The Neuroscience of Aesthetics

Artists and perceptual researchers start a conversation on what they can learn from one another

Comments

Doing Art
Sherryl Ryan

11/1/2010 3:26:32 AM

 Dear Margaret I have been working in an art museum working with gifted kids with visual art and thinking for almost 7 years - I would be interested in reading your article in Leonardo. I have created a research institute called Culture at Work in Sydney to look at the nexis between art thinking and science and creativity in relation to education. So yes I guess others are doing it - I am an artist and an educator.

Examples of creative problem solving
Thomas B. Roberts

10/31/2010 5:29:59 PM

 Examples of creative problem solving, as distinct from artistic creativity, should be informed by evidence from the use of psychedelics,e.g.: Kary Mullis's invention of the PCR technique, for which he won a Nobel Prize, Bob Wallace's solution to obtaining "shelf space" for computer programs by inventing shareware. This resulted in Microsoft's early success. Willis Harman's study of professional problem solving via a psychedelic session: Harman et al, Psychological Reports, 1966, Vol. 19, pp. 211-227. "Psychedelic Agents in Creative Problem Solving: A Pilot Study." Of course, the use of psychedelics in the creative arts is widely appreciated but fearfully approached academically.

"doing" art
margot grallert

10/30/2010 6:37:32 PM

 Much is being discovered re: music and learning. What's been missing is information on the individual thinking process, the cognitive value of "doing" visual art work, in primary education. I address this in my article "Catching the Light: 'Doing' Art and Education" LEONARDO April 2009. Are there others working on this?

Neuroaesthetics
Franz Schneiderman

10/27/2010 12:09:37 PM

 This business of the neuroscience of aesthetics is fascinating. But I'm a little stuck on the paradox of understanding or creating "creativity." I guess it seems to me that what we mean by creativity is a synthetic act of creation that defies that kind of understanding in some inherent way...