Paper Session: Creativity, Art and Personality. I
Paper Session: Art and Education. I
Paper Session: Art and Language
Paper Session: Visual Arts: Case Studies and General Problems
Paper Session: Image Manipulation and Aesthetics
Paper Session: Comparing Different Approaches to Perception and Aesthetic Emotion
Symposium: Universal Images in Contemporary Art, Primitive Art and Children's Drawings
Paper Session: Aesthetic Appreciation. III
Symposium: The Role of Personality in the Creation and Reception of Art and Literature
Symposium: The Evolution of Aesthetic Features
Paper
Session: Creativity, Perception, Personality and Culture
Chairman: Bruce F. Katz
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton,
UK
Bruce F. Katz
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton,
UK
It has been traditionally held that the erotic distorts and pollutes
the
aesthetic, removing the latter from the realm of art. The concept that
is
often invoked is that of aesthetic distance. If the erotic content
of a
stimulus is too high, then this distance is compromised, and it is
not
possible to judge the work on its own terms. This situation is just
a
special case of ecological factors dominating collative and psychophysical
ones, in Berlyne's terms. That is, the associations of the stimulus
have
greater psychological significance than the elements of the stimulus
itself.
There are two difficulties, however, with cleanly separating the erotic
from the aesthetic. The first is that the aesthetic may borrow from
the
erotic, perhaps without realizing it, to increase its psychic power.
Certainly, the traditional structure of a symphony strongly resembles
a
sexual encounter, with the traditional demarcations of introduction,
development, climax, and denouement. The same may be said of certain
narrative works of art. Less obviously, the erotic may borrow from
the
aesthetic. For example, it has been found that various types of symmetry
serve to increase sexual attractiveness. The sociobiological explanation
is
that symmetry is an indicator of fitness. However, there is an alternative
explanation, namely, that symmetry is a general principle of beauty,
and
that phylogenetic development has harnessed this fact for its own ends.
A
similar argument may be applied to other features, such as a clear
and
smooth complexion.
In various ways, the papers in this symposium illustrate the advantages
to
be gained by studying the interplay between these two areas, as well
as
related fields such as genetic and cultural evolution. Mazhul and Petrov
first argue that the diversity of male features is decreasing while
those
of females are increasing, and then discuss the consequences of this
state
of affairs. Butterworth then considers the role of prototypicality
in face
perception in infancy, and argues that the ability to detect this property
may be innate, a finding that if validated would have important
consequences for general aesthetics. Next, Katz argues that current
adaptationist accounts of female beauty narrowly focus on features
that
bear information relating to fertility and thereby miss the fact that
female attractiveness can be construed as a special case of a more
general
notion of beauty. Finally, in perhaps the most ambitious paper in scope
in
this symposium, Melamid and Petrov suggest that the growing importance
of
female features means that they have become a kind of cultural currency,
playing an ever increasing role in the direction of society.
Lidiya A. Mazhul and Vladimir M. Petrov
State Institute for Art Studies, Moscow, Russia
The evolution of attitudes inherent to the erotic sphere was "constructed"
by a deductive method. Its assumptions relate to genetic roots of aesthetic
preferences, the tendency to maximize the population's informative
ability
and the "specialization" of informational functions of males and females.
The evolution trajectory was built for the time range from pre-human
stages
to the contemporary one.
The long-range trend was obtained dealing with evolution from females'
prevalence to males' one (which partly coincides with the way from
the
matriarchy to the patriarchy). Due to this, as well as because of other
informational reasons, the diversity of males' features is decreasing,
and
the diversity of females' features increasing. In order to reconcile
this
trend with quite opposite genetic requirements, attitudes to males
should
deal mainly with their mental features, and attitudes to females relate
to
a number of "local ideal prototypes" of their appearance. The trajectory
of
females' features consists of the "mainstream" (from contours of the
body -
to facial parameters) and "lateral branches" (other parameters depending
on
concrete socio-cultural conditions).
Bruce F. Katz
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton,
UK
Sociobiological accounts of female attractiveness began life as a heretical
reaction to a relativistic, culture-based view of female beauty, but
have
quickly become the reigning orthodoxy. These theories attempt to relate
features which are rated as attractive to direct or indirect signals
of
fertility. For example, the single most important feature of female
body
attractiveness is a high hip to waist ratio, and this is also strongly
correlated with fertility (women become more pear-shaped as they get
older
and less fertile). With regard to the female face, it has been argued
that
a gracile jaw, relatively large lips, a small nose, and a clear complexion,
are all indicators of fertility, and are not coincidentally correlated
with
male ratings of female attractiveness.
In this talk I will argue that there is an alternative way of looking
at
the data. First, I will suggest that there are four primary determinants
of
female facial beauty: i) prototypically-located features, ii) relatively
large lips, eyebrows, and cheekbones iii) harmony between features,
such as
the nose and the lips, and iv) a clear complexion. All of these, I
will
suggest, have an aesthetic explanation. For example, prototypicality
is
thought to be a general factor influencing the aesthetic judgements
of
non-erotic objects. Harmony, of course, is also a central principle
of
aesthetic theories. Smooth variations in the color field is also desirable,
in general, and this could explain why smooth complexions are preferred.
It is then argued that, for the human male, the erotic is the aesthetic
operating in conjunction with the presence of the female. That is,
features
that cause general arousal are also those that are erotically charged,
when
they are part of the female body. The hypothesized reason for this
is that
the female is in a competition with other females for the male. She
can win
this competition by strongly activating the male pattern recognition
system. If she is successful, she will drive out other females from
his
thoughts, and she thereby increases the possibility of becoming his
mate.
Lew Melamid* and Vladimir M. Petrov**
* Jerusalem, Israel
** State Institute for Art Studies, Moscow, Russia
Development of every system involving human relations should be
characterized by constant growth of the role of information (structure)
in
comparison with resources (energy, substance, etc.). This long-range
trend
is caused by some merits of information, and first of all by the absence
of
limitations connected with laws of conservation (of energy, matter,
etc.).
One of manifestations of this trend is the appearance of Christianity
(see
Golitsyn 1997) which tried to replace material welfares by mental
(informational) ones.
This trend is displayed in various branches of the system of culture
which
is considered to be a means to perfect information activity both of
a
subject and a society (Golitsyn & Petrov 1995). The sphere of erotic
attitudes also reveals this regularity, especially in the growing
importance of aesthetic features. Moreover, these features (primarily
features of woman's beauty) become so influential that sometimes they
substitute material ones and play a role of "hard currency" in social
stratification and other fields of human relations (Petrov 1997). So,
"purely informational" means are used to reinforce economic relations
and,
due to this, an "alloy" of matter and information is more and more
predominating the social sphere.
References
Golitsyn, G. A. (1997). Algebra emotsij i revolutsija v etike
[Algebra of
emotions and the revolution in ethics]. Estetika: informatsionnoy podkhod,
5, 139 - 157.
Golitsyn, G. A., & Petrov, V. M. (1995). Information and Creation:
Integrating the "Two Cultures". Berlin: Birkhauser.
Petrov, V. M. (1997). Woman's attractivity and emotions: An attempt
of a
deductive investigation. In L. Dorfman, C. Martindale, D. Leontiev,
C.
Cupchik, V. Petrov & P. Machotka (Eds.), Emotion, Creativity, &
Art. Vol. 2
. Perm: Perm State Institute of Arts and Culture (pp. 349 - 370).
Chairman: Leonid Dorfman
Psychology and Pedagogy Department, Perm State Institute of Arts and
Culture, Perm, Russia
Leonid Dorfman and Galina Kovaleva
Psychology and Pedagogy Department, Perm State Institute of Arts and
Culture, Perm, Russia
To some extent, the problem of creative potential of personality emerged
when the role of intelligence in determining creativity turned out
to be
less than that of personality factors (Taylor, 1960, Getzels &
Jackson,
1962). The evidence in favour of the claim that ego-strength links
to the
creative personality has been examined by Drevdahl & Cattell, 1958;
Barron,
1969; Martindale, 1990, 1993; Eysenck, 1995.
The above-mentioned studies do not, however, account for the self arranged
in a multifaceted way. But the concept of self is best understood as
embodying a fundamental unity with a diverse aggregate of attributes
and
facets (Baumeister, 1996). In our theory of multifaceted self (Dorfman,
1996, 1997) four basic and six secondary constituents are specified.
The question raised in this paper has to do with creative thinking
as a
mediator for the multifaceted self. The former is understood as a mediating
link between theconstituents of self.
The procedure applied by Baron & Kenny (1986) was used to test
creative
thinking as a mediator. The findings obtained were consistent with
our
hypothesis that creative thinking can mediate linkages between the
constituents of self. Details are given in the paper.
Paul Hekkert
Department of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of
Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
At the last IAEA conference in Prague, evidence was presented for two
independent dimensions of affect. It was demonstrated that, whereas
typicality and originality are highly (negatively) related factors,
both
predict a significant amount of variance in beauty ratings of telephones.
Moreover, the typicality-effect could be attributed to one of its
predictors, i.e., central tendency, thereby rendering an explanation
in
terms of circularity highly unlikely.
In that experiment originality was still measured by a subjective rating
scale. In a series of new experiments we have tried to assess
affect-independent determinants of originality in order to completely
rule
out circularity effects. Based on the notion that to be original, a
solution must both be different or divergent as well as good or
appropriate, we tried to develop a measure of originality. This measure
takes into account the number, uniqueness and appropriateness of
associations (situations) for a given stimulus (consumer product).
Results
of these experiments will be presented and the validity of the constructed
measure will be discussed.
Paolo Bonaiuto, Laura Buonarrivo and Valeria Biasi
Department of Psychology, 1st University of Rome, , "La Sapienza", Rome,
Italy
1. Introductory remarks and work hypothesis.
As well as aesthetic preferences, literary creations appear moderated
also
by personality characteristics. Our investigation is not aimed, for
the
moment, at showing the influence of classical personality traits or
situational factors on overall level of creativity, as in some recent
contributions by Dollinger & Clancy (1993), Mowrer-Popiel, Pollard
&
Pollard (1993), Walker, Koestner & Hum (1995), Andreasen (1996),
Gedo
(1996), Helson (1996), Stavridou & Furnham (1996), Rao, Reddy &
Samiuliah
(1997). Rather, we devoted a long complex study to demonstrate that
literary compositions belonging to opposite genres are favoured or
hindered
by opposing authors' attitudes towards psychic conflict and incongruity
experience, as measured by a special tool. These relations may be predicted
also giving rise to interesting experimental demonstrations.
=46or a preliminary investigation, in particular, we formulated the
followin=
g
working hypothesis: literary creativity of a decidedly imaginative
kind -
such as the one required for "fantasy" works, implies the acceptance
and
obtaining of unusual and bizarre literary images that contradict common
mental schemata, the expectations of the average reader, even if within
a
normal recognisable discourse. Therefore, the prevailing of this creative
form should be favoured when the author is a person with a very low
general
level of incongruity intolerance. The opposite may be found when literary
creations of a realistic kind are dominant.
2. Procedure and results of the experiment.
Our subjects were University students from 19 to 42 years of age (both
genders), who were individually examined and made up a large initial
experimental group of 194 people, divided into two sub-groups of equal
composition.
a) Each subject of the first sub-group had to invent and write an
"imaginary story" in order to make it "as different and as unusual
as
possible with respect to average reader expectations and to normal
everyday
reality". Moreover, each subject also had to invent and write a "realistic
story" so that it conformed "as much as possible with respect to average
reader expectations and to normal everyday reality".
b) The subjects of the second sub-group had similar tasks, but they
had to
think up stories starting from a short written plot, provided by the
experimenters, which had to be changed and enriched as necessary.
Methodological double blind conditions were set up together with systematic
rotation of the order of completion of the two kinds of stories for
each
subject. Each subject had the necessary stationery available and a
time
limit of two and a half hours.
