The Psychology of Art and the Evolution of the Conscious Brain

Abstract

How did the human brain evolve so that consciousness of art could develop? In The Psychology of Art and the Evolution of the Conscious Brain, Robert Solso describes how a consciousness that evolved for other purposes perceives and creates art. Drawing on his earlier book Cognition and the Visual Arts and ten years of new findings in cognitive research (as well as new ideas in anthropology and art history), Solso shows that consciousness developed gradually, with distinct components that evolved over time. One of these components is an adaptive consciousness that includes the ability to imagine objects that are not present—an ability that allows us to create (and perceive) visual art. Solso describes the neurological, perceptual, and cognitive sequence that occurs when we view art, and the often inexpressible effect that a work of art has on us. He shows that there are two aspects to viewing art: nativistic perception—the synchronicity of eye and brain that transforms electromagnetic energy into neuro-chemical codes—which is "hard-wired" into the sensory-cognitive system; and directed perception, which incorporates personal history and knowledge—the entire set of our expectations and past experiences. Both forms of perception are part of the appreciation of art, and both are products of the evolution of the conscious brain over hundreds of thousands of years. Solso also investigates the related issues of neurological and artistic perception of the human face, the effects of visual illusions, and the use of perspective. The many works of art used as examples are drawn from a wide range of artistic traditions, from ancient Egypt to Africa and India and the European Renaissance. Bradford Books imprint

Aesthetics and Emotions in Images

“…Berlyne's ideas and research directions together with the advances in understanding of neural mechanisms of perception, cognition, and emotion obtained in psychology [82], psychophysiology, and neuroscience and facilitated by the modern imaging techniques led to the emergence of neuroaesthetics in the 1990s [46], [50], [72], [104]. According to Zeki, aesthetic sense corresponds to the specialized brain mechanisms (modules) that are involved in processing visual information, where those modules are tuned to analyze different aspects of visual images.…”

New roles for art galleries: Art-viewing as a community intervention for family carers of people with mental health problems

“…Some theorists have tried to break down the art-viewing process into individual stages, in an attempt to create models of information-processing associated with art-viewing (Koroscik, 2001). Others have added affective and aesthetic responses involved in art-viewing to a cognitive model (Leder, Belke, Oeberst & Augustin, 2004;Solso, 2003). The aesthetic aspect of artviewing might be considered to go beyond a "response" and into the realms of an "experience" (Dewey, 1934).…”

Perceiving Melodies and Perceiving Musical Colors

“…Note that facial recognition employs parts of the brain-in particular, in the fusiform gyrus in the occipitemporal cortex-not activated when other objects are visually located and identified. The face inversion effect (also known as expressional transfiguration or the Thatcher illusion), in which inverted faces with non-inverted eyes are not regarded as distorted until turned the right way up, possibly arises because inverted faces are processed by the object-recognition neural system, not by the facial-recognition one (Rothstein et al 2001 andSolso 2003). Another, similar case is that of printing or writing, which becomes unreadable for most people when presented in mirror image.…”