Post on 28-Dec-2015
Technologies of Representation
Ls9 Mirror Neurons
April 2015Digital Media Program, University of Lower Silesia
Dr. Krystina MadejSchool of Literature, Media, and CommunicationGeorgia Institute of Technology
Emotion
‘The painting will move the soul of the beholder when
the people painted there each clearly shows the
movement of his own soul...we weep with the weeping,
laugh with the laughing, and grieve with the
grieving. These movements of the soul are known
from the movements of the body.’
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72)Renaissance humanist and polymath
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images to affect us
•History
•Culture
•Immediate Context
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images to affect us
•History
•Culture
•Immediate Context
and
•Neural Process
Emotions
Empathetic Response
Embodied Simulation
•Human capacity to empathize with others’ behaviors and experiences i.e. to pre-rationally make sense of the actions, emotions and sensations of others
•What human’s see activates their own internal representation of the body state seen
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
Human response to art is not
purely introspective
intuitive
metaphysical
It is based in physical changes in the brain.
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
Mirror Neurons
Feeling of physical reaction to the perception of movement in works of artto the perception of the implied movement
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
Mirror Neurons
Underpin action understanding and intentions that underlie action
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
Observing manipulable objects like tools leads to the activation of motor regions of the brain that control our interactions with the same object – not just the region of the brain associated with representation.
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
Humans’ recognize emotions displayed by others, their facial muscles respond in kind.
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
The brain reacts so as to assume the same state they would have had if engaged in the same actions
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
When we see two objects touching our somatosensory cortices are activated as if our body were subject to tactile stimulation
Emotions
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Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
Our brains can reconstruct actions by merely observing the static graphic outcome of the agent’s past action.
Emotions
Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response
Our brains can reconstruct actions by merely observing the static graphic outcome of the agent’s past action.
Observers experience a sense of bodily involvement with the movemnts that are implied by physical traces of creative action.
Emotions
Empathetic feel can no longer be regarded as a matter of simple intuition and can be precisely located in the relevant areas of the brain that are activated both in the observed and the observer.
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Antiquity
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Antiquity
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Antiquity
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Antiquity
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Antiquity
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Antiquity
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Middle Ages
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Middle Ages
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Middle Ages
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Middle Ages
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Middle Ages
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Middle Ages
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Middle Ages
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XV Century
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XIX Century
Edvard Munch, 1893The Scream
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XIX Century
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XX Century
Dorothea Lange, 1936 Migrant Mother
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XX Century
Barry, Godber, 1969In the court of the Crimson King
Roy Lichtenstein, 1964The Kiss
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Contemporary
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Contemporary
:-)Sept. 19, 1982, 11:44 a.m. Computer scientist Scott Fahlman suggested using :-) to indicate posts not meant to be taken seriously.
Emotion
We generally vastly overrate the
amount of information we process.
Gombrich p. 301
Emotions
1. “Our capacity to pre-rationally make sense of the actions, emotions and sensations of others depends on embodied simulation.
2. “… brain imaging experiments in humans have shown that observation of manipulable objects like tools…. Leads to the activation of … a cortical region that is normally considered to be involved in the control of action and not in the representation of objects.
3. “…electromyographic responses in the facial muscles of observers are congruent with those involved in the observed person’s facial expressions.”
Discuss in context of the images we have seen. Use examples to show us what these statements mean.