The experimenters later carefully evaluated the stories, giving each
a
score for literary creativity according to an evaluation scale from
1 to 10
points. In this, they took a series of aspects into account, including
originality of literary solutions thought up, complexity of the plot,
extent of the piece of writing, the ability shown - also as regards
language fluency and command, and the degree of respondence with the
genre
assigned (imaginary or realistic settings, respectively).
On the basis of the average scores obtained, 16 subjects were chosen
from
each sub-group for their greater creativity in the imaginary story
and
their low creativity as regards the realistic account, and another
16
subjects were chosen for the opposite characteristics. Therefore, 32
subjects defined as "Imaginative" and 32 subjects defined as "Realistic"
were obtained, making a total of 64 subjects (individual discrepancy
between the two stories: > or =3D 2 points).
A personal index of psychic conflict intolerance and incongruity
intolerance was then established for each subject by using the Building
Inclination Test (BIT; Bonaiuto, Giannini & Bonaiuto, 1987, 1989;
Bonaiuto,
Giannini, Biasi & Bartoli, 1996; Giannini & Bonaiuto, 1997).
The "Imaginative" subjects had a considerably lower index, on average
(X 32
=3D 9.01; SD =3D 1.97), with respect to the "Realistic" subjects (X
32 =3D 1=
0.39;
SD =3D 1.56). This type of result is significant in the analysis of
variance
test (F 1, 63 =3D 9.74; p < 0.01). Examination of the distinct sub-groups
also showed that the behaviour is similar, both when stories are invented
from scratch and when they are constructed starting from a preliminary
situation. Moreover, there is a strong significant negative correlation
between creativity scores obtained by imaginary stories and the authors'
incongruity intolerance index (r 62 =3D - 0.42 ; p < 0.001).
We particularly find indicative the fact that a form of eminently verbal
creativity, such as that required for written prose, is significantly
connected in a cross-modal way to a visual, prevalently non-verbal
index.
This further shows that the Building Inclination Test measures wide-ranging
significant aspects of personality.
References
Andreasen, N. C. (1996). Creativity and mental illness: A conceptual
and
historical overview. In J.J. Schildkraut, A. Otero et al. (Eds.).
Depression and Spiritual in Modern Art: Homage to Miro. New York: Wiley
(pp. 2-14).
Bonaiuto, P., Giannini, A.M., Biasi, V. & Bartoli, G. (1996). Stili
cognitivi, intolleranza dell'incongruit=E0 e atteggiamenti verso le
trasgressioni di regole sportive. In G.V. Caprara & G.P. Lombardo
(Eds.),
Temi di Psicologia e Sport. Rome: C.O.N.I. & Univ. degli Studi
di Roma "La
Sapienza" (pp. 57-93).
Bonaiuto, P., Giannini, A.M. & Bonaiuto, M. (1987). Piloting mental
schemata on building images. Paper presented at the 3rd Italian-Polish
Conference of Psychology, Cassino. Publ. also in A. Fusco, F. Battisti
& R.
Tomassoni (Eds.), Recent Experiences in General and Social Psychology
in
Italy and Poland. Milan: Angeli, 1990 (pp. 85-129).
Bonaiuto, P., Giannini, A.M. & Bonaiuto, M. (1989). Maximizers,
Minimizers,
Acceptors, Removers and Normals: Diagnostic tools and procedures, Rassegna
di Psicologia, 6 (3), 80-87.
Dollinger, S. J., & Clancy, S. M. (1993). Identity, self, and personality:
II. Glimpses through the autophotographic eye. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol.
64
(6), 1064-1071.
Gedo, J. E. (1996). The Artist and the Emotional World. Creativity
and
Personality. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
Giannini, A.M. & Bonaiuto, P. (1997). Incongruity intolerance and
the
aesthetic evaluation of devitalized or realistic human figure
representations. In L. Dorfman, C. Martindale, D. Leontiev, G. Cupchik,
V.
Petrov & P. Machotka (Eds.), Emotion, Creativity & Art. Vol.
2. Perm: Perm
State Institute of Arts & Culture (pp. 21-44).
Helson, R. (1996). In search of the creative personality. Creativity
Research Journal, 9 (4), 295-306.
Mowrer-Popiel, E., Pollard, C. & Pollard, R. (1993). An examination
of
factors affecting the creative production of female professors. College
Student Journal, 27 (4), 428-436.
Rao, G. B., Reddy, K. S. & Samiuliah , S. (1997). Behaviour activity
profiles and work values of employees. Social Science International,
13
(1/2), 19-24.
Stavridou, A. & Furnham, A. (1996). The relationship between psychoticism,
trait-creativity and the attentional mechanism of cognitive inhibition.
Person. Indiv. Diff., 21 (1), 143-153.
Walker, A., Koestner, R. & Hum, A. (1995). Personality correlates
of
depressive style in autobiographies of creative achievers. J. Creative
Behavior, 29 (2), 75-94.
David Rawlings, Fionnuala Twomey, Elizabeth Burns and Sharon Morris
Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
The paper will briefly report three studies relating several measures
of
creativity and aesthetic preference to several established personality
scales. Study 1 derived indices of Fluency, Originality and Preference
for
Complexity and Meaningfulness using random polygons varying in complexity
(turns). The scales of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Revised)
(EPQ-R), the Schizotypal Personality Scale (STA), and the Sensation
Seeking
Scale, Form V (SSS-V) were the personality measures. Study 2 added
Openness
to Experience from the NEO Personality Inventory to the personality
measures; factors derived from the Litle and Zuckerman Music Preference
Scale were added to the creativity/preference set. Study 3 replaced
the
polygons used in study 2 with two Kogan-Wallach creativity tests, and
added
a word association task. Canonical correlations suggested a substantial
relationship between SSS-V, Openness and EPQ-R Psychoticism, and a
creativity/preference set particularly represented by Preference for
Complexity, dislike of "soft popular" music and originality or number
of
divergent thinking responses. Subscale analyses implicated willingness
to
question conventional values as a major component of the "creative
personality".
Cornelius Steckner
Germany
In the Enciclopedia Italiana s.v. "Bauhaus" Giulio Carlo Argan in 1948
mentions its sensitivity training "sulla base unitaria del suono, del
colore e della forma" ("on the unitary basis of sound, of colour and
of
shape"). The master of this was the Italian School singing=1Eteacher
Gertrud
Grunow, born in 1870, like Maria Montessori. To her Gropius refers
in
analogy to the Bauhaus fundamental creativity training, which in 1925
became the subject of empirical synaesthetics in the Hamburg circle
of
Ernst Cassirer and Heinz Werner. With the related Montessori research
of
Margarete Muchow, this abruptly ended in 1933. What survived moved,
like
the Warburg lnstitute, to London or merged into the "non=1Eobjective
art" of
the Guggenheim Foundation. Only fragments survived, until recently
in Italy
the sound and colour universals of the Bauhaus artistic laboratories
as
well as the Hamburg and Berlin psychological laboratories could be
traced,
thus throwing light on the neurophysical foundation of reality: "che
ogni
attivit=E0 costruttiva tende a dar forma allo spazio" ("that every
constructive activity tends to give shape to space").
Jonna Kwiatkowski, Oshin Albert Vartanian and Colin Martindale
Department of Psychology, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA
In Genius: The natural history of creativity, Hans Eysenck (1995) proposes
a link between creativity and lack of cognitive inhibition. This link
is
based on research showing that schizophrenics score lower on cognitive
inhibition tasks than average. In measurable terms, this means that
those
who have higher scores on schizotypy scales, and by association Eysenck's
psychoticism scale, exhibit less cognitive inhibition. Cognitive inhibition
is the ability to block out unimportant stimuli (i.e., to focus attention).
Given the experimental links between creativity and psychoticism, it
seems
possible that people with high creativity scores will also exhibit
less
cognitive inhibition. The first part of this study explores several
tests
of Eysenck's hypothesis. Cognitive inhibition is measured through two
tasks: negative priming and global precedence.
Preliminary results indicated a relationship between creativity and
reaction time, thus prompting the addition of simple reaction time
tasks.
All the experiments discussed for this presentation include these
additional tasks. We chose tasks that have been used in IQ research,
where
higher IQ's have been related to faster reaction times. Specifically,
we
used The Hick paradigm and the Stemberg digit task. These tests were
included because pretests indicated that more creative people showed
very
slow reaction times in general.
In general, results show that there is no general correlation between
creativity and cognitive disinhibition. Results for negative priming
and
global precedence are in the direction predicted by Eysenck but fall
far
short of significance.
However, there is a high correlation between creativity and reaction
time.
On both of the computer-run cognitive inhibition tasks (negative priming
and global precedence), the higher the score for creativity the slower
the
general reaction time on the tasks. We offer hypotheses concerning
this
quite unexpected finding. We shall present data concerning the generality
of the relationship between creativity, and slow reaction times. For
simple
reaction time tasks such as the Hick or Stemberg tasks, the more creative
one is, the faster his or her reaction time. For tasks such as global
precedence, where there is some ambiguity, the more creative one is,
the
slower his or her reaction time is. This is consistent with the hypothesis
that creative people tend to have relatively defocused attention.
In addition to these findings, we will present the results of a study
run
with these same tasks on a group of corporate computer consultants.
These
participants came from a highly creative and successful division of
their
organization. Differences in direction and strength of results will
be
presented along with possible explanations.
References
Claridge, G. S., Clark & K. H. Beech, A. R., (1992). Lateralization
of the
negative priming effect: Relationships with schizotypy and with gender.
British J. Psychol, 83, 13-23.
Eysenck, H. J. (1995) Genius: The Natural History of Creativity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Navon, D. (1977). Forest before the trees: The precedence of global
features in visual perception. Cognitive Psychol., 9, 353-383.
Wason, P. & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1972). Psychology of Reasoning:
Structure
and Content. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Chairman: Jonna Kwiatkowski
Department of Psychology, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA
Jonna Kwiatkowski and Colin Martindale
Department of Psychology, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA
Nineteenth-century academic painters, such as Bougereau and Alma-Tadema,
have been treated harshly by art critics. Their work is said to be
kitsch,
sentimental, and even pornographic. On the other hand, contemporary
impressionist and post-impressionist painters are, of course, highly
praised. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, these appraisals seem
questionable, as many impressionist paintings are not at all beautiful.
This lab has been actively quelling the critic's standard slant on
nineteenth century art. We began with a simple study where people with
no
training in art history assessed paintings by old masters, academic
artists, and impressionist and post-impressionist painters. As expected,we
found a tremendous preference for the work of the academic artists
over the
impressionists, as well as a marginal preference for academics over
the old
masters.
One noted argument against this first study was that we did not control
for
taste. As it is certainly possible that first year college students
have
bad or no taste, we ran the study again, this time adding a test of
aesthetic sensitivity. In this study, academic paintings were seen
as being
of significantly better quality than old master paintings and were
much
better liked than impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. Aesthetic
sensitivity was not related to preference for the three styles of
paintings.
A second reasonable complaint was that impressionist art contains an
underlying complexity that cannot be appreciated in one brief viewing.
While the complexity of impressionist paintings is arguable, we did
concede
that repeated exposure to a work of art may change a person's opinion
of
it. On that basis, we ran the study a third time with na=EFve participants,
but repeated the presentation of each painting eight times. The analysis
of
these results are preliminary, but one thing is clear: preference ratings
for impressionist art are the lowest regardless of number of exposures.
A third objection to the original study may actually be an additional
dimension. Will those trained in the arts, some ask, rate these paintings
similarly to the na=EFve participants when confined to a rating scale?
To
answer this, we have taken our slides to the art history department
at this
university. Those with at least one class worth of experience with
nineteenth century art were asked to rate the same paintings as our
original naive participants. Preliminary results indicate that these
people
also have a hidden predilection for academic art.
These are the only criticisms that we have addressed at this point.
However, we are quite sure that there are many others that those invested
in impressionist painting could impart. We would like to offer our
lab as a
testing ground for any of those protests. We will do our best to answer
such questions and demonstrate that, without brainwashing, most modern
art
is rightly seen to lack aesthetic merit.
Rauf R. Karakozov
Department of Psychology, Ministry of Education, Baku, Azerbaijan
Based on the tradition that originated from the cultural-historical
psychology of L. S.Vygotsky, activity theory of Leontiev, works of
M. M.
Bakhtin and others, I develop an approach the main points of which
can be
drawn in the following theses:
1. The artwork is the particular kind of cultural tools promoting the
subject to "compose" his/her own personality and identity.
2. This function of "personality composing" is accomplished due to
the
property of artwork to "examine" reality including the reality of the
inner
world of the subject. As a result of such "examination" the subject
gets
the opportunity to make sense of his/her life experience, and to detect
and
disclose the personal sense (meaning) of his/her own existance.
3. Considering personality as a function of awareness of life-experience
and Identity as a personal sense of "ego", we can approach the process
of
personality and identity formation as a result of interaction between
the
subject and the work of art.
4. The interaction between the subject and the artwork (first of all,
artistic texts) is mediated with the particular system of mental actions
and operations aimed towards spatial-temporal (chronotopical)
reconstruction of the artistic texts. I defined them as chronotopical
actions and operations.
5. Different kinds of chronotopical actions and operations as methods
of
orienting and assimilating with the spatial-temporal continium of life
fulfil some essential functions that deal with the subject's mental
development. In particular I would like to indicate the role of "rhythmic"
operations for the process of the subject's identity formation.
Natalia Pais*, Joao Pedro Frois*, Connie Newton** and Nikolaus Bezruczko**=
*
* Department of Education of the Calouste, Lisbon,
Portugal
** School of Visual Arts, University of North Texas, Denton,
Texas, USA
*** Chicago, Illinois, USA
Discipline Based Art Education (DBAE) is a curricular approach to art
education developed by the Getty Foundation in Los Angeles that emphasizes
art history, art criticism, aesthetics and art production. Unlike
traditional approaches to art education that primarily emphasize only
art
production that is directed by student choice, DBAE is sequential and
progressive relying on an explicit curriculum.
This presentation will describe the development and implementation
of
Primeiro Olhar-Programa Integrado de Artes Visuasis (POPIAV), a
comprehensive visual arts education program that adapts DBAE to a
Portuguese cultural context. POPIAV consists of two parts: (1) the
development of a DBAE-type curriculum utilizing art images from the
Gulbenkian museums and its implementation with children from two schools
in
Lisbon and (2) an evaluation plan to assess the outcomes of this program
with 48 10 to 12- year old students from these two schools. This evaluation
plan compares two POPIAV instructional groups: Plastic Expressiveness
and
Creative Computer workshop groups, respectively, with comparable
instructional groups not based on a DBAE-type curriculum.
The evaluation plan for this pilot study implements both a qualitative
approach to the process of students learning about the visual arts,
and a
statistically-based quantitative approach to analyze program outcomes.
The
qualitative methods will include case studies of individual students
and
includes portfolios of their art work, student performance samples,
pretreatment videos of the study groups, and projective methods that
examine the development of conceptual stuctures and affective responses.
The quantitative analyses include a parent visual arts background survey,
measures of artistic judgment aptitude, teacher ratings of school
performance, as well as parameterized measures of visual arts-related
student outcomes.
This presentation will describe major adaptation of DBAE to Portugal,
present preliminary evaluation results, and generally summarize the
major
implications for students of shifting from an arts production approach
to
visual arts education to a discipline based approach.
Jeffrey K. Smith
Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New
Jersey, USA, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New
York,
USA
The purpose of this study was to examine visitor behavior and associated
learning in a special exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The
exhibition studied was "The Origins of Impressionism," a major exhibition
of over 300 works of pre-Impressionistic and early Impressionistic
art held
at The Met. One of the goals of the exhibition was to teach the public
about the diverse influences on the development of Impressionism. The
question arose as to how well the exhibition succeeded in achieving
this
goal, and the Office of Research and Evaluation of the Museum was asked
to
conduct a study to investigate the question.
Such a study posed some interesting problems: first, it is not realistic
to
give "tests" to visitors to the Museum; second, learning implies growth
over time, so some mechanism to get pre/post data was necessary; and
third,
it was desirable to avoid "cueing" responses by visitors as to exactly
the
kinds of learning we were interested in measuring. Our solutions to
these
problems led to the following design for the study. We developed two
forms
of a pre/post questionnaire, A and B. Visitors were intercepted as
they
approached the exhibition and asked if they were willing to participate.
They were informed that they had to complete a pre part of a questionnaire
before entering the exhibition and then the post part of the questionnaire
upon leaving the exhibition. They were offered a catalog of the exhibition
as a gratuity for participation. For all visitors, the pre questionnaire
included questions about why the person was visiting and what he/she
hoped
to get out of the visit. The post questionnaire for all visitors asked
them
what kinds of behaviors they had engaged in while in the exhibition
(e.g.,
"tried to look at all of the works," "went back to a previous room
to look
at works again"). Form A of the questionnaire contained an additional
set
of questions on the pre questionnaire. Form B contained those same
questions on the post questionnaire. The set of additional questions
contained two types of items. The first type asked visitors how much
they
knew about the development of Impressionism. The second type asked
visitors
how much they knew about 10 artists, 8 of whom were featured in the
exhibition (and 2 of whom were not in the exhibition at all). This
design
allowed us to compare how much visitors felt they knew about the
development of Impressionism before going into the exhibition and how
much
they felt they knew coming out. It also allowed us to tie perceived
learning to the behaviors they stated they engaged in and their personal
expectations for the exhibition.
We found significant (p < .001) changes pre to post on almost all
of the
measures described, and we found a collection of exhibition-visiting
behaviors to be related to gains in perceived learning. Discussing
works
with others, attempting to make connections among works and reading
general
wall text were all highly associated with perceived learning. The findings
are discussed in light of current theory in learning and cognition.
Ulrich Trautwein* and Steffen Werner**
* Georg-August University, G=F6ttingen, Germany
** Institute of Psychology, Georg-August University, G=F6ttingen, Germany
The visual arts are experiencing the effects of a technological revolution.
Museums are opening their galleries to new forms of interactive art
education. Multimedia products are gaining widespread acceptance from
art
"consumers". Amidst these breathtaking developments, empirical evaluations
of the impact of different forms of computer=1Ebased art presentation
on the
viewer's aesthetic experience and art=1Erelated behavior are lacking.
In
trying to evaluate chances and risks of multimedia applications in
art
education we constructed different presentations of 12 paintings (16th
through 20th century). We used various visual effects, such as motion,
fading, zooming, and dissolving, and spoken texts to modify the viewer's
experience. The experimental conditions varied on two dimensions: (1)
the
adequacy of the visual effects and (2) the additional presentation
of
verbal information. The spoken text, if presented, always contained
important information. The visual effects in one condition were used
to
emphasize critical formal or semantic elements of the paintings. Two
other
conditions either used arbitrary visual effects without relation to
the
critical elements or no effects at all. We designed different direct
and
indirect measures to asses the viewer's amount of curiosity, understanding,
and aesthetic experience. Pilot study data indicate a high acceptance
of
multimedia elements.
Chairman: Sven Sandstrom
University of Lund, Lund, Sweden
Mikhail S. Uvarov
Department of Philosophical Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy, Saint
Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Metaphysics of Confession Word in the history of European civilisation
is
attended by specificity of utmost topical social problems. The author
has
used some classical sources relevant to the theme of his study: such
are
well-known confession texts by St. Augustin, A.Vitelo, Ephrem the Syrian,
J. J. Rousseau, L. Tolstoy, N. Gogol and others, as well as some less
known
works by M.Lermontov, P. Verlaine, M. Gorky, A. Losev, P. Florensky,
M.
Bakunin and St. John of Kronstadt. As aseparate problem, the deformation
of the Confession theme in post-modernist culture of the late 20th
century
has been considered.
A text of confession may only appear when one's need of repentance
before
God results in repentance before oneself. This is why in European culture
the possibility of confession as only "memoirs of the soul" is so unsteady.
Beginning from the 4th century, the tradition of public repentance
declines
in Christianity. Nevertheless, confessions are published, read out
and
read. Confession word organises the chaos of the mind, puts it in order,
forms harmony of culture. In the verity of confession word Kant's
categorical imperative is synthesised, as well as universal absolute
values, although the mechanism of the synthesis remains enigmatic.
The
verity may be also taken as a criterion of a text's authenticity, including
philosophical texts. The latter is, for example, well expressed in
the
following words of F.Nietzsche (in Beyond the Good and the Bad): "Little
by
little I learnt what was before now any great philosophy: just its
creator's confession, a kind of his memoirs written by him at no will
and
unconsciously; in the same way have I learnt that moral (or immoral)
aims
are the very seed of life in each philosophy". It is worth noting that
=46.Nietzsche's last book "Ecce Homo" written by him at the end of
his
conscious life is in reality his confession.
The theme of the author's confession is very characteristic for Russian
literature and extremely unexpectedly realized. Confession often is
only a
form of preaching and vice versa. Pushkin's Onegin, Lermontov's Pechorin,
Gorky's Samgin all bear some kind of confession cross, but the people
around them think they are rather preaching. In such an inversion of
the
confession word is one of the important aspects of 20th century Russian
intelligentsia who understand they must preach and meet difficulties
from
their insufficient competence in preaching a truth. In European and
Russian
culture a text of confession is generated as a Christian text, but
the fact
of generation is complex enough and cannot be understood as a mere
Christian dogmatic problem. The author uses examples from different
types
of literature and arts, including painting, architecture, music for
illustration of another meaningful problem of the topic, namely the
dilemma
of confession and preaching. Among others the paintings of El Greco
were
used. His favourite images were those of St. Paul and St. Peter, the
pair
of contrasting individuals. In one of the early realizations of the
theme
(collection of L.Plandiura, Barcelona, Spain) El Greco endows the two
saints with expressive gestures from which their characteristics may
be
revealed. The apostles on the canvas from the Hermitage (St.Petersburg,
Russia) are not less expressive. If we ask the paradoxical question:
who of
the two is Paul and who is Peter, the problem arises of the essence
of
confession in the history of European culture. Two fine glances from
the
canvas, but one of them is the glance of an ardent sermon and the other
of
an ardent confession. Who of the two bears the cross of preaching and
who
of confession?
By answering the question, the author reveals important features in
the
origination of European and Russian self-knowledge. For European culture,
appearance of the figure of the furious preacher means only growth
of
intensity in searching for a balance between reason and Revelation
(a good
example is the inversion of confession practice in classical
Protestantism), while for the Russian mentality the preacher always
indicates a tragedy in national self-knowledge and cultural breakdown.
As
demonstrated in the study, confession text cannot be confined within
any
form of religion. In culture, such text is written as a limitless flow
of
self-expression of creative genius. And here the matter is not the
textual
similarity. Confessions of M.Proust or F.Kafka, of course, differ from
those of N.Gogol and S.Kierkegaard or J. J.Rousseau and J. Derrida.
In
other words, the unified verbal code of confession does not exist.
The problem of confession always begins from looking for adequate language,
an acceptable mode of expression. For example, in medieval England
and
=46rance the uttermost punishment was to deprive the condemned to death
not
only of last communion but even of confession, that is, of really
pronounced dying words. At the same time, Christian repentance symbolises
overcoming of temporality, determines indissoluble unity of mind and
heart,
irreducible to any pronounced words. The act of repentance is a straight
way to confession as the text of life. From this fact come European
secular
confessions as a literary type.
