This paper focuses on the emergent neo-Jamesian perspective concerning the phenomenology of art and aesthetic experience. Starting from the distinction between nucleus and fringe in the stream of thought described by William James, it can be argued that our appreciation of a work of art is guided by a vague and blurred perception of a much more powerful content, of which we are not fully aware. Accordingly, a work of art is seen as a kind of metaphor of our mental (...) life, objectified to be able to reach out to a much larger audience. However, it is a “realistic” theory rooted in evolutionary psychology, which claims that our mind developed within a framework shaped by environmental pressures. The aesthetics illustrated by several novelists develops a paradigm for this theory. The search for the neuronal correlates of stream of consciousness allows to make a comparison with the recent findings of neuroaesthetics and to reject its claim that it is unnecessary to take phenomenology and psychology into account. (shrink)

This paper discusses possible correspondences between neuroscientific findings and phenomenologically informed methodologies in the investigation of kinesthetic empathy in watching dance. Interest in phenomenology has recently increased in cognitive science (Gallagher and Zahavi 2008 ) and dance scholars have recently contributed important new insights into the use of phenomenology in dance studies (e.g. Legrand and Ravn (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8(3):389–408, 2009 ); Parviainen (Dance Research Journal 34(1):11–26, 2002 ); Rothfield (Topoi 24:43–53, 2005 )). In vision research, coherent neural (...) mechanisms for perceptual phenomena were uncovered, thus supporting correlation of phenomenology and neurophysiology Spillmann (Vision Research 49(12):1507–1521, 2009 ). Correspondingly, correlating subjects’ neurophysiological data with qualitative responses has been proposed as a means to research the human brain in the study of consciousness (Gallagher and Zahavi 2008 ), with similar issues in clinical psychology Mishara (Current Opinion in Psychiatry 20(6):559–569, 2007 ) and biology Kosslyn et al. (American Psychologist 57:341–351, 2002 ). Yet the relationship between neuroscience and qualitative research informed by phenomenology remains problematic. How qualitative research normally handles subjective experiences is difficult to reconcile with standard statistical analysis of objective data. Recent technological developments in cognitive neuroscience have inspired a number of researchers to use more naturalistic stimuli, outside the laboratory environment, such as dance, thereby perhaps helping to open up the cognitive sciences to more phenomenologically informed approaches. A question central to our research, addressed here, is how the phenomenal experiences of a dance audience member, as accessed by qualitative research methods, can be related to underlying neurophysiological events. We outline below some methodological challenges encountered in relating audiences’ first-person accounts of watching live dance performance to neurophysiological evidence of their experiences. (shrink)

In four experiments using an artificial grammar learning procedure, the authors examined the links between the “classic” mere exposure effect [heightened affect for previously encountered stimulus items ] and the “structural” mere exposure effect [greater hedonic appreciation for novel stimuli that conform to an implicitly acquired underlying rule system ]. After learning, participants: classified stimuli according to whether they conformed to the principles of the grammar and, rated them in terms of how much they liked them. In some experiments unusual (...) and unfamiliar symbols were used to instantiate the AG, in others highly familiar characters were used. In all cases participants showed standard AG learning. However, whether the two exposure effects emerged was dependent on symbol familiarity. Symbols with high a priori familiarity produced a structural mere exposure effect. Moderately familiar symbols produced only the classic, but not the structural, mere exposure effect. Highly unfamiliar symbols produced neither exposure effect. Results are discussed in the context of implicit learning theory and implications for a general theory of aesthetics are presented. (shrink)

In this paper we compare the strategies applied by two successful biological components of the ecosystem, the viruses and the human beings, to interact with the environment. Viruses have had and still exert deep and vast actions on the ecosystem especially at the genome level of most of its biotic components. We discuss on the importance of the human being as contraptions maker in particular of robots, hence of machines capable of automatically carrying out complex series of actions. Beside the (...) relevance of designing and assembling these contraptions, it is of basic importance the goal for which they are assembled and future scenarios of their possible impact on the ecosystem. We can’t procrastinate the development and implementation of a highly inspired and stringent “ethical code” for human beings and humanoid robots because it will be a crucial aspect for the wellbeing of the mankind and of the entire ecosystem. (shrink)