Author:

Keywords:

cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, art, Social Sciences, Psychology, Experimental, Psychology, BRAIN, ORGANIZATION, AESTHETICS, PREFERENCE, RESPONSES, STIMULI, FACES, FMRI, Adaptation, Biological, Adult, Animals, Art, Biological Evolution, Biomedical Research, Brain, Child, Cognition, Creativity, Dancing, Esthetics, Female, History, 18th Century, History, 19th Century, History, 20th Century, History, 21st Century, Humans, Infant, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Theoretical, Music, Neurosciences, Perception, Psychological Theory, 06 Biological Sciences, 16 Studies in Human Society, 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, 31 Biological sciences, 44 Human society, 52 Psychology

Abstract:

This paper examines explanations for human artistic behavior in two reductionist research programs, cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Despite their different methodological outlooks, both approaches converge on an explanation of art production and appreciation as byproducts of normal perceptual and motivational cognitive skills that evolved in response to problems originally not related to art, such as the discrimination of salient visual stimuli and speech sounds. The explanatory power of this reductionist framework does not obviate the need for higher-level accounts of art from the humanities, such as aesthetics, art history or anthropology of art.