Claudio F. Guerri
Facultad de Arquitectura, Dise=F1o y Urbanismo, Universidad de Buenos
Aires,
Buenos Aires, Argentina
The TSD acronym designates a graphical language derived from the Theory
of
Spatial Delimitation, it systematizes all possibilities of selection
and
combination of flat and volumetric figures. It establishes necessary
and
sufficient morphic and tactic dimensions to account for all possible
relationships of selection and combination (see. two old articles:
C=E9sar
Jannello "Fondements pour..." in Semiotic Theory and Practice, 483-496,
Berlin: Mouton, 1988; Claudio Guerri "Architectural Design ..." in
The
Semiotic Web 1987, 389-419, Berlin: Mouton, 1988). TSD is a
geometric=1Egraphical and logic=1Esemiotical conceptualization of space,
a
graphic system of differential notation. It allows control of the
quali=1Equantitative relationships in which the matter appears in any
object
of design, architectural, industrial, graphical or pictorial.
The TSD proposes a syntactic reading of those formal, pure design
operations underlying the traditional representations. Tracings and
complex
configurations described by tree=1Ehierarchical structures of simple
configurations allows for a coherent syntactic analysis of the design
structure of any object. This will allow the construction of a pure
design
formula for the conscious and unconscious prefiguration operations
of an
artist or style.
Graphic languages, such as Monge System (orthogonal projections) and
Perspective (conic projections), traditionally used for designing,
'only'
account for quantifying or qualifying space. They do not allow for
conceptualizing or specifically working on pure design operations,
i.e, on
form-related decisions such as selection and combination that will
enable
an architectural or graphic space which will acquire analogical consistency
through traditional graphic systems of representation.
In this presentation, we will use our proprietory CA-TSD software (Computer
Aided TSD) which will allow for fast verification of what is stated,
including Architecture, Graphic Design and Art examples.
Sven Sandstrom
University of Lund, Lund, Sweden
In recent days pictures are more often discussed as having a linguistic
content than not. The opposite was the case some 30 years ago. Since
then
much has happened to make the concept of language still more relevant
in
the ares of information and com=1Fmunication theory. Still, almost
no
specific reasons have been given for meaning in any image and not for
any
image of art to have linguistic meaning.
The present paper holds that any picture is primarily a visual image,
which
has no meaning before meaning has been achieved by an act of perception.
It is further held that - with the exception of pictures especially
provided with linguistic structures, like ideographs and allegories
- any
meaning in a picture is the result of a spatial act of understanding.
The exploration which leads to understanding is always performed in
relation to a specific aspect, broad or narrow and different for different
persons. One and the same visual image can rightfully give birth to
very
different understandings. A linguistic phrase, as well as any word,
must at
least formally have one meaning. This is one major reason why an image
as
such cannot be or contain language.
Equally important and more complicated is the fact that understanding
arises not in a linear act - which is the case in a linguistic discourse
-
and not on the basis of defined concepts, but in a simultaneous and
multi-dimensional confrontation of the elements in the visual field,
in the
course of which they are endowed with contextual meaning, which might
be
quite unique as well as banal.
This is a spatial act and, by its mere nature, such a spatial act defines
also the nature of the image's meaning as spatial, not linear.
The main task of my paper will be to further demonstrate a consistent
theory of the specific spatial nature of image understanding, which
is
basic in all visual perception, and which is also constitutive of the
way
in which artists express meanings by their works.
Chairman: Michael Ranta
Department of Art History, University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Anna M. Ryapolova
State University of Mechnikov, Mechnikov, Ukraine
In the pratice and theory of art Leonardo da Vinci paid great attention
to
the right transmission of the soul of a man, i.e. his inner world and
to
the question of "how" to depict it. He stated that art (and painting,
in
particular) can depict and show in images the truth and inspire people
"to
fall to the ground, praying and worshiping. Art is also able to educate,
mobilize a person or many people at a time, motivating them to go on
a
pilgrimage to dangerous places". It demands, after Leonardo,"a
philosophical and fine reflection", it can "strike people's minds",
prompting feelings and actions, "satisfaction of eyesight" and "great
admiration" not only by its "proportional harmony", but by the unity
of
Beauty and Essence" in one moment".
The Psychology of Leonardo's art is a many-sided and important factor
of
personification, depicting perception of aesthetic and philosophical,
spiritual and cultural, scientific and historical, individual and public,
biographical and epochal content and event, synthesis and analysis
as a
whole and in every particular case.
=46or example, in spite of art losses from many restorations, in the
famous
fresco "The Last Supper", the true unity of Psychology of art,
creative
process, personality of the master, great aesthetics and genuine philosophy
still lives to this day.
Department of Human Sciences and Antiquities, University of Sassari,
Sassari, Italy
The history of criticism of Michelangelo's work highlights the
contradictory phenomenal qualities experimentally studied in this paper.
Over the XVI century his art was regarded as an ideal of perfection,
the
idea of beauty tout court. In the XVII and XVIII century important
historiographers judged him to be ungraceful, uncouth and exaggerated:
a
model to reject. It was only during the Romantic Age that a revaluation
of
his art, founded on pathos as an important element of admiration, began.
But it is contemporary art that fully grasps the originality, expressive
power and freedom of his work. What is pointed out in this paper, is
the
fact that all previous antinomic criticisms were founded on the same
formal
qualities: "unfinished", deformation, non-verisimilitude and
so forth. One
wonders then: how can the same works (e.g. the Last Judgement or the
Piet=E0
Rondanini) and the same formal qualities be judged according to antinomic
evaluations all equally founded? It is maintained here that since art
is
full of such logical antinomies, they can represent the dynamic foundation
of the formation and evaluation of art itself through the complexity
of
interactions between order and disorder (Arnheim, 1966, 1971, 1974;
Gombrich, 1966, 1984). Following such observations it is hypothesized
that
even if Michelangelo's art is, or better, just because it is deformed
and
unfinished, it shows a completeness and pr=E4gnant effect: a new more
comple=
x
and emerging order situated at a metalevel results from disorder. In
other
words, Michelangelo's work becomes artistic form just because it is
formless, namely because of its tendency to move away from form. To
state
this means to propose a paradox: "It is form if and only if it is not
form"
or "even if it is not pr=E4gnant, it is even more pr=E4gnant exactly
because=
it
is not pr=E4gnant". The paradoxical tendencies to move away from pr=E4gnanz
=
or
the deforming tendencies become more and more significant observing
Michelangelo's art evolution, so that from the refined over-finishing
of
his early works one gets to the various degrees of roughness and contrasts
between rough-hewn and finished works, to the different typologies
of
unfinished works, and, in his last Piet=E0, to something "new" even
more
difficult to define, a sort of emerging "indefinite" which cannot be
finished, which does not purposely want to. The Piet=E0 Rondanini represents
the climax of Michelangelo's work in virtue of its own phenomenal
indefiniteness, which represents a self-organizing "ordering chaos"
area
(Pinna, 1997). The hypothesis taken into account here is that such
an
irreducible quality is particularly useful and interesting in order
to
understand art evolution and meaning which, in this view, the tendency
towards pr=E4gnanz assumes (Metzger, 1963; Wertheimer, 1923).These
hypothese=
s
lead to the following questions: what tendencies cause the change from
one
form to another one?, how do irreducible emerging qualities originate?
What
is the relation, in the artistic creation process, among order, disorder
and complexity, form and formlessness? What are the phenomenal qualities
and the evolutionistic phenomenological levels leading an artistic
form to
change into a new one (metamorphosis phenomenology)? What is the role
played by paradox in the formation and evolution of art? In order to
answer
these questions a gestalt phenomenology experiment has been carried
out.
Its independent variable was made up by requests for description directed
to throw light on different and contrasting levels of pr=E4gnanz in
the most
important works by Michelangelo. The answers were significantly similar
to
the ones present in the history of criticism and allowed structurally
clarifying the tendencies leading to such contrasting evaluations.
In the
first place, it is possible to confirm the hypotheses of an evolution
of
Michelangelo's art in the above-mentioned terms. It is an evolution
going
through different phenomenally emerging levels of pr=E4gnanz. As regards
the
self-organizing dynamics leading to the formation and evolution of
a given
pr=E4gnant form, one can state that the paradox whose existence has
been
hypothesized here, plays a fundamental role. The results show that
it is
phenomenologically correct to state that what isn't at least slightly
deformed has got something static and sterile, defective, lacking in
chaos
(hypothesis of tendency towards disorder). This is supported by the
spontaneous subject's replies as well as by Michelangelo's artistic
evolution from the "over-finished" to the unfinished. This is another
way
of expressing the paradox of pr=E4gnanz. Moreover, one can speak about
stronger thrusts towards pr=E4gnanz than when it seems fully realized,
above
all, where the pr=E4gnanz perception seems to fail. In these terms,
irregularity becomes, in art, the distinctive sign of the sense of
order,
beauty or of art itself (hypothesis of tendency towards order). This
statement is paradoxical as well.
In conclusion, the fact that contrasting qualities can be seen in
Michelangelo's work may signify, according to the meaning considered
here,
that a tendency towards pr=E4gnanz is anyhow in progress. It is a tendency
t=
o
give the structures under observation a sense of pr=E4gnanz, form and
order,
even if such pr=E4gnanz is in fact unfulfilled. Deformations are regarded
as
such and for this reason rejected from the category of pr=E4gnant forms
(as
the adverse criticism did) because they move away from a certain ideal
of
pr=E4gnanz, anyhow phenomenally present in an amodal way inside a given
structure. If deformations take on a=20new emerging form (unlike present-day
criticism regards them), then they are anyhow removed or, more precisely,
"re-formed" and transformed (e.g. the Piet=E0 Rondanini); they are
not
deformations any longer but something new and different. A tendency
towards
pr=E4gnanz is still in progress, but it has to be explained in a different
sense (Pinna, 1996) from the ones present in the specialistic literature
(Arnheim, 1987; Kanizsa & Luccio, 1986; Wertheimer, 1923). One
can
therefore hypothesize, again paradoxically, that both tendency towards
disorder and the one towards order are part of the same tendency towards
pr=E4gnanz reconsidered here. It is in this sense that the history
of
criticism and experimental subjects' antithetic or paradoxical perceptions
can be explained. In the same way, it is possible to understand the
paradox
of "art" itself creating antithetic forms generating from the same
creative
tendencies and that still have the same qualities as art. This does
not
mean to annihilate art criticism but to develop it by leading it to
look
not only at art contents but also at itself, at ways of seeing and,
above
all, at its tendencies.
References
Arnheim, R. (1966). Toward a Psychology of Art. Berkeley: Univ. California
Press.
Arnheim, R. (1971). Entropy and Art. Berkeley: Univ. California Press.
Arnheim, R. (1974). Art and Visual Perception. Berkeley: Univ. California
Pr=
ess.
Arnheim, R. (1987). Pr=E4gnanz and its discontents. Gestalt Theory,
9, 102-1=
07.
Gombrich, E. H. (1966). Norma e forma. Studi sull'arte del Rinascimento.
Torino: Einaudi.
Gombrich, E. H. (1984). Il senso dell'ordine. Studio sulla psicologia
dell'arte decorativa. Torino: Einaudi.
Kanizsa, G. & Luccio, R. (1986). Die Doppoldeutigkeiten der Pr=E4gnanz.
Gestalt Theory, 8, 99-135.
Metzger, W. (1963). Psychologie. Darmstadt: Steinkopff.
Pinna, B. (1996). La percezione delle qualit=E0 emergenti: una conferma
dell=
a
"tendenza alla pregnanza". In P.Boscolo, F. Cristante, A. Dell'Antonio
&
S. Soresi (Eds.), Aspetti qualitativi e quantitativi nella ricerca
psicologica, Padua: Il Poligrafo (pp. 261-276).
