes). Results on gazing behavior showed that content-related top-down processes prevailed over low-level visually-driven bottom-up processes when a human subject is represented in the painting. On the contrary, bottom-up processes, mediated by low-level visual features, particularly affected gazing behavior when looking at nature-content images. We discuss our results proposing a reconsideration of the definition of content-related top-down processes in accordance with the concept of embodied simulation in art perception

Enabling planetary science across light-years. Ariel Definition Study Report

Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, was adopted as the fourth medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme to be launched in 2029. During its 4-year mission, Ariel will study what exoplanets are made of, how they formed and how they evolve, by surveying a diverse sample of about 1000 extrasolar planets, simultaneously in visible and infrared wavelengths. It is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and thermal structures of hundreds of transiting exoplanets, enabling planetary science far beyond the boundaries of the Solar System. The payload consists of an off-axis Cassegrain telescope (primary mirror 1100 mm x 730 mm ellipse) and two separate instruments (FGS and AIRS) covering simultaneously 0.5-7.8 micron spectral range. The satellite is best placed into an L2 orbit to maximise the thermal stability and the field of regard. The payload module is passively cooled via a series of V-Groove radiators; the detectors for the AIRS are the only items that require active cooling via an active Ne JT cooler. The Ariel payload is developed by a consortium of more than 50 institutes from 16 ESA countries, which include the UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and a NASA contribution

Human, Nature, Dynamism: The Effects of Content and Movement Perception on Brain Activations during the Aesthetic Judgment of Representational Paintings

Movement perception and its role in aesthetic experience have been often studied, within empirical aesthetics, in relation to the human body. No such specificity has been defined in neuroimaging studies with respect to contents lacking a human form. The aim of this work was to explore, through functional magnetic imaging (f MRI), how perceived movement is processed during the aesthetic judgment of paintings using two types of content: human subjects and scenes of nature. Participants, untutored in the arts, were shown the stimuli and asked to make aesthetic judgments. Additionally, they were instructed to observe the paintings and to rate their perceived movement in separate blocks. Observation highlighted spontaneous processes associated with aesthetic experience, whereas movement judgment outlined activations specifically related to movement processing. The ratings recorded during aesthetic judgment revealed that nature scenes received higher scored than human content paintings. The imaging data showed similar activation, relative to baseline, for all stimuli in the three tasks, including activation of occipito-temporal areas, posterior parietal, and premotor cortices. Contrast analyses within aesthetic judgment task showed that human content activated, relative to nature, precuneus, fusiform gyrus, and posterior temporal areas, whose activation was prominent for dynamic human paintings. In contrast, nature scenes activated, relative to human stimuli, occipital and posterior parietal cortex/precuneus, involved in visuospatial exploration and pragmatic coding of movement, as well as central insula. Static nature paintings further activated, relative to dynamic nature stimuli, central and posterior insula. Besides insular activation, which was specific for aesthetic judgment, we found a large overlap in the activation pattern characterizing each stimulus dimension (content and dynamism) across observation, aesthetic judgment, and movement judgment tasks. These findings support the idea that the aesthetic evaluation of artworks depicting both human subjects and nature scenes involves a motor component, and that the associated neural processes occur quite spontaneously in the viewer. Furthermore, considering the functional roles of posterior and central insula, we suggest that nature paintings may evoke aesthetic processes requiring an additional proprioceptive and sensori-motor component implemented by “motor accessibility” to the represented scenario, which is needed to judge the aesthetic value of the observed painting

Carbon monoxide and Temperature in the upper atmosphere of Venus through the analysis of limb observations by VIRTIS/Venus Express

Esta Tesis está enfocada en el análisis de las recientes medidas de VIRTIS (Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer), uno de los seis instrumentos a bordo de la Venus Express, que con una resolución espectral sin precedentes ha permitido sondear sistemáticamente la atmósfera de Venus desde el visible (0.3 -1 μm) hasta el cercano IR (1-5 μm). El principal objetivo de este estudio es explotar científicamente las medidas de VIRTIS en el limbo del planeta, para mejorar nuestro conocimiento de las capas más altas de la atmósfera de Venus. Dichas regiones son las menos exploradas de la atmósfera de Venus, y de los planetas en general, porque las bajas densidades que las caracterizan las hacen muy difíciles de observar. Además, estas capas presentan emisiones moleculares en el IR producidas bajo condiciones de no-equilibrio termodinámico local (no-ETL), por las transiciones vibro-rotacionales de las moléculas más activas radiativamente (Lopez-Puertas and Taylor, 2001). Las emisiones más intensas en la alta atmosfera de Venus son las producidas durante el día por bandas moleculares del CO2 en 4.3 μm y 2.7 μm, y del CO en 4.7 μm. El análisis y la interpretación de dichas emisiones requiere normalmente el uso de sofisticadas herramientas teóricas, como modelos de no-ETL específicos para las poblaciones vibracionales, rotacionales y de espín.Tesis Univ. Granada.Space agencies ASI and CNESEC-FEDER fundsSpanish National Research Council (CSIC-JAE Program)Project AYA2008-03498/ESP of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovatio