Perception Cognition And Aesthetics

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.

USE FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS ONLY FOR GENERAL CATALOGS... This volume offers a response to three ongoing needs: * to develop the main composition principles pertinent to the visual commmunication medium of television; * to establish the field of television aesthetics as an extension of the broader field of visual literacy; and * to promote television aesthetics to both students and consumers of television. Based on effective empirical research from three axes -- perception, cognition, and composition -- the aesthetic principles of television images presented are drawn from converging research in academic disciplines such as psychology (perceptual, cognitive, and experimental), neurophysiology, and the fine arts (painting, photography, film, theater, music, and more). Although the aesthetics of the fine arts were traditionally built on contextual theories that relied heavily on subjective evaluation, on critical analyses, and on descriptive research methods, the aesthetics of today's visual communication media consider equally valuable empirical methodologies found in all sciences. Investigations in these different academic disciplines have provided the constructs and strengthened the foundations of the theory of television aesthetics offered in this book. Special features include: * a great variety of pictures supporting the topics discussed; * a thorough, up-to-date, and specifically related bibliography for each of the major parts of the book; * computer drawings illustrating the concepts examined in the text; * scientific data -- tables and charts -- documenting the research findings cited; * simplified explanations of the processes of visual, auditory, and motion perceptions of images, enhanced by specific diagrams; * detailed analyses of the threefold process of stimulation, perception, and recognition of televised images; and * workable, easy-to-understand and use rules of picture composition, visual image evaluations, and television program appreciation.

The book essentially discusses whether philosophy can integrate the plethora of various empirical and neuroscientific approaches to the study of beauty or whether it should preserve its traditional a priori basis. In fact, is it possible to unite philosophy and cognitive-scientific analyses of aesthetic perception and assessment?

Starting from the late Renaissance, efforts to make vocal music more expressive heightened the power of words, which, in turn, gave birth to the modern semantics of musical expression. As the skepticism of seventeenth-century science divorced the acoustic properties from the metaphysical qualities of music, the door was opened to dicern the rich links between musical perception and varied mental faculties. In Tuning the Mind, Ruth Katz and Ruth HaCohen trace how eighteenth century theoreticians of music examined anew the role of the arts within a general theory of knowledge. As the authors note, the differences between the physical and emotional dimensions of music stimulated novel conceptions and empirical inquiries into the old aesthetic queries. Tracing this development, their opening chapter deals with seventeenth-century epistemological issues concerning the artistic qualities of music. Katz and HaCohen show that painting and literature displayed a comparable tendency toward "musicalization," whereby the dynamic of forms-the modalities specific to each artistic medium-rather than subject matter was believed to determine expression. Katz and HaCohen explore the ambiguities inherent in idealization of an art form whose mimetic function has always been problematic. They discuss the major outlines of this development, from Descartes to Vico through Condillac. Particular emphasis is placed on eighteenth-century British thinkers, from Shaftesbury to Adam Smith, who perceived these problems in their full complexity. They also explore how the French and the Germans dealt differently with questions that preoccupied the British, each nation in accordance with their own past tradition and tendencies. The concluding chapter summarizes the parallel development of abstract art and basic hypotheses concerning the mind and explores basic theoretical questions pertaining to the relationship between perception and cognition. In addressing some of the most complex problems in musical aesthetics, Katz and HaCohen provide a unique historical perspective on the ways their art creates and develops coherent worlds, and, in so doing, contribute to our understanding of the workings of the mind. Ruth Katz is Emanuel Alexandre Professor of Musicology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is co-editor with Carl Dahlhaus of Contemplating Music, a four-volume study of the philosophy of music. Ruth HaCohen is Clarica and Fred Davidson Senior Lecturer of Musicology at the Hebrew University.

Starting from the late Renaissance, efforts to make vocal music more expressive heightened the power of words, which, in turn, gave birth to the modern semantics of musical expression. As the skepticism of seventeenth-century science divorced the acoustic properties from the metaphysical qualities of music, the door was opened to dicern the rich links between musical perception and varied mental faculties. In Tuning the Mind, Ruth Katz and Ruth HaCohen trace how eighteenth century theoreticians of music examined anew the role of the arts within a general theory of knowledge. As the authors note, the differences between the physical and emotional dimensions of music stimulated novel conceptions and empirical inquiries into the old aesthetic queries. Tracing this development, their opening chapter deals with seventeenth-century epistemological issues concerning the artistic qualities of music. Katz and HaCohen show that painting and literature displayed a comparable tendency toward "musicalization," whereby the dynamic of forms-the modalities specific to each artistic medium-rather than subject matter was believed to determine expression. Katz and HaCohen explore the ambiguities inherent in idealization of an art form whose mimetic function has always been problematic. They discuss the major outlines of this development, from Descartes to Vico through Condillac. Particular emphasis is placed on eighteenth-century British thinkers, from Shaftesbury to Adam Smith, who perceived these problems in their full complexity. They also explore how the French and the Germans dealt differently with questions that preoccupied the British, each nation in accordance with their own past tradition and tendencies. The concluding chapter summarizes the parallel development of abstract art and basic hypotheses concerning the mind and explores basic theoretical questions pertaining to the relationship between perception and cognition. In addressing some of the most complex problems in musical aesthetics, Katz and HaCohen provide a unique historical perspective on the ways their art creates and develops coherent worlds, and, in so doing, contribute to our understanding of the workings of the mind.

This book reviews progress and describes original research in the cognitive psychology of the arts. The invited contributors are leading authorities, and the topics which they cover include psychological approaches to symbols and meaning in art, issues in experimental aesthetics, the development in children of artistic production and appreciation, and the perception of musical and pictorial material.

Humans have engaged in artistic and aesthetic activities since the appearance of our species. Our ancestors have decorated their bodies, tools, and utensils for over 100,000 years. The expression of meaning using color, line, sound, rhythm, or movement, among other means, constitutes a fundamental aspect of our species' biological and cultural heritage. Art and aesthetics, therefore, contribute to our species identity and distinguish it from its living and extinct relatives. Science is faced with the challenge of explaining the natural foundations of such a unique trait, and the way cultural processes nurture it into magnificent expressions, historically and ethnically unique. How does the human brain bring about these sorts of behaviors? What neural processes underlie the appreciation of painting, music, and dance? How does training modulate these processes? How are they impaired by brain lesions and neurodegenerative diseases? How did such neural underpinnings evolve? Are humans the only species capable of aesthetic appreciation, or are other species endowed with the rudiments of this capacity? This volume brings together the work on such questions by leading experts in genetics, psychology, neuroimaging, neuropsychology, art history, and philosophy. It sets the stage for a cognitive neuroscience of art and aesthetics, understood in the broadest possible terms. With sections on visual art, dance, music, neuropsychology, and evolution, the breadth of this volume's scope reflects the richness and variety of topics and methods currently used today by scientists to understand the way our brain endows us with the faculty to produce and appreciate art and aesthetics.

Numerous spatial biases influence navigation, interactions, and preferences in our environment. This volume considers their influences on perception and memory.