Pinna, B. (1997). Sul costituirsi delle qualit=E0 emergenti: una revisione
critica della teoria della pregnanza. Paper presented at the Congresso
Nazionale della Sezione di Psicologia Sperimentale, A.I.P., Capri.
Wertheimer, M. (1923). Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt.
Psychologische Forschung, 4, 301-350.
Victor F. Petrenko
Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
We applied a repertory grid technique developed by G. Kelly to study
the
categories of a painter's consciousness, his internal implicit model
of his
own personality, his own "Self". A contemporary Russian painter, K.
Ganin,
has created 71 self-portraits which are explications of the image of
"Self"
from the internal position. We asked the painter to express verbally
a
mental and emotional state which is exposed in each self-portrait and
apply
this formulated personal construct to assess by 7-point scale (from
3 to
-3) the extent to which this particular state is present in all other
self-portraits. Thus, a 71x71 matrix of similarities between self-portraits
was obtained, where "mental and emotional states" were personal constructs
(descriptor scales) and self-portraits were objects, and it was subjected
to factor analysis to construct a subjective semantic space which is
interpreted as an operational model of the painter's self-awareness.
In a
similar way, we investigated the categoric structure of the perception
of
these self-portraits by the spectators. The categoric structure of
their
semantic spaces can be viewed as an understanding of the painter's
image of
"Self" from the external position. We compare and discuss the dimension
of
the painter's self-awareness space (his image of "Self" from the internal
position) and the space of understanding of his personality (exposed
in the
self-portraits) from the external spectators' standpoint, the specificity
and difference of personal constructs in both cases.
Michael Ranta
Department of Art History, University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Experimental aesthetics as conceived of by Daniel Berlyne and his collegues
has to a considerable extent been concerned with the arousal-modifying
effects of stimulus properties on organisms. One of the major deficiencies
of this approach has been its stress on art's formal qualities (i.e.
psychophysical and especially collative variables), thereby neglecting
the
"aboutness" (or "meaningfulness") of artworks and its relationship
to
(aesthetic) preference judgments. During the last decades, however,
experimental aestheticians, such as Colin Martindale, have given increasing
attention to the meaning aspects of art and their effects on (aesthetic)
preferences. Especially influences from cognitive psychology and
categorization (and prototypicality) research seem to have been very
fruitful in this shift of orientation.
According to one of the historically most persistent views on art,
the
function and value of artworks consist of their capacity to imitate
external phenomena (whether perceivable or imagined). Numerous variations
of this mimetic tradition, stemming from at least ancient Greece, have
been
eleborated by Western philosophers, aestheticians, and artists during
the
last two thousand years. Quite frequently, though, proponents of this
position (such as Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle) have not regarded
the
imitation of particular objects, subjects or events as aesthetically
desirable, but rather the representation of types of objects, subjects
or
events. In my paper I intend to discuss whether and in which way this
view
might be compatible with recent categorization research and Martindale's
discussion of prototypicality and aesthetic preferences. It will be
suggested that cognitive and experimental psychology may give the mimetic
tradition - regarded as a descriptive as well as a normative position
concerned with the representation of types - empirical support and
thus an
increased plausibility value.
Stefania Caliandro
E.H.E.S.S. of Paris, Paris, France
The concept of empathy is on borderline and exchange ground between
aesthetic contemplation and the psychology of perception. At the very
basis
of the observer' s involvement in the artistic phenomenon, it establishes
the preliminary conditions of the signification of a work of art. The
notion initially arose in the aesthetics field and has specifically
developed in psychology, undergoing considerable changes. Careful
reconstruction of the original concept, which was carried out by one
of its
main advocates, Theodor Lipps, will allow us to highlight the distance
from
the sense inflections that developed later both in the history of art
(with
Wilhelm Worringer, for example), and in psychology or psychoanalysis.
Reflection on the latter fields will, nevertheless, allow a better
definition of the affective and cognitive components that are generated
in
empathic contact. It will thus be proposed to evaluate empathy with
respect
to the act of interpretation and, through semiotic reflection - with
particular reference to Charles Sanders Peirce, to finally place it
with
respect to the interpretative sequence that leads to the signification
of a
work of art.
Chairman: Valentin Semenov
Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Rolf Reber
Department of Psychology, University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland
According to a two=1Estep account of the mere exposure effect, repeated
exposure leads to the subjective feeling of perceptual fluency, which
in
turn influences liking. If so, perceptual fluency manipulated by means
other than repetition should influence liking. In two series of
experiments, we have shown that people prefer neutral stimuli which
were
perceptually fluent.
=46irst, experiments have shown that fluent stimuli (manipulated by
priming,
figure=1Eground-contrast, or presentation duration, respectively) were
evaluated more positively (Reber, Winkielman, & Schwarz, Psych.
Science, in
press). In a second series of experiments, positive effects of contrast
on
aesthetic judgments were demonstrated if the stimuli were presented
for
three seconds or less, but disappeared at a presentation time of ten
seconds. These experiments exclude the interpretation that contrast
as a
stimulus feature enhances affect and support the notion that perceptual
fluency of the stimuli enhances positive affect. The relevance of these
findings for a theory of aesthetics are discussed.
Valentin Semenov
Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
In my conception, mentalities are constructed deductively by means of
axes
that are set by the following categories: Spirit (God) -- Matter (Idol)
on
a vertical line, and Society (Collective) -- Personality (Individual)
across. In the inductive aspect, mentalities are based on historical,
cultural, social-psychological phenomena and facts of research.
Hence, basic Russian mentalities and their expressions:
a) Russian-orthodox mentality. It is expressed by Russian church
architecture, icon-painting, spiritual music and poetry (beginning
from
11th century) and by modern art (for example works by B. Pasternak,
M.
Nesterov, S. Rahmaninov, A. Soljenitsin etc.);
b) Collective-socialist mentality. It is expressed by all soviet arts
(1918
- 1991), for example, works of M. Mayakovsky, M. Sholokhov, M. Romm,
I.
Dunaevsky etc.;
c) Individual-capitalistic mentality. It is expressed by such authors
of
the 20th century as V. Nabokov, I. Brodsky, M. Shemyakin, M. Baryshnikov
etc. and in Russian mass culture oriented on the West;
d) Criminal-mafia mentality. It is expressed by criminal songs, pornofilms
and thrillers (especially from the end of 80-ies).
These mentalities are personified in the novel "Brothers Karamazov"
by F.
Dostoevsky in images of brothers: a) monk Alesha, b) officer Mitya,
c)
rational scholar Ivan, d) their stepbrother murderer Smerdyakov.
These Russian mentalities and their art expression interact in complicated
dynamics in the Russia of the present day.
Antoinette L. Theron
Department of Industrial Psychology, University of South Africa, Pretoria,
South Africa
Spranger postulated that the aesthetic orientation is descriptive of
the
person whose primary motive is a will-to-form, through which he gives
expression to his intrinsic nature. This includes imagination and empathy,
with which he transforms his experience of life to something personal
and
self-fulfilling. He does not require dogma, tradition or convention
to give
form to himself, because he has inner form.
Spranger's postulation has been partly operationalized as one of the
six
values measured by the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey study of values. Scores
on
this test, as well as scores on the 16PF Personality Questionnaire
and
Personal Orientation Inventory may be interpreted as empirical confirmation
of Spranger's theoretical conceptualisation of the aesthetic orientation
that extends it to a construct of personality, which is more comprehensive
than a value. The results were obtained by quantitative measures, but
can
also be interpreted qualitatively by integrating empirical findings
with
Spranger's views.
Chairwoman: Ambra Borgognoni Vimercati
Rome, Italy
Stefano Mastandrea
University of Bari, Bari, Italy
Some theories of emotions state that human and non-human organisms are
able
to automatically process environmental events or stimuli as positive
or
negative, good or bad for the self (Zajonc 1980, Ohman 1987) . Automatic
processing is certainly not a new discovery, but has received strong
interest during the last two decades. Bargh (1989) states that distinction
between automatic and controlled processes is not always clear; automatic
processes can be characterized by the fact of being non-intentional,
uncontrollable, efficient, unconscious and goal-independent even though
not
all automatic processes present these features
Stroop effect is a demonstration of automaticity in reading and naming
tasks; a picture and word variant of the Stroop paradigm is often used
to
study automatic processes. The aim of this work is to study whether
pictures and words with affective meaning could be automatically processed
(De Houwer and Hermans 1994).
In the present work, pictures are not associated to the typical name
that
stands for them, but to words that express a metaphorical and affective
meaning: i.e. a bidimensional red heart is linked not to the word "heart",
but to the word "love", the affective meaning of the picture.
According to the model of Glaser and Glaser (1989) of the Stroop effect,
a
semantic and a lexical system are represented as two systems, separated
and
interconnected, where the word has privileged access to the lexicon
and
picture to the semantic system. According to this model, categorisation
of
pictures should be faster than words with the picture interfering with
the
categorisation of the word but not viceversa; these results should
also
occur when pictures and words share an affective meaning.
Eighty-three students of the University of Bari participated to an
experiment on this topic. Material consisted of 10 words with affective
meanings (emotions and situational antecedents), 5 positive and 5 negative;
10 pictures expressing the same affective meanings as the words (as
mentioned before a picture of a "red heart" and the corresponding affective
word "love"). Pictures and words of neutral valence were included as
control stimuli. A pretest and pilot study to check the efficacy of
stimuli
were performed. All stimuli in the experimental situation were mixed,
composed of a picture and a word in three different associations:
congruent, when picture and word had the same valence, positive or
negative: incongruent, when stimuli were of opposed valence and neutral
when distractors were of neutral valence. There were two experimental
conditions: picture condition when the affective categorisation
of the
picture was requested and the word was the distractor, with a total
of 30
couples of stimuli: each picture was linked with the three words,
congruent, incongruent and neutral. Word condition, when the evaluation
of
the word was requested, with 30 couples of stimuli as in the picture
condition.
Stimuli were presented in the center of a computer screen and participants
were asked to press a red or green button of the keyboard, as fast
as they
could, in order to perform an affective categorisation task, attributing
positive or negative valence to the target while ignoring the distractor.
The experimental design is mixed with the first factor being the condition,
picture or word, between subjects and the second is the congruence
with
three levels, congruent, incongruent and neutral, within subjects.
Examining the results: In the picture condition, the reaction time
means
were as a whole 629 ms, divided into 626 ms (congruence), 636 ms
(incongruence), 624 ms (neutral) with no statistical significance in
the
analysis of variance. In the word condition, difference in reaction
time
means were 772 ms, divided into 717 ms (congruence), 833 ms (incongruence),
764 ms (neutral). The difference between the two conditions was 135
ms.
Manova (2x3) shows high statistical significance of principal effects
for
condition and congruence.
Results show that processing of pictures and words with affective
connotations in an affective categorisation task would give evidence
of
automaticity. Categorisation of pictures is faster than words; an
incongruent word does not interfere with processing of the picture
because,
confirming the Glaser and Glaser model, words have no privileged access
to
the semantic system; on the other hand, incongruent pictures interfere
with
the categorisation of words because pictures have direct access to
the
semantic system.
References
=D6hman, A. (1987). The psychophysiology of emotion: an
evolutionary-cognitive perspective. Advances in Psychophysiology, 2,
79-127.
Bargh, J. A. (1989). Conditional automaticity: Varieties of automatic
influence in social perception and cognition. In J. S.Uleman &
J. A. Bargh
(Eds.) Unintended Thoughts . New York: Guilford Press.
De Houwer, J. & Hermans, D. (1994). Differences in the affective
processing
of words and pictures. Cognition and Emotion, 8, 1-20.
Glaser, W. R. & Glaser M. O. (1989). Context effects in Stroop-like
word
and picture processing. J. Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 13-42.
Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking. Preferences need no inferences.
American Psychologist, 35, 151-175.
Baingio Pinna
Department of Human Sciences and Antiquities, University of Sassari,
Sassari, Italy
Through the phenomenological observation of the history of art one grasps
two main tendencies leading human ability to create objects of art.
The
first, called "tendency towards order", refers to the creation of styles,
classes, different ways of representing objects, shapes or gestalts
which,
in a certain age, place or culture, constituted models for several
artists.
Phenomenally, these shapes are singular and pr=E4gnant. Dynamically
and in a
self-organizing way they are prototypes (Rosh, 1975, 1978), "well-formed
forms", orders (Arnheim, 1971, 1987), canons determining what art is
and
what it isn't, by establishing the laws of the formation of art, meaning
the term art in a multiplicity of ways (Pinna, in press). The second
tendency, which can be called "tendency towards disorder", is the one
leading the "well formed" gestalt to change, to transform, to differentiate
centrifugally, to evolve in a not easily expected way, passing through
a
more or less deformation of it. On the one hand, art is undoubtedly
"formation" (gestaltung), form, identity; on the other, it is
"transformation or deformation", non-form, non-identity. The hypothesis
taken into account in the present work is that order and chaos represent
the two antinomic bases able to set art in motion as a creating
potentiality; besides, this antinomy has to be logically founded, namely
paradoxical and, for this reason, art trans-formed not only its forms
but
also its identity. The proposition "it is artistic form if and only
if it
is a non-form" is a real paradox, where non-form means to be phenomenally
beyond the simple deformation and before the transformation. It is
an
indefinite zone among antithetic gestalts where irreducible new emerging
qualities originate. Therefore, the hypothesis considered here is that
paradox represents the dynamics which allows art to create pr=E4gnant
forms
and to renew itself by means of emerging transformations.
To sum up, the aim of this work is to study the formation of pr=E4gnant
form=
s
and their evolution into new emerging forms by means of experimental
phenomenology. The purpose of the experimental and theoretic observations
considered here is not only to define the formation of isles of order,
coherence, prototypicity and singularity in the history of art, but
also to
look at the spaces among those isles where one finds superimpositions,
intersections, confusions, incompatibilities, distorsions, uncertainties,
incongruities (Bonaiuto, Miceu Romano & Bonaiuto, 1984; Giannini
&
Bonaiuto, 1997), lacerations, non-forms by means of which the
self-organizing dynamics (Metzger, 1963) leading to new emerging forms
are
brought to light. Therefore, the point at issue is not the question
of the
pr=E4gnant form but the dynamics leading to its formation and evolution
through destructuration and non-identity. Up to now the critical
examination of art and the respective theoretic-experimental research
carried out by psychology mainly tried to classify, eliminate
contradictions, lead inexplicable discordances, asynchronisms and
irregularities (Humphrey, 1973; O'Hare, 1981; Rosch, 1978) to something
else. Inherent in the concept of explanation itself there has always
been
the tendency to lead what seems alien to order, what appears ruled
by chaos
only, towards a law not phenomenally transparent. On the other hand,
the
phenomenological research carried out in this work aims to bring to
light
the dynamics of differentiation, of contradiction, the sense of change,
passing necessarily through deformation, irregularity, non-form, the
indefinite. The interest in these qualities, forgotten by science for
a
long time, is not new, in fact it is connected to the historical studies
of
Gestalt-Psychology and to the more recent ones carried out by the so-called
Science of Complexity and Theories of Chaos.
To this purpose two experiments have been carried out. The former referred
to simple and regular geometrical figures, modified in order to cause
deformations, transgressions, transformations and above all,
"indefinitenesses", disorders or non-forms. Such non-forms are so wide
and
phenomenally interesting as to show a dynamic reality where small isles
of
order and pr=E4gnant forms are separated by a huge gap of formless
disorder
where very small variations may produce new emerging orders ("ordering
chaos", Pinna 1997). In the latter experiment, works of various
contemporary artists have been taken into account. From such works
some new
gestalts have come out: the object-form, the expression-form, the
contradictory dada-form, the abstract form, the formless form, the
minimal
form and the concept-form.
The results show that the dynamics of form change brings to the formation
of new qualities which can't be reduced to the single components. They
are
therefore emerging qualities as new non-comparable pr=E4gnant forms.
The
cognitive theories (Berlyne, 1976; Genova, 1979; Goodman, 1978; Humprey,
1973; O'Hare, 1981; Rosch, 1975) dealing with an approach or a moving
away
from the prototype do not take into account the presence of highly
complex
and phenomenologically relevant transition zones from form to form,
where
beside small pr=E4gnant zones originating forces drawing or repelling
the ne=
w
object towards the pr=E4gnant prototype, there are others much more
complex
and interesting; they are "non-form" or "indefinite form" areas, where
a
real attraction field does not exist. What exists is a sort of strange
attractor from whose chaos a new pr=E4gnant form originates. What this
work
means to point out is a real phenomenology of the multiform and of
complexity. On the grounds of the theoretical observations above and
of the
experimental results obtained, a reconsideration (Pinna, 1996) of the
theory of Pr=E4gnanz proposed by Gestaltist authors (Arnheim, 1987;
Kanizsa =
&
Luccio, 1985; Wertheimer, 1923) is necessary.
References
Arnheim, R. (1971). Entropy and Art. Berkeley: Univ. California Press.
Arnheim, R. (1987). Pr=E4gnanz and its discontents. Gestalt Theory,
9, 102-1=
07.
Berlyne, D. E. (1976). The new Experimental Aesthetics and the problem
of
classifying works. Sciences de l'Art, 1, 85-106.
Bonaiuto, P, Miceu Romano, M. & Bonaiuto, F. (1984). Phenomena
of reduction
or increase in perceptual irregularity of architectural structures
and
environments. Paper presented at the 8th Congress of the I.A.P.S.,
Berlin.
Publ. in M. Krampen (Ed.), Environment and Human Action. Berlin: Hochschule
der Kunste , 1986 (pp. 18-22)
Genova, J. (1979). The Significance of Style. J. Aesthetics and Art
Criticism, 37, 315-325.
Giannini, A. M. & Bonaiuto, P. (1997). Effetti proattivi ed altre
illusioni
nella percezione di ritratti paradossali. Paper presented at the Congresso
Nazionale della sezione di Psicologia Sperimentale, A.I.P., Capri.
Goodman, N. (1978). Ways of World Making, Brighton.
Humphrey, N. K. (1973). The illusion of Beauty. Perception, 2, 429-439.
Kanizsa, G. & Luccio, R. (1986). Die Doppeldeutigkeiten der Pr=E4gnanz.
Gestalt Theory, 8, 99-135.
Metzger, W. (1963). Psychologie. Darmstadt: Steinkopff.
O'Hare, D. (1981). Structure and processes in style discrimination.
In D.
O'Hare (Ed.), Psychology and Arts, Brighton.
Pinna, B. (1996). La percezione delle qualit=E0 emergenti: una conferma
dell=
a
"tendenza alla pregnanza". In P. Boscolo, F. Cristante, A. Dell'Antonio
&
S. Soresi (Eds.), Aspetti qualitativi e quantitativi nella ricerca
psicologica. Padua: Il Poligrafo (pp. 261-276).
Pinna, B. (1997). Sul costituirsi delle qualit=E0 emergenti: una revisione
critica della teoria della pregnanza. Paper presented at the Congresso
Nazionale della Sezione di Psicologia Sperimentale, A.I.P., Capri.
Pinna, B. (forthcoming). Fenomenologia del costituirsi dell'oggetto
"arte":
Arte greca e Psicologia dell'Arte.
Rosch, E. (1975). Cognitive reference points. Cognitive Psychology,
7, 4,
532-547.
Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of Categorization. In E. Rosch & B.
B. Lloyd
(Eds.), Cognition and Categorization, Hillsdale.
Wertheimer, M. (1923). Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt.
Psychologische Forschung, 4, 301-350.
Vezio Ruggieri, Sara Della Giovampaola, Annunziata Di Lecce
Department of Psychology, 1st University of Rome , "La Sapienza", Rome,
Italy
Space representation is an important topic in the history of "figurative"
arts.
The artists of the Renaissance developed the concept of the perspective,
which is considered by the majority of authors and by common sense
as
corresponding exactly to the perceptual physiological mechanisms of
human
vision. But this idea is contradicted by the phenomenon of "perceptual
constancy" shown by experimental psychology.
In order to contribute to the discussion on this theme, we considered
a new
aspect of the normal processes of perception. In fact, data of a previous
experiment suggested that in normal perception the two eyes have different
functions: one eye focusing the figure and the other synthesizing the
background.
This hypothesis introduces new elements in the perceptual organization
of
tridimensionality that would be related also to differences in the
focal
distance between the two eyes. Other experimental data of previous
research
on imagery showed that the eyes are concretely involved in visual imagery.
Interestingly, in the majority of the subjects in the imagery process
only
one eye is involved. In the present study we examined the differences
in
spatial representation in real perception and imagery. Results indicated
that the law of perceptual constancy is not present in imagery .
Maria Golaszewska
Istitute of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University of Krakow, Krakow, Poland
The team working in the Aesthetic Department of the Jagiellonian University
in Krakow, sponsored by the Committee of Scientific Research, has recently
undertaken research on eco-aesthetics as well as on the functioning
of the
wide range of sensor experiences (apart from sight and hearing, tactile
experiences, olfactory, kinesthetic and so on). It seems to have gained
much importance in the art therapy of crippled people. My speech will
take
into consideration four fields of interest: the problems in question,
the
very methodology, the actual research and its results, and, finally,
a
conclusion.
Eco-aesthetics means the series of studies concentrating on the natural
milieu perceived in the aesthetic attitude. This aims at observations
gained in contact with nature, tests and acts (verbal) of introspection.
We
also include spontaneous behaviour as well as controlled ones. The
types of
behavior are: passive, ludic. It is an aesthetic attitude which dominates
in contacts with the natural milieu.
Art-therapy of the crippled embraced the "aesthetics of five senses".
Initial research led to the understanding of "substitute senses" in
so far
as the blind and the deaf are concerned. This was taken advantage of
in the
process called art-therapy. As the analyses showed (based on the
examination of crippled youths) it was a phenomenon of art (along with
art-works) and nature which activitated compensative imagination allowing
the spuring of life activities. We have set up some specific studies
on the
relations between "hypothetical senses" (thermic extra-sight recognition
of
space) and aesthetic experiences.
Autoregulation of extreme states of psyche consist of existential
questions: What do I live for?, What is the sense of it all? These
lead to
self-consciousness. The existential questions are posed in conditions
of
stress, depression - in all life's predicaments. Crippled people experience
fringe states (on the border-line of psychic deviations). Such people
are
prone to make those questions sound acute and deep in their negation-like
version, while contacts with art contain general ideas which make
self-consciousness deeper and help to overcome the passivity of the
mind.
Chairman: Nikolaus Bezruczko
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Nikolaus Bezruczko
Chicago, Illinois, USA
The subject of archetypes and universal images has a long history in
psychology and the arts. Jung, in particular, suggested that images
he
called archetypes are from a collective subconscious, and he put central
emphasis on them in his theory of psychoanalysis. Unlike Platonic Forms,
however, Jung considered archetypes not only visual images but genetically
transmitted personality and behavior constructs that become manifest
during
maturation (see Jung, l959; 1960; 1961; see also Jacobi, 1943, 1959)
His
contention that certain images are stored in the subconscious and
transmitted across cultures remains the strongest support for them.
