These three images show Mona Lisa's smile
filtered to show selectively lowest (left) low (middle) and high (right)
spatial frequencies
indicating that we see her smile only via
peripheral vision. Margaret Livingstone, Science, 290, 1299.
Aesthetics and Cognitive Science
Professor William Seeley
Yale University
An
examination of the issues surrounding attempts to explain aesthetic experience
by reference to the natural psychological processes subserving perception and
cognition. The aim of the course is to investigate what role psychology can
play in an explanation of art and aesthetic experiences. The first part of the
course introduces issues surrounding any attempt to naturalize aesthetics: what
is an aesthetic experience?; how do aesthetic judgments differ from ordinary
perceptual judgments?; what is the role of an artwork in an aesthetic
experience?; how does the choice of a theory of art shape a theory of aesthetic
experience?; what does it mean to 'naturalize' aesthetics? The second part of
the course examines the role an understanding of the perceptual relationship
between viewers and works of visual art can play in an explanation of the
aesthetic experiences we associate with art in general. This section
investigates the general methodology underlying the study of aesthetics and
cognitive science, the application of current theories of perception to an
understanding of aesthetic experiences, and whether these studies reveal
limitations to the project of naturalizing aesthetics.