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

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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.

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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.

Emotions

https://emotioninart.wordpress.com

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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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

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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.