Aesthetic Exploration and the SEEKING system - What is the impact of aesthetic experience and creation on insight?

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Questions §  How does aesthetic exploration contribute to new insights? §  What are the underlying affective/emotional mechanisms for

aesthetic experience and for insight? §  What connections are there between aesthetic experience/

creation and SEEKING (arousal/desire/appetite/eagerness)? §  Are there personality types that are more prone to aesthetic

exploration? Is there a model of “the artist”, “the designer”? §  What is the affective predisposition for insight? What is the

affective predisposition for aesthetic work? Are there overlaps?

§  Is aesthetic exploration a result of a homeostatic imbalance? §  What is the epistemological surplus and value of aesthetics?


Outline §  Definition Aesthetics §  Definition Insight §  Panksepp’s SEEKING System

§  Adjunctive Behaviors & Autoshaping

§  Doodling as a form of aesthetic exploration?

§  Peak Shift Principle

§  Aesthetic Exploration and Personality §  Aesthetic Exploration: Control & Risk §  Overcoming Impasses to Insight §  Aesthetic Exploration: Mimesis and

Simulation §  Preliminary Conclusions and Further

Questions §  References

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Encyclopedia Britannica Aaesthetics, also spelled esthetics, the philosophical study of beauty and taste. It is closely related to the philosophy of art, which is concerned with the nature of art and the concepts in terms of which individual works of art are interpreted and evaluated.

§  To provide more than a general definition of the subject matter of aesthetics is immensely difficult. Indeed, it could be said that self-definition has been the major task of modern aesthetics. We are acquainted with an interesting and puzzling realm of experience: the realm of the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, and the elegant; of taste, criticism, and fine art; and of contemplation, sensuous enjoyment, and charm. In all these phenomena we believe that similar principles are operative and that similar interests are engaged. If we are mistaken in this impression, we will have to dismiss such ideas as beauty and taste as having only peripheral philosophical interest. Alternatively, if our impression is correct and philosophy corroborates it, we will have discovered the basis for a philosophical aesthetics.


What is Aesthetics? §  From Greek aisthetikos (meaning "esthetic, sensitive, sentient"),

which in turn was derived from aisthanomai, meaning "I perceive, feel, sense”

§  Alexander Baumgarten in 1735: "criticism of taste” and “concerned with beauty”

§  Kant: "the science which treats of the conditions of sensuous perception."

§  In 18th century typically characterized as perceptual appreciation of objects for their form

§  Later abstracting away from function, aesthetical appreciation for the way objects perform their functions

§  Allows for every day aesthetic experience

§  “A philosophical study of certain states of mind - responses, attitudes, emotions- that are held to be involved in aesthetic experience.”

§  “The philosophical study of the aesthetic object. This approach reflects the view that the problems of aesthetics exist primarily because the world contains a special class of objects toward which we react selectively and which we describe in aesthetic terms.“ Encyclopedia Britannica


Insight §  In psychology, insight occurs when a

solution to a problem presents itself quickly and without warning.


Robinson-Riegler, Bridget Robinson-Riegler, Gregory. Cognitive psychology : applying the science of the mind (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 978-0-205-03364-5.

Schooler, J. W., Fallshore, M., & Fiore, S. M. (1995). Epilogue: Putting insight into perspective. The nature of insight, 559-587.

Most usages involve: §  the sudden unexpected solution to a problem. Two rather different possible usages of the concept of insight: 1.  Insight can be used to represent a state of

understanding - […] to gain insight into something.

2.  Experience involving “the sudden emergence of an idea into conscious awareness.”

§  Aha! experience (term coined by the German psychologist and theoretical linguist Karl Bühler (1907)

§  Epiphany, Eureka effect

Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Stranger Visions


The Peak Shift Principle


Ali Jabbar Duchamp, “Nude descending a staircase, No.2”

Boucher, “Nude on a Sofa”

Panksepp: Archeology of Mind

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http://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/27021/fpsyg-03-00589-HTML/image_m/fpsyg-03-00589-t001.jpg Retrieved November 25, 2014

The SEEKING or Expectancy System §  One of the most important

instinctual-emotional systems of the brain

§  Characterized by a persistent exploratory inquisitiveness

§  Energetic forward locomotion-approach and engagement with the world

§  Plays a dynamic supporting role for all of the other emotions

§  When in service of positive emotions, engenders a sense of purpose, accompanied by euphoria


(Panksepp et al. 2012, p 34-35).

