Reverse-Engineering the Mind At first glance, the premise of neuroaesthetics seems bizarre: Scientists are using artists to learn about the mind. Theyre looking for objective facts in the most subjective of places, using paintings and sculptures as sources of experimental data. Sometimes, it seems as if the scientists are simply trying to catch up with insights long ago discovered by artists. The artist is, in a sense, a neuroscientist, exploring the potentials and capacities of the brain, though with different tools, observes Semir Zeki, a neurobiologist at University College London and director of the Institute of Neuroesthetics. Picasso had an intuitive understanding of the mechanics of vision—which he expressed in his paintings. Likewise, the power of a Rembrandt self-portrait is not an accident: The Old Masters knew how to captivate the eye and the mind, which is why we still gaze at their canvases in museums. Scientists can learn about the mind by reverse-engineering art. But neuroaesthetics is also trying to bring precision to the study of art. Unlike traditional approaches, which treat the artwork as a product of historical and cultural forces, neuroaesthetics looks at art through the lens of neuroscience. Neuroaesthetics researchers want to decipher the power of a Picasso or a Rembrandt, to explain the sublime in terms of the visual cortex. All the adjectives we use to describe art—vague words like beauty and elegance—should, in theory, have neural correlates. According to these scientists, there is nothing inherently mysterious about art. Its visual tricks can be decoded. Neuroaestheticians hope to reveal the universal laws of painting and sculpture, to find the underlying principles shared by every great work of visual art.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 22:07:35 +0000
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