In the visual arts, Gombrich (1979) presents many examples of reoccurring
images including the "tree of life", cross, and mandala. Baltrusaitis
also
linked motifs first found in Summerian art through Romanesque designs
(Baltrusaitis, 1934). An anthropologist, Frazer, retraced the origin
of
Western culture through a study of surviving patterns and designs,
and, in
particular, the motif of the "dying god'' (Frazer, 1890). Artists,
however,
are by no means in agreement concerning the origin of reoccurring patterns
and designs, and Gombrich discounts the reference to collective images
considering them entirely unnecessary (Gombrich, 1979, Haddon, 1895).
Consequently, the general field of subconscious imagery and the arts
is
vague and incoherent.
Given this ambiguous background for universal images, the purpose of
this
symposium is to present a theoretical foundation that includes a dynamic
model of artistic production for integrating artistic expression with
the
artist's explicit use of universal images. With this theoretical structure
as the centerpiece, this symposium will show how artists through centuries
of artistic productions consistently rely on universal images despite
dramatic changes in style or cultural milieu. While we may, in this
symposium, not assign these images archetype status, they have a clear
and
consistent influence on both artistic expression and human preference.
In this symposium, we propose to push back the boundaries on our
understanding of universal images in the arts by showing not only their
prevalence and importance in the visual arts, but to reveal their
extraordinary appearance in Nature as well.
Presentation 1 will present reoccurring images in the visual arts,
extending over centures, that have direct corollary images in Nature.
Empirical evidence is presented showing significantly greater visual
preference for "pure image forms" derived from these reoccurring images
in
the arts and Nature (p < 0.05). Hence, this presentation will expand
the
group of images commonly accepted as archetypes and encourage speculation
concerning their theoretical and cosmological importance.
Presentation 2 continues the theme of universal images, but from a
cultural
anthropological perspective concentrating on their appearance in primitive
art and their reoccurrence in classical and contemporary art. This
presentation provides further support for the theoretical model=20underlying
artistic production presented in this symposium by also showing a
corresponding reoccurrence of content or themes in artwork. The empirical
support for this presentation is an important series of interviews
with
artists which reveal the prominent influence of universal images on
their
work.
=46inally, Presentation 3 presents the case that visual preference
for
particular images is not restricted to adult art but makes its first
appearance in the scribbling of young children.
The outcome of this symposium will be not only a startling awareness
of the
ubiquity of universal images, both across levels of human experience
and
the visual arts, but important insights into their importance for artistic
appreciation.
References
Baltrusaitis, J. (1934). Art summerian, art roman. Paris.
=46razer, J. (1890). The Golden Bough. New York: Macmillan.
Gombrich, E. H. (1979). The Sense of Order. London: Phaidon Press
Haddon, A.C. (1895). Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life History
of Design. London.
Jacobi, J. (1943). The Psychology of Jung. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Jacobi, J. (1959). Complex Archetype Symbol in the Psycholgy of C.
G. Jung.
Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
Jung, C. G. (l959). Four Archetypes. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
Jung, C. G. (1960). Psychology and Religion. New Haven: Yale University
Pres=
s.
Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Random
House.
Ambra Borgognoni Vimercati
Rome, Italy
A contemporary idea in visual arts is that beauty does not belong to
the
object but arises from the emotions of the viewer as elicited by the
visual
forms presented by the artist. While widely acknowledged, the underlying
mechanism for this interaction is not well understood. This presentation
will emphasize the influence of universal images on this interaction
between artwork and viewer.
The background for this perspective are philosophers and artists who
have
found in the history of visual arts many shapes and forms that tend
to
reappear through generations and across cultures. I speculate that
some of
these visual forms are unconsciously used by artists to stimulate visual
sensitivity, as well as curiosity and interest, and ultimately to break
down the psychological resistance of laypersons to particular ideas
presented in visual artwork. Consequently, these forms provide the
artist
with the tools, hence the opportunity, to cornmunicate his or her personal
opinions to the non-artist on particular issues (historically these
issues
are related to social, religious, aesthetic and political ideas). Thus,
I
think the identification of these visual forms in art works, commonly
used
by artists for centuries, will help increase interest and comprehension
of
contemporary non-iconic art. In this study I extend the idea of reoccurring
forms in artwork by showing that they also appear in nature, but at
different levels of scale. Therefore, I define them as universal.
Jung presents the strongest view that some visual forms have a biological
origin, asserting that these forms are cellular inheritances that come
from
previous reality states and are imprinted in our visual substructure
through evolutionary mechanisms. Although their biological emphasis
is
weaker, universal images have a long historical tradition, as illustrated
by the following perspectives:
- Plato. He first made a distinction between perceivable reality and
transcendent forms of reality. He imagined a world of perfect forms
in
which human reality is only an imperfect copy. Unlike Aristotle, he
asserted this reality is out of reach of artists.
- Prigogine. He asserted that energy is a minimum form of information.
Each
stage of evolution accumulates information because it requires energy.
- School of Gestalt psychology. They demonstrated that some stages
of
knowledge occur directly through perceptual mechanisms, hence eliminating
cognitive processes or intellectual elaboration.1
- The Bauhaus. As an anti-historical movement, they searched for primary
elements in visual art, architecture, music and theatre.
- Cubists. They were convinced of the existence of an invisible fourth
dimension perceived only by the sensitive artist.
- Jung. He elaborated the theory of the collective unconscious which
was
centered on the idea of the archetype. Jung defined the archetype as
an
unconscious representation of instinct precipitated by a lifetime stream
of
experiences.
- Contemporary psychology. A growing, consensus supports the hypothesis
that visual perception is genetically transmitted and related to a
universal grammatical substructure making the learning of language
possible.2
In this research a group of 24 visual images were identified that reoccur
across centuries of visual art. These images were the basis for deriving
"pure forms" which were prepared for empirical Q-sort preference analysis3.
Our Figure presents three examples of universal images isolated in
this
research, and the corresponding "pure form" that was empirically examined
for its relationship to human preference. Many more of these universal
images will be presented in the symposium, as well as the results of
the
empirical preferences for them.
Notes
1 The Gestalt model for perception asserts that the mind is equipped
with
"pure forms" that interact with the shapes and forms supplied by direct
experience (see Arnheim, 1971, p. 275). Gestalt psycologists describe
this
interaction as a "perceptual process that awakens in the brain a specific
pattern of general sensory category. This pattern stands for the
stimulation ..." (Arnheim, 1954, p. 45).
2 Researchers, for example, widely agree that shape and form perception
follows a predictable developmental progression in young children.
Several
psychometric dimensions of underlying visual preference also appear
to have
genetic origins (Bezruczko & Schroeder, 1996). Also, evolutionary
psychology shows evidence that humans have evolved a central nervous
system
with a basic language structure that is universal across cultures.
3 The standard image sets were constructed according to the following
directions. -A set of four paper and pencil line drawings, each drawing
slightly different, was drawn to represent the common structure for
a
particular set of natural images and authentic art work (altogether
24 sets
were produced). -The drawings were photographically reproduced and
mounted
on 5 x 7 inch card stock. A letter A, B, C, or D was randomly assigned
to
each card in a set, respectively. This letter was affixed to the lower
right corner of the card. Consequently, all the cards in a set appeared
identical except for differences in drawing and the identifying letter.
On the back of all cards in a set, a number appeared
indicating the set
name.
References
Arnheim, R. (1954). Art and Visual Perception. Berkley: Univ. California
Pre=
ss.
Arnheim, R. (1971). Visual Thinking. Berkeley: Univ. California Press.
Bezruczko, N. & Schroeder D. H. (1996). The development of visual
preferences in art-trained and non-art trained schoolchildren. Genetic,
Social, and General Psychol. Monographs, 122, 179-186.
Lidia Reghini di Pontremoli
Academy of Fine Arts, Rome, Italy
This presentation further investigates the influence of universal images
on
the interaction between artists and laypersons presented in the model
of
artistic production by Presentation 1. From a cultural anthropological
perspective and using a comparative method, images were isolated that
reoccur across primitive, ancient and modern art1. Then the influence
of
these images on artists was investigated by conducting 10 interviews
with
visual artists who use them in their work. These interviews are important
because the artists revealed their identification with these particular
images, and how they implement them in their work to increase the power
of
aesthetic highlights. They also discuss the influence of cultural and
political trends on their use of these images.
This presentation will present images meeting the universal criteria
presented in this symposium, describe their relationships to thematic=20cont=
en
t and cultural change in artwork, and describe their changes across
centuries of visual art. A summary of the artist interviews will
concentrate on common themes concerning the appearance and importance
of
universal images to artists. Some speculation will be presented concerning
the status of universal images in contemporary art.
Note
1 Goldwater (1938) provides the seminal work in this area. Also see
Boas
(1955) for an early reference. For a discussion of anthropological
methods
in visual arts see Coote and Shelton (1992). For a treatment of primitivism
and art see Hiller (1991).
References
Goldwater, R. (1938). Primitivism in Modern Art.
Boas, F. (1955). Primitive Art. New York: Dover.
Coote, J. & Shelton, A. (1992). Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics.
New
York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Hiller, S. (1991). The Myth of Primitivism. New York: Routledge.
Nikolaus Bezruczko
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Researchers have documented the consistent appearance of the mandala,
a
fundamental Jungian archetype, in children's drawings (Gardner, 1980;
Kellogg, 1967; 1969), and they have offered several plausible
interpretations. Yet little consideration has gone into identifying
other
images highly prevalent in children's drawings that correspond to clearly
established universal images in art. This study examined several images
in
Presentation 1 appearing in contemporary and primitive art and found
remarkable consistency between these images and several of the 20 basic
types isolated by Kellogg in her study of over one million children's
drawings from around the world (three of the images appear in our Figure
3). Developmental and Jungian interpretations will be contrasted for
these
results and compared with the implications of the artistic production
model
presented in this symposium. Finally, the issue of universal images
appearing during early childhood drawing is examined for its implications
for aesthetic development.
References
Gardner, H. (1980). Artful Scribbles. New York: Basic Books.
Kellogg, R. (1967). Psychology of Children's Art. New York: CRM.
Kellogg, R. (1969). Analizing Children's Art. Palo Alto: National Press
Book=
s.
Chairman: Paolo Bonaiuto
Department of Psychology, 1st University of Rome, "La Sapienza", Rome,
Italy=
.
Leslie Cunliffe
School of Education, University of Exeter, Devon, UK
This paper combines critical theory with case study as research methods.
The first half explores theories of mind in relationship to the
interpretation or meaning of works of art and why this aspect of art
education has been relatively neglected in gallery and museum education
as
well as school-based art education in the UK. Existing provision for
mediating meaning in galleries and museums in the UK is briefly explored
and related to epistemological frameworks to account for current practice.
An alternative, relational and holistic mind is advocated, supported
by
Searle's (1983) and Wittgenstein's philosophy of mind and Bruner's
(1996)
and Vygotsky's ideas. Searle's distinction between a 'mind-to-world'
and a
'world-to-mind' direction of fit is used as a methodological principle
of
dealing with the meaning of works of art. The second part of the paper
discusses the case study of particular pupils' responses to an exhibition
of contemporary art. The development and use of resources and strategies
in
the case study attempt to model pedagogy based on Searle's, Wittgenstein's,
Bruner's and Vygotsky's ideas. The results that emerged from the research
suggest a fruitful approach for further work in this field.
Valeria Biasi and Paolo Bonaiuto
Department of Psychology, 1st University of Rome, "La Sapienza" , Rome,
Italy
1. Introduction. Theoretical and methodological background.
Pictorial representations of conflictual situations or harmonic situations
have been obtained in various ways in the history of art. The common
denominator of the various conflictual representations is given by
the more
or less clear contradiction of average observer expectations. This
contradiction is usually achieved by keeping a person, object, event
or
environment recognisable, while at the same time introducing an evident
variant with respect to the corresponding mental schema; this, therefore,
allows both the experience of recognition and, by contrast, that of
the
anomaly. In contemporary arts the use of this kind of incongruence
has
become very frequent after the experience of metaphysical painting,
surrealism, dadaism and expressionism. In classical painting the
contradiction of normal expectations came about with an apparently
different procedure that was, however, related: i.e. by very realistically
depicting situations that are highly conflictual in themselves, in
that
they are based on violations of fundamental human norms and needs.