Adjunctive Behaviors & Autoshaping


Esther Stocker, CCNOA

§  Adjunctive behaviors compulsive but often serve no obvious outward purpose

§  Autoshaping causing to take notice and examine any stimuli that might help make sense of the world


Appetite & Desire §  Helps energise the neocortex

§  Urges architects, writers, artists, scientists to discover new and better ways to solve problems, might even be the “force behind all kinds of creative activities” (Reuter et all., 2005)

§  ”In many ways, the neocortex - the source of human intellect - is the servant of our emotional system. The SEEKING system impels the neocortex to find ways of meeting our needs and desires.”

§  Participates in all appetitive behaviors that precede consummation

§  “…energizes the dynamic eagerness for positive experiences from tasty food to sexual possibilities to political power”

§  ”prompts us to engage in the grand task of creating civilisations. But in the beginning, at birth, it is just “a goad without a goal” that opens up the gateways to engagement with the world, and hence knowledge.” (Panksepp et al. 2012)


The Artist §  “Artists are magical helpers. Evoking symbols and motifs that

connect us to our deeper selves, they can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives. [...]

§  The artist is meant to put the objects of this world together in such a way that through them you will experience that light, that radiance which is the light of our consciousness and which all things both hide and, when properly looked upon, reveal. The hero journey is one of the universal patterns through which that radiance shows brightly. What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfillment or the fiasco. There's always the possibility of a fiasco. But there's also the possibility of bliss.


Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, Edited by David Kudler. Novato, California: New World Library, 2004, pp. 132, 133.

Aesthetic Exploration and Personality

Revised NEO Personality Inventory


http://dukdesign.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dog_typeface.jpg

SEEK related to all components of creativity and explained more than 15% of the variance of total creativity

Attributes for Overcoming Impasses to Insight


§  Perseverance §  Risk Taking §  Playfulness §  Broad Knowledge §  Ability to recognize

analogies

Shrink, Lawrence Malstaf, FILE Pai

Schooler, J. W., Fallshore, M., & Fiore, S. M. (1995). Epilogue: Putting insight into perspective. The nature of insight, 559-587.

Aesthetic Exploration: Mimesis, Simulation and Control


Lisa Park, Eunoia III

§  Role taking, Experience projection

§  Inferencing knowledge from image schemas – Mirror Neurons, Echo objects

§  Allowing to explore, “visualize”, emphasize patterns in the world

§  Mimetic “arousal theory” of emotion

§  Art as “training machine” to teach you how to adapt to your environment

§  Assumption that there is a “copy” in the brain that not only allows us to comprehend the intentions of others, but that “automatically” imitates their perceived joy, sadness […] and thus quickly allows us to understand what we see.

Stafford, B. M. (2007). Echo objects: The cognitive work of images. University of Chicago Press.

Preliminary Conclusions and Further Questions §  Seeking as underlying source of creative endeavor and driver

for aesthetic exploration

§  Peak shift principle as a mechanism to condense ideas and facilitate insights

§  No “aesthetic” personality type but inclinations in openness (and maybe neuroticism?) as core predisposition?

§  Aesthetic experience as “survival training” in a “sandbox-type of setting” and higher form of play

§  Art and aesthetic exploration as a “Research and Development” branch of human cognitive evolution


References 1.  Bear MF, Connors BW, Paradiso MA. Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (3rd Ed.).; 2007:898.

2.  Berridge, K. C., & Robinson, T. E. (1998). What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward learning, or Incentive salience?. Brain Research Reviews, 28(3), 309-369.

3.  Berridge, K. C. (1996). Food reward: brain substrates of wanting and liking. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 20(1), 1-25.

4.  Olds, J., & Milner, P. (1954). Positive reinforcement produced by electrical stimulation of septal area and other regions of rat brain. Journal of comparative and physiological psychology, 47(6), 419.

