CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk ProvidedBEHAVIORAL by Lancaster E-Prints AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2013) 36, 123–180 doi:10.1017/S0140525X12000489 The artful mind meets art history: Toward a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation Nicolas J. Bullot ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, New South Wales 2109, Australia [email protected] http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/members/profile.html?memberID=521 Rolf Reber Department of Education, University of Bergen, Postboks 7807, N-5020 Bergen, Norway [email protected] http://www.uib.no/persons/Rolf.Reber#publikasjoner Abstract: Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance,and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework. Keywords: art appreciation; causal reasoning; cognition of artifacts; cognitive tracking; design stance; essentialism; function; history of art; mindreading; processing fluency; psycho-historical framework Does the study of the mind’s inner life provide a theoreti- framework that unifies psychological and historical inqui- cal foundation for a science of art? Scientists in empirical ries into art appreciation. We argue that art-historical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics think so. They adhere to contexts, which encompass historical events, artists’ what we, along with Pickford (1972), call the psychologi- actions, and mental processes, leave causal information cal approach to art, which uses methods of psychology in each work of art. The processing of this information and neuroscience to study art and its appreciation. by human appreciators1 includes at least three distinct Because of its focus on the mind’s processes and the modes of art appreciation: basic exposure of appreciators brain’s internal structures, psychological research often to the work; causal reasoning resulting from an “artistic ignores the historical approach to art, which focuses on design stance”; and artistic understanding of the work the role of historical contexts in the making and appreci- based on knowledge of the art-historical context. In ation of works of art. The psychological and historical section 4, we demonstrate that empirical research approaches have developed conflicting research pro- within the framework is feasible. Finally, we describe in grams in the study of art appreciation and of art in section 5 how an existing psychological theory, the pro- general. They offer diverging accounts of the degree to cessing-fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure, can be com- which historical knowledge is involved in art appreciation. bined with the psycho-historical framework to examine how After introducing the debate between these two tra- appreciation depends on context-specific manipulations of ditions, we propose in sections 2 and 3 a psycho-historical fluency. © Cambridge University Press 2013 0140-525X/13 $40.00 123 Bullot & Reber: The artful mind meets art history 1. The controversial quest for a science of art experiments (Locher 2012). Their methodologies usually appreciation differ in that neuroscientists measure brain activation, whereas psychologists analyze behavioral responses. Both The quest for an empirical foundation for the science of art traditions are, however, dominated by the psychological appreciation has raised controversies across the humanities approach understood as an attempt to analyze the mental and the cognitive and social sciences. Although the psycho- and neural processes involved in the appreciation of logical and historical approaches are equally relevant to a artworks. science of art, they have developed independently and con- Many contemporary thinkers distinguish art appreciation tinue to lack common core principles. from aesthetic experience broadly understood (Berlyne 1971; Danto 1974; 2003; S. Davies 2006a; Goodman 1968; Norman 1988; Tooby & Cosmides 2001). In contrast 1.1. The psychological approach to art appreciation to them, advocates of neuroaesthetics maintain that art The psychological approach to art aims to analyze the “obeys” the aesthetic “laws of the brain” (Zeki 1999; Zeki mental and neural processes involved in the production & Lamb 1994). Like evolutionary accounts of art (Dutton and appreciation of artworks. Early work by psychologists 2005; 2009; Pinker 2002; Tooby & Cosmides 2001), their focused on how physiology and psychology may contribute research is aimed at discovering principles that explain to a scientific approach to aesthetic and artistic preferences both aesthetic and artistic universals. For example, (Bullough 1957; Fechner 1876; Helmholtz 1863; Martin drawing a comparison with the concept of universal 1906; Pratt 1961). The field of empirical aesthetics orig- grammar (Chomsky 1966), Ramachandran (2001, p. 11; inates from this tradition (Berlyne 1971; Martindale 1984; Ramachandran & Hirstein 1999) defends the universalistic 1990; Pickford 1972; Shimamura & Palmer 2012). hypothesis that “deep” neurobiological laws cause aesthetic Research in neuroaesthetics is a recent and more radical preferences and the appreciation of a work of art. branch of the psychological approach (Chatterjee 2011a; The search for laws (Martindale 1990) and universals of Skov & Vartanian 2009). The term neuroaesthetics was art is a chief objective for numerous contributions to the coined by Zeki, who viewed it as “a neurology of aesthetics” psychological approach (Aiken 1998; Dutton 2005; Fodor that provides “an understanding of the biological basis of 1993, pp. 51–53; Peretz 2006; Pinker 1997, Ch. 8; 2002, aesthetic experience” (Zeki 1999, p. 2). With regard to Ch. 20; Zeki 1999). Among them, Dutton (2005; 2009) the relation to art history, research in the psychology of and Pinker (2002) argue that there are universal signatures art does not essentially differ from neuroaesthetics. Like of art, such as virtuosity, pleasure, style, creativity, special neuroscientists, psychologists think that the appreciation focus, and imaginative experience. Pinker even defends of art depends on internal mechanisms that reflect the cog- the ostensibly ahistorical conjecture that “regardless of nitive architecture of the human mind (Kreitler & Kreitler what lies behind our instincts for art, those instincts 1972; Leder et al. 2004) or of the mind’s components such bestow it with a transcendence of time, place, and as vision (Solso 1994; Zeki 1999) and auditory processing culture” (Pinker 2002, p. 408). (Peretz 2006; Peretz & Coltheart 2003). Like neuroscien- Many advocates of the quest for aesthetic or artistic uni- tists, psychologists present artworks as “stimuli” in their versals distrust the historical methods employed in the humanities (Martindale 1990; Ramachandran 2001). Some, like Martindale (1990), have claimed that psychological or neuroscientific methods can discover laws of art appreciation ’ 2 NICOLAS BULLOT is ARC Discovery Research Fellow in without investigating the appreciators sensitivity to particu- philosophy of cognitive science at Macquarie University lar art-historical contexts. In contrast to neuroaesthetics, we (Sydney) and external associate of the Centre de will argue that the science of art appreciation needs to inves- recherches sur les arts et le langage (CRAL, Paris). His tigate art appreciators’ historical knowledge and integrate research investigates the ability to track and identify historical inquiry and the psychology of art. Our view is agents and artifacts over time. Bullot’s contributions to derived from contextualist principles introduced by the art theory attempt to bridge the gap between the bio- historical approach, which we discuss next. logical and cognitive sciences of aesthetic appreciation and the historical approach prominent in the humanities and social sciences. He was recipient of awards con- 1.2. Contextualism and the historical approach to art ferred by the Fulbright Program (United States), the appreciation University of