tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post7624871863239594706..comments2023-09-23T08:27:07.212-07:00Comments on Prof Zeki's Musings: The fear of neuroesthetics IIIUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-41377750044233488302012-07-28T02:43:13.864-07:002012-07-28T02:43:13.864-07:00Thanks so much. SemirThanks so much. SemirS.Z.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05135219380052959664noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-91085583672526924052012-07-27T16:11:59.983-07:002012-07-27T16:11:59.983-07:00Excellent Semir!Excellent Semir!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-11815129491490612132012-03-18T12:31:13.137-07:002012-03-18T12:31:13.137-07:00Thanks, dauvit, for raising this point.
That ther...Thanks, dauvit, for raising this point.<br /><br />That there is a difference between looking at a real painting and its computer image, and that the former gives much greater aesthetic delight than the latter is not in doubt. The comments in The Scotsman article about the differences between real paintings and their computer images were made with specific reference to a scientific paper from Oxford. But the Oxford study did not address the question of the neural correlates of aesthetic pleasure. This is important to establish because any innocent person reading the statement in The Scotsman article, that the Oxford study “claimed to prove that when people were told that a painting was an imitation or forgery, they experienced less of the “warm glow of aesthetic pleasure” than if they were told they were looking at an original” might be forgiven for concluding that the Oxford study was dealing with aesthetic pleasure. In fact, the expression “warm glow of aesthetic pleasure” does not occur anywhere in the Oxford article and must have been a description imported from elsewhere.<br /><br />Next in The Scotsman article is this comment: “One of the ironies of the Oxford “authenticity” experiment is all the works the subjects were shown were, in a sense, fakes.” Had the Oxford study addressed the question of the brain’s reaction to real vs fake pictures, this implied criticism may have had some validity (with reservations). But that was not the question addressed. Instead, the scientists wanted to learn how the brain reacts to viewing paintings (in their study specifically by Rembrandt) that have been authenticated as copies or authentic – regardless of whether they were actually copies or authentic. They were especially interested to learn whether such knowledge about paintings modulates the reaction of the visual areas when they viewed the paintings. They took care to only include subjects who were not experts in paintings and were not art historians or especially knowledgeable about Rembrandt. <br /><br />Hence all the words in The Scotsman article about what Walter Benjamin said about reproductions and the difference between listening to the German Requiem in a concert hall and on the car’s stereo system are quite irrelevant and, as criticisms of the Oxford study, inept. <br /><br />I see nothing odd or ludicrous in the question addressed by the Oxford group, except of course if one were to approach it with a mindset that considers all this effort to be, in the words of The Scotsman article, “unadulterated bunkum”.<br /><br />You must not conclude from the above that one cannot study scientifically the differences in the brain’s reaction to real and fake pictures of paintings. If subjects are able to tell the difference between real and fake paintings from pictures, then the question is a valid one for scientific study, but this does not mean that an expert will not want to examine the actual paintings before declaring whether they are real or fake. Equally, if some pictures of some paintings give greater aesthetic pleasure than pictures of other paintings, then subjects can be asked to view the two sets of pictures in a scanner to learn something, however small, about what brain systems correlate with the experience of greater pleasure. This does not mean that subjects who derive real pleasure from paintings will be content to look at pictures rather than see the real thing in art galleries. That we cannot put paintings into the scanner does not mean that we cannot study something about the brain’s reaction to them by other means, including the dreaded two by three inch jpegs on a computer screen.<br /><br />So, as an attack on the Oxford study in particular and on the neuroesthetics approach in general, the comments made in The Scotsman article about fake and real works of art or real pictures and their reproductions are not convincing and are unlikely to cause any resentment. They are quite uninteresting. Or rather, only interesting to the extent that they reveal mindsets abut neuroesthetics.S.Z.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05135219380052959664noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-83483903992824534392012-03-17T15:36:00.075-07:002012-03-17T15:36:00.075-07:00I'll start by saying I'm a great admirer o...I'll start by saying I'm a great admirer of your research, and in full support of it, however there's one claim that the Scotsman article made, which I was hoping you might address:<br /><br />"There is a profound difference between looking at Mark Rothko’s Black On Maroon/Red On Maroon series in the gallery – each canvas is more than two metres wide and long, and they have a cumulative, haunting effect when they are hung next to each other – and looking at them as two by three inch jpegs on a computer screen. Likewise, listening to Brahms’s German Requiem or The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy on the car stereo is a different experience to a live performance, when your lungs and bones seem to vibrate in sympathy. One of the ironies of the Oxford “authenticity” experiment is all the works the subjects were shown were, in a sense, fakes."<br /><br />This seems like a valid point, what's your opinion?dauvitnoreply@blogger.com