The Arts and The Brain: Psychology and Physiology Beyond Pleasure

A whole new volume of Progress in Brain Research, edited by Julia F. Christensen & Antoni Gomila, devoted to the psychology and neuroscience of art:

Progress in Brain Research Volume 237, Pages 2-484 (2018)

The volume includes 22 chapters written by an amazing line-up of contributors:

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The Arts, Brain and Evolution
1. Art, Symbolism and the Evolution of the Brain
2. Emergence of early art and the evolution of human culture
3. On the interaction between cultural and biological evolutionary processes in generating artistic creativity

The Arts and Psychology
4. The nature of aesthetic experience of art
5. Art appreciation as an emotional process – beyond aesthetic experience
6. The Singular Experience: Characterizing the Emotional Response to Art Beyond Pleasure
7. An empirical paper on audience responses to film

The Arts and Physiology
8. Why we like what we like? Tracking the neurophysiological responses linked to aesthetic appreciation
9. The arts as a multisensory experience
10. Interceptive predictions and aesthetic relatedness to images
11. How artists represent visual processes

The Arts and the Brain
12. Art and Brain, and integrative overview
13. Seeking Salience in Engaging Art: A Short Story about Attention, Artistic Value, and Affective Neuroscience
14. New insights from the neuroscience of dance
15. Embodied aesthetics in the visual and the performing arts

The Arts and Biology
16. Music, dance and other art forms: new insights into the links between hedonia (pleasure) and eudaimonia (well-being)
17. A systematic review of the biological impact of music
18. Biology and aesthetics in music and the visual arts
19. Alexithymia, arts and health

Arts Expertise and learning
20. Developmental perspectives on the social and emotional role of music and dance
21. Music Education and the Brain
22. Dance learning among adolescents and young adults: Insights from brain imaging and behaviour
23. Is there a moral bettering through the arts?

See a preview of the book here!

The Arts and the Brain: Psychology and Physiology beyond Pleasure, Volume 237, combines the work of an excellent group of experts who explain evidence on the neural and biobehavioral science of the arts. Topics covered include the emergence of early art and the evolution of human culture, the interaction between cultural and biological evolutionary processes in generating artistic creation, the nature of the aesthetic experience of art, the arts as a multisensory experience, new insights from the neuroscience of dance, a systematic review of the biological impact of music, and more.