Evolutionary Theories of Art

Boyd, Brian

doi:10.2307/j.ctvw1d5h1.15

Cited by 34 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…If this hypothesis proved correct, the ethos reflected in the agonistic structure of the novels would replicate the egalitarian ethos of hunter-gatherers, who stigmatize and suppress status-seeking in potentially dominant individuals (Boehm, 1999). If dispositions for suppressing dominance fulfill an adaptive social function, and if agonistic structure in the novels reflects and reinforces dispositions for suppressing dominance, the current research would lend support to the hypothesis that literature fulfills an adaptive social function (Boyd, 2005; Carroll, 2005, 2007, 2008a, 2008b; Dissanayake, 2000; Salmon and Symons, 2001 Scalise-Sugiyama, 2005; Tooby and Cosmides, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Hierarchy in the Library: Egalitarian Dynamics in Victorian Novels

Johnson

Carroll

Gottschall³

et al. 2008

Evol Psychol

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The current research investigated the psychological differences between protagonists and antagonists in literature and the impact of these differences on readers. It was hypothesized that protagonists would embody cooperative motives and behaviors that are valued by egalitarian hunter-gatherers groups, whereas antagonists would demonstrate status-seeking and dominance behaviors that are stigmatized in such groups. This hypothesis was tested with an online questionnaire listing characters from 201 canonical British novels of the longer nineteenth century. 519 respondents generated 1470 protocols on 435 characters. Respondents identified the characters as protagonists, antagonists, or minor characters, judged the characters' motives according to human life history theory, rated the characters' traits according to the five-factor model of personality, and specified their own emotional responses to the characters on categories adapted from Ekman's seven basic emotions. As expected, antagonists are motivated almost exclusively by the desire for social dominance, their personality traits correspond to this motive, and they elicit strongly negative emotional responses from readers. Protagonists are oriented to cooperative and affiliative behavior and elicit positive emotional responses from readers. Novels therefore apparently enable readers to participate vicariously in an egalitarian social dynamic like that found in hunter-gatherer societies. We infer that agonistic structure in novels simulates social behaviors that fulfill an adaptive social function and perhaps stimulates impulses toward these behaviors in real life.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Hierarchy in the Library: Egalitarian Dynamics in Victorian Novels

Johnson

Carroll

Gottschall³

et al. 2008

Evol Psychol

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“…1. However, for Riegl, this development occurs through a single and continuous process (56), while Wölfflin has a cyclical conception of this transition that seems more consistent with the overall dynamical behavior of H and C . On the other hand, this cyclical conception is not compatible with the local persistent behavior of the changes in the complexity-entropy plane.…”

Section: Evolution Of Artmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Another possibility for understanding the underlying mechanisms of the dynamical behavior unveiled by the complexityentropy plane is evolutionary theories of art (56,57). These recently proposed theories consider art from different perspectives, such as adaptation, a by-product of the brain's complexity, or sexual and natural selection aimed at sharing attention, and suggest that art's evolutionary contribution was to foster social cohesion and creativity.…”

Section: Evolution Of Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

History of art paintings through the lens of entropy and complexity

Sigaki

Perc

Ribeiro

2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Art is the ultimate expression of human creativity that is deeply influenced by the philosophy and culture of the corresponding historical epoch. The quantitative analysis of art is therefore essential for better understanding human cultural evolution. Here, we present a large-scale quantitative analysis of almost 140,000 paintings, spanning nearly a millennium of art history. Based on the local spatial patterns in the images of these paintings, we estimate the permutation entropy and the statistical complexity of each painting. These measures map the degree of visual order of artworks into a scale of order-disorder and simplicity-complexity that locally reflects qualitative categories proposed by art historians. The dynamical behavior of these measures reveals a clear temporal evolution of art, marked by transitions that agree with the main historical periods of art. Our research shows that different artistic styles have a distinct average degree of entropy and complexity, thus allowing a hierarchical organization and clustering of styles according to these metrics. We have further verified that the identified groups correspond well with the textual content used to qualitatively describe the styles and the applied complexity-entropy measures can be used for an effective classification of artworks.

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“…The actual dissemination of ideas happens in numerous ways and through diverse trajectories, from hands-on instruction to secondhand imitation and copying. Here, we understand that the transmission of ideas is subject to selective forces at both the individual and group level (Boyd andRicherson 1982, 1985;Richerson and Boyd 1984). To avoid guesswork and the loss of fidelity of information it often entails, cultural practices have unavoidably led to the development of complex communication strategies such as social learning, pedagogy, apprenticeship, systems of writing, and manifold media channels, and all of these have become hallmarks of the ways through which humans pass information between individuals at every scale.…”

Section: Defining Cultural Transmissionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology

Prentiss¹

2019

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Evolutionary Theories of Art

Cited by 34 publications

References 1 publication

Hierarchy in the Library: Egalitarian Dynamics in Victorian Novels

Hierarchy in the Library: Egalitarian Dynamics in Victorian Novels

History of art paintings through the lens of entropy and complexity

Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology

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