5.  Panksepp, J. (2011). Cross-species affective neuroscience decoding of the primal affective experiences of humans and related animals. PLoS One, 6(9), e21236.

6.  Panksepp, J., & Biven, L. (2012). The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.

7.  Reuter, M., et al. "Personality and biological markers of creativity." European Journal of Personality 19.2 (2005): 83-95.

8.  Salamone, J. D. (1994). The involvement of nucleus accumbens dopamine in appetitive and aversive motivation. Behavioural Brain Research, 61(2), 117–133. doi:10.1016/0166-4328(94)90153-8

9.  Salamone, J. D., Correa, M., Mingote, S. M., & Weber, S. M. (2005). Beyond the reward hypothesis: alternative functions of nucleus accumbens dopamine. Current Opinion in Pharmacology, 5(1), 34–41. doi:10.1016/j.coph.2004.09.004

10.  Skinner, B. F. (1997). The emotions are excellent examples of the fictional causes to which we commonly attribute behavior. Notes on the Heart: Affective Issues in the Writing Classroom, 1.

11.  Stansfield, K. H., Philpot, R. M., & Kirstein, C. L. (2004). An animal model of sensation seeking: the adolescent rat. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1021(1), 453-458.

12.  Sorensen, E., The Animal Mind Reader, Washington State University. Retrieved November 24, 2014 from http://wsm.wsu.edu/s/index.php?id=1037

13.  Toronchuk, J. A., & Ellis, G. F. (2012). Affective neuronal selection: the nature of the primordial emotion systems. Frontiers in psychology, 3.

14.  University of Michigan. (2007, March 3). Why 'Wanting' And 'Liking' Something Simultaneously Is Overwhelming. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 24, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070302115232.htm


References 2 15.  Brown, S. (2011). The Miseducation of the Doodle. A List Apart Magazine, 25.

16.  Brunel, Frédéric F., and Rishtee Kumar. "Design and the big five: Linking visual product aesthetics to product personality." Advances in consumer research 34 (2007): 238-239.

17.  Furnham, A., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2004). Personality, intelligence, and art. Personality and Individual Differences, 36(3), 705-715.

18.  Larsen, R.]., & Augustine, A. A. (2008). Basic personality dispositions related to approach and avoidance: Extraversion/neuroticism, BAS/BIS, and positive/negative affectivity.

19.  McCrae, R. R. (1993). Openness to experience as a basic dimension of personality. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 13(1), 39-55.

20.  Ramachandran, V. S., & Hirstein, W. (1999). The science of art: A neurological theory of aesthetic experience. Journal of consciousness Studies, 6(6-7), 6-7.

21.  Ramachandran, V. S. (2001). Sharpening up the science of art. Journal of consciousness studies, 8(1), 9-29.

22.  Reuter, M., Panksepp, J., Schnabel, N., Kellerhoff, N., Kempel, P., & Hennig, J. (2005). Personality and biological markers of creativity. European Journal of Personality, 19(2), 83-95.

23.  Solso, R. L. (1996). Cognition and the visual arts. MIT press.

24.  Stafford, B. M. (2007). Echo objects: The cognitive work of images. University of Chicago Press.

25.  Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. E. (1995). The nature of insight. The MIT Press.

26.  Topolinski, S., & Reber, R. (2010). Gaining insight into the "Aha"-experience. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 402-405.


Panksepp videos and podcasts §  Brain Science Podcast Interview BSP-65 §  Brain Science Podcast Interview BSP-91 §  Books and Ideas Podcast Interview §  The science of emotions: Jaak Panksepp at TEDxRainier §  The Primal Power of Play – YouTube (about 20 minutes) §  Experts in Emotion 3.3 — Jaak Panksepp on Animal Models of

Human Emotion (30 min) §  Jaak Panksepp – Human Nature and Early Experience

The Transformation of Social Delight to Grief, Depression and Despair (1 hour)

§  Jaak Panksepp Pinned Down Humanity’s 7 Primal Emotions (Discover Interview)

§  Seeking – and texting! (slate.com) §  Emotions R Us – Our Emotional Pets (GREAT neuro-synopsis!) §  Emotions are Back (animalbehaviour.co.za)


Thank You!


Dan Perjovschi