Examples
of this are the deformations of the human face and figure, as seen
in Bosch
(15th Century) or Goya (18th Century), but even the frequent
representations of the killing of people or animals, execution of those
condemned to death, tortures, violence, sacrifices, damnations, battles,
etc. (Bonaiuto, 1983).
In some previous experimental studies our research group established
significant correlations between the degree of aesthetic appreciation
of
conflictual representations and certain personal indicators of attitudes
toward conflict; especially considering the index obtained with the
so-called "Building Inclination Test" (BIT). This is a quick procedure
which, among other things, allows selecting people with very high or
very
low levels of incongruity intolerance (Bonaiuto, Giannini & Bonaiuto,
1987,
1989; Bonaiuto, Giannini, Biasi & Bartoli, 1996; Giannini &
Bonaiuto,
1997).
In view of the organisation of this Congress, we accepted the challenge
of
the need to validate the theoretical premises summarised above, and
we thus
carried out a specific experiment with the cooperation of our students.
1. An experimental investigation.
According to the above-mentioned premises, 24 full colour reproductions
of
classical or modern paintings were preliminarly chosen, 12 of which
were
very conflictual and 12 harmonious. By using the BIT, 24 young adults
(aged
19-39 y., University students) were selected, 12 of whom were very
incongruity intolerant (index over 11.30 points) and 12 very
incongruity
tolerant (index under 8.30 points). Genders were equally distributed.
With
respect to our quick measure of conflict and incongruity intolerance,
ambiguity tolerance, evaluated with the Norton (1975) Scale (MTA-50)
turned
out to be inversely correlated; and rigidity, measured with the Zazzo
&
Stamback (1964) Inventory, positively correlated. Each subject was
individually tested; he or she filled in a list of seven-step bipolar
evaluation scales, among which the "Beautiful / Ugly" scale, examining
each
picture on a lectern. A double-blind condition, systematic rotation
of
pictures and scales, and appropriate rest intervals were used.
Considering the conflictual pictures, incongruity very intolerant subjects
show on average very low scores of aesthetic appreciation,while tolerant
subjects show the opposite. With respect to the harmonious pictures
the
first observer category appears slightly favored. Interaction among
type of
pictures and type of observer is statistically highly significant.
=46urther analyses confirm the relative equivalence between classical
or
modern conflictual pictures with respect to the work hypothesis.
References
Bonaiuto, P. (1983). Processi cognitivi e significati nelle arti visive.
Paper presented at the Meeting "Linguaggi Visivi, storia dell'Arte,
Psicologia della percezione", Rome. Publ. also in L. Cassanelli (Ed.),
Linguaggi visivi, Storia dell'Arte, Psicologia della percezione. Rome:
Multigrafica, 1988 (pp. 47-79).
Bonaiuto, P., Giannini, A.M., Biasi, V. & Bartoli, G. (1996). Stili
cognitivi, intolleranza dell'incongruit=E0 e atteggiamenti verso le
trasgressioni di regole sportive. In G.V. Caprara & G.P. Lombardo
(Eds.),
Temi di Psicologia e Sport. Rome: C.O.N.I. & Univ. degli Studi
di Roma "La
Sapienza" (pp. 57-93).
Bonaiuto, P., Giannini, A.M. & Bonaiuto, M. (1987). Piloting mental
schemata on building images. Paper presented at the 3rd Italian-Polish
Conference of Psychology, Cassino. Publ. also in A. Fusco, F. Battisti
& R.
Tomassoni (Eds.), Recent Experiences in General and Social Psychology
in
Italy and Poland. Milan: Angeli, 1990 (pp. 85-129).
Bonaiuto, P., Giannini, A.M. & Bonaiuto, M. (1989). Maximizers,
Minimizers,
Acceptors, Removers and Normals: Diagnostic tools and procedures, Rassegna
di Psicologia, 6 (3), 80-87.
Giannini, A. M. & Bonaiuto, P. (1997). Incongruity intolerance
and the
aesthetic evaluation of devitalized or realistic human figure
representations. In L. Dorfman, C. Martindale, D. Leontiev, G. Cupchik,
V.
Petrov & P. Machotka (Eds.), Emotion, Creativity & Art. Vol.
2. Perm: Perm
State Institute of Arts & Culture (pp. 21-44).
Norton, R. W. (1975). Measurement of ambiguity tolerance. J. Person.
Assessment, 39 (6), 607-619.
Zazzo, R. & Stamback, M. (1964). Un test de pers=E9v=E9ration.
In R. Zazzo, =
N.
Galifret-Granjon, T. Mathon, H. Santucci & N. Stambak (Eds.). Manuel
pour
l'examen psychologique de l'enfant. Neuchatel: Delachaux et Niestl=E9
(Vol.
8).
Paul Locher*, Lisa Smith**, and Jeffrey K. Smith***
* Department of Psychology, Montclair State
University, Upper
Montclair, New Jersey, USA
** Department of Psychology, Kean University of New Jersey.
*** Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick,
New Jersey.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, USA
Few people would take issue with the view that "there is nothing like
the
original" when it comes to experiencing a work of art. The reality
is,
however, that most people see paintings by renowned artists as slide
or
computer reproductions rather than in the original. We know of no
systematic investigation of the impact of these different modes of
presentation on the way in which viewers perceive and evaluate the
physical
and aesthetic qualities of a particular work. This was the purpose
of the
present research.
Nine paintings in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New
York city were used as the art stimuli for this investigation. They
included compositions by Breugel, Chardin, El Greco, Giotto, Petrus
Christus, Rembrandt, Van Eyck, Van Ruisdael and Vermeer. Three different
viewing conditions were employed: the original works in gallery settings,
the works reproduced as slides and the works reproduced as
computer-generated images.
Eighty adult visitors to the Museum and 100 participants in the Museum's
educational programs volunteered as subjects. Each was given unlimited
viewing time to complete Mehrabian and Russell's Information Rate Scale
(IRS) for each of the nine paintings under one of the three viewing
conditions. The 14 semantic differential-type adjective pairs of the
IRS
provide an assessment of both the physical and statistical properties
of a
composition (e.g., simple-complex; redundant-varied) and viewer
"familiarity" with the content of the composition (e.g., common-rare;
familiar-novel). The sum of the ratings for all IRS items provides
a
measure of the information content or complexity of an art work. Subjects
also evaluated each composition on the dimensions interesting-uninteresting
and pleasant-unpleasant.
=46actor analyses performed on the rating data for the IRS revealed
very
similar underlying factorial structures across compositions and viewing
modalities. The three extracted dimensions, which were labeled Qualitative
Content, Quantitative Content, and Familiarity, reflect the influence
of
both the physical properties of a painting and their subjective qualities
upon viewer perceptions of it. Additionally, the interest value of
a given
composition was not found to differ reliably as=20a function of its
mode of
presentation whereas the extend to which subjects found a composition
pleasant was influenced by this variable. In sum, original works of
art
were found to translate well into the two forms of presentation studied,
at
least in terms of the evaluative judgments made by subjects in the
present
study.
Takeyoshy Nishiuchi
Asian Studies, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, USA
My paper analyzes how the thought of medieval Japanese Zen Buddhism
was
empirically concretized in the architecture of the tea-ceremony.
Zen thought is concerned with the self=1Esubsistent delimitation of
being.
Zen teaches us the way to overcome the delimitation. The way has the
structure of an ecstatic field in which a being ever=1Eactively becomes
insubstantial by transcending and transgressing its ontological boundaries.
Moreover, the way is ethical in the sense that the being is with its
otherness by virtue of the transcendence and transgression.
The tea-house is a spatial thing with which we empirically practice
that
way. In fact, the tea-ceremony was developed under the influence of
Zen
Buddhism. In the space of the tea-house, our being is not encapsulated
as
an objectifiable substance and our mind is not absolutized as reductive
interiority. Rather, the being becomes mediated and relative, opening
itself to the extent of becoming non-self-subsistent. In the experience
of
the opening, the being is true and beautiful, while it is actual and
experiencible as such.
In this paper, I present two architectural characteristics of the tea-house
that spatially induce the aforementioned non-self-subsistency. Firstly,
its
insubstantial architectural materials make participants of the tea-ceremony
experience that the interior space of the tea-house flows from one
room to
another. Furthermore, they make the participants sense the continuity
between inside and outside. That is, the boundaries that divide the
space
surrounding the participants are ambiguous, and the space is unstable.
Secondly, the arrangement of the architectural elements of the tea-house
constantly decenters the participants. In the tea-house, each architectural
element is peculiarly dislocated from the others, and thereby claims
its
own center and symmetricality. In other words, whenever the participants
occupy the center of an element, they are decentered in relation to
others.
The participants always find themselves in the decenteredness.
Hence, in this paper, I argue that the two experiential characteristics
of
the tea-house, instability and decenteredness, bring about the
non-self-subsistency of Zen thought in an actual and empirical way.
Department of Architecture, University of Technology, Dresden, Germany
Because of the rapid changes urban structures are undergoing in traditional
cities in former East Germany there is a need for investigating the
effect
of changing architectural parameters on the judgment of the perceived
quality of urban spaces. Especially with respect to urban infill in
existing traditional typologies there is the issue to what degree
individual architectural parameters can be altered without changing
the
identity of a historically grown urban situation.
The theoretical understanding of such complex processes of judgment
is not
yet sufficient to formulate design guidelines for such cases, even
though
recently there have been some empirical approaches to their understanding
(e.g. Stamps 1994) One reason for this lack in substantial research
may lie
in the missing technical possibilities of simulating complex architectural
situations, so that judgments could be made in light of nearly 'real'
urban
situations.
A joint experiment between the Institutes of Spatial Design and of
Psychology at the University of Dresden tried to explore new techniques
of
spatial simulation and their use in understanding judgments of urban
spaces. Using Quicktime VR software, a walk through a street in a
turn-of-the-century quarter of Dresden was simulated on a computer
monitor
or on a video screen, respectively. This walk was compared with six
other
walks in which the parameters of the original street were changed by
replacing some of the buildings with computer produced images of different
buildings. Keeping the original height, the replacements were distinguished
from the originals by different number of storeys (four to five, vs.
three
in the original) or by a larger width (two or three times the original
width).
Each of these spatial conditions was judged at different levels. Next
to
using a semantic differential, emotional and symbolic responses were
judged
as well. Respondends were a group of architecture and psychology students
each. Familiarity with the urban area was a co-variable as well.
Altogether, the original situation (homogeneous turn-of-the-century
area)
was judged higher than all other alternatives with newly-added buildings.
This was especially observed at the levels of perception, experience
and
image. Of the different variables, increasing width of the building
had an
especially negative effect. A higher number of storeys had no significant
effect on the overall judgment.
=46indings of this study may help to develop a stonger sensibility
for the
parameters that determine the aesthetic impact of architectural
interventions in historically grown cities.
Anat Zanger
Cinema Studies, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv , Israel
The tendency of the cinema to produce "remakes" which retell a previously
successful story, need to be accounted for in the light of the electronic
medium's unique capability for reproduction. This tendency has grown
increasingly dominant and widespread in 20th century culture and art.
The
task of this paper is to locate repetitions as part of the cinematic
institution. Cinema is not simply an industry or a set of invidual
texts.
It is, above all, a social institution. As Christian Metz observes:
"The
cinematic institute is not only just the cinema industry (which works
to
fill cinemas, not to empty them) it is also the mental machinery
"which
spectators accustomed to cinema have internalized". Remakes, as forms
of
th