The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Evolutionary psychology is one of many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior. Along with cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists propose that much, if not all, of our behavior can be explained by appeal to internal psychological mechanisms. What distinguishes evolutionary psychologists from many cognitive psychologists is the proposal that the relevant internal mechanisms are adaptations—products of natural selection—that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive and reproduce. To understand the central claims of evolutionary psychology we require an understanding of some key concepts in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. Philosophers are interested in evolutionary psychology for a number of reasons. For philosophers of science —mostly philosophers of biology—evolutionary psychology provides a critical target. There is a broad consensus among philosophers of science that evolutionary psychology is a deeply flawed enterprise. For philosophers of mind and cognitive science evolutionary psychology has been a source of empirical hypotheses about cognitive architecture and specific components of that architecture. Philosophers of mind are also critical of evolutionary psychology but their criticisms are not as all-encompassing as those presented by philosophers of biology. Evolutionary psychology is also invoked by philosophers interested in moral psychology both as a source of empirical hypotheses and as a critical target.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Aesthetics and psychobiology

http://miwalab.cog.human.nagoya-u.ac.jp/database/resume/2010-07-12.pdf

Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall

We propose that aesthetic pleasure is a function of the perceiver’s processing dynamics: The more fluently perceivers can process an object, the more positive their aesthetic response. We review variables known to influence aesthetic judgments, such as figural goodness, figure–ground contrast, stimulus repetition, symmetry, and prototypicality, and trace their effects to changes in processing fluency. Other variables that influence processing fluency, like visual or semantic priming, similarly increase judgments of aesthetic pleasure. Our proposal provides an integrative framework for the study of aesthetic pleasure and sheds light on the interplay between early preferences versus cultural influences on taste, preferences for both prototypical and abstracted forms, and the relation between beauty and truth. In contrast to theories that trace aesthetic pleasure to objective stimulus features per se, we propose that beauty is grounded in the processing experiences of the perceiver, which are in part a function of stimulus properties.

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Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure: Is Beauty in the Perceiver's Processing Experience?

Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation

List of Illustrations ix Preface to the 2000 Edition xxv Preface xxxvii Preface to the Second Edition xli Introduction: Psychology and the Riddle of Style 3 PART ONE: The Limits of Likeness Chapter 1. From Light into Paint 33 Chapter 2. Truth and the Stereotype 63 PART TWO: Function and Form Chapter 3. Pygmalion's Power 93 Chapter 4. Reflections on the Greek Revolution 116 Chapter 5. Formula and Experience 146 PART THREE: The Beholder's Share Chapter 6. The Image in the Clouds 181 Chapter 7. Conditions of Illusion 203 Chapter 8. Ambiguities of the Third Dimension 242 PART FOUR: Invention and Discovery Chapter 9. The Analysis of Vision in Art 291 Chapter 10. The Experiment of Caricature 330 Chapter 11. From Representation to Expression 359 Retrospect 393 Notes 399 Index 443

ART AND ILLUSION: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation

Art and Illusion

Preface / Introduction - On art and artists / Strange Beginnings - Prehistoric and primitive peoples Ancient America / Art for Eternity - Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete / The Great Awakening - Greece, seventh to fifth century BC / The Realm of Beauty - Greece and the Greek world, fourth century BC to first century AD / World Conquerors - Romans, Buddhists, Jews and Christians, first to fourth century AD / A Parting of Ways - Rome and Byzantium, fifth to thirteenth century / Looking Eastwards - Islam, China, second to thirteenth century / Western Art in the Melting Pot - Europe, sixth to eleventh century / The Church Militant - The twelfth century / The Church Triumphant - The thirteenth century / Courtiers and Burghers - The fourteenth century / The Conquest of Reality - The early fifteenth century / Tradition and Innovation I - The later fifteenth century in Italy / Tradition and Innovation II - The fifteenth century in the North / Harmony Attained - Tuscany and Rome, early sixteenth century / Light and Colour - Venice and northern Italy, early sixteenth century / The New Learning Spreads - Germany and the Netherlands, early sixteenth century/ A Crisis of Art - Europe, later sixteenth century / Vision and Visions - Catholic Europe, first half of the seventeenth century / The Mirror of Nature - Holland, seventeenth century / Power and Glory I - Italy, later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries / Power and Glory II - France, Germany and Austria, late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries / The Age of Reason - England and France, eighteenth century / The Break in Tradition - England, America and France, late eighteenth century and early nineteenth centuries / Permanent Revolution - The nineteenth century / In Search of New Standards - The late nineteenth century/ Experimental Art - The first half of the twentieth century / A Story Without End - The triumph of Modernism / Another turning of the tide / The changing past/ A note on art books / Chronological charts / List of illustrations by location / Detailed list of illustrations / Index and glossary / Acknowledgements

Ernst Gombrich

Papers

Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation

ART AND ILLUSION: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation

Art and Illusion

The Story of Art

The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art