Event overview
Marcos argues that scientific aesthetics has recently made spectacular progress but that the assumption that art is special relegates the field to the periphery of psychology.
Abstract:
Scientific aesthetics has made, in the last 15 years, spectacular progress. The field’s progress owes much to psychological models. On the substantive side, these models have systematized and integrated empirical findings of different sorts, and they have inspired many new experiments and served as interpretative frameworks for their results. On the practical side, they have enhanced the field’s prominence and attracted new researchers. In the long run, this has led to new conferences, the publication of new journals and books, and to clearing the path for our work to reach the readers of mainstream general psychology and neuroscience journals. Together, empirical work and theoretical models have successfully affirmed a proper scientific field. The challenge we now face as a field is a different one. We have the chance to define how we want scientific aesthetics to be. I believe two traits are essential. First, scientific aesthetics needs to be empirically oriented. Second, it needs to be relevant to other psychological and neuroscientific subfields. Achieving these goals will require using empirical and historical evidence to assess the validity of some of the field’s assumptions. In my talk I will focus on the assumption that art is special, the idea that explaining the experience of art requires special models that rely on specifically dedicated psychological and brain processes. This assumption continues to bias the way empirical evidence is treated, and to relegate scientific aesthetics to the periphery of psychology and neuroscience. It is therefore imperative that we understand where it came from, why it resisted repeated efforts to eradicate it, and how it limits future developments, such as understanding the evolutionary origin of aesthetics.
Brief Bio:
Marcos Nadal is Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology of the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain. His main research focuses on the evolution, neural correlates, and function of cognitive and affective processes involved in aesthetic preference and art appreciation. In 2014 he received the Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Award from the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, and in 2017 the Daniel E. Berlyne Award from the American Psychological Association, Division 10: Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. He is Editor-in-Chief of Empirical Studies of the Arts.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 11 Dec 2019 | 4:00pm - 5:00pm |
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