Revealing rembrandt.

The power and significance of artwork in shaping human cognition is self-evident. The starting point for our empirical investigations is the view that the task of neuroscience is to integrate itself with other forms of knowledge, rather than to seek to supplant them. In our recent work, we examined...

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Main Author: Parker, A
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Research Foundation 2014
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author Parker, A
author_facet Parker, A
author_sort Parker, A
collection OXFORD
description The power and significance of artwork in shaping human cognition is self-evident. The starting point for our empirical investigations is the view that the task of neuroscience is to integrate itself with other forms of knowledge, rather than to seek to supplant them. In our recent work, we examined a particular aspect of the appreciation of artwork using present-day functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our results emphasized the continuity between viewing artwork and other human cognitive activities. We also showed that appreciation of a particular aspect of artwork, namely authenticity, depends upon the co-ordinated activity between the brain regions involved in multiple decision making and those responsible for processing visual information. The findings about brain function probably have no specific consequences for understanding how people respond to the art of Rembrandt in comparison with their response to other artworks. However, the use of images of Rembrandt's portraits, his most intimate and personal works, clearly had a significant impact upon our viewers, even though they have been spatially confined to the interior of an MRI scanner at the time of viewing. Neuroscientific studies of humans viewing artwork have the capacity to reveal the diversity of human cognitive responses that may be induced by external advice or context as people view artwork in a variety of frameworks and settings.
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spelling oxford-uuid:c3c1cde7-347c-4474-b3c2-3b9ff4bdbc242022-03-27T06:18:44ZRevealing rembrandt.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:c3c1cde7-347c-4474-b3c2-3b9ff4bdbc24EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordFrontiers Research Foundation2014Parker, AThe power and significance of artwork in shaping human cognition is self-evident. The starting point for our empirical investigations is the view that the task of neuroscience is to integrate itself with other forms of knowledge, rather than to seek to supplant them. In our recent work, we examined a particular aspect of the appreciation of artwork using present-day functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our results emphasized the continuity between viewing artwork and other human cognitive activities. We also showed that appreciation of a particular aspect of artwork, namely authenticity, depends upon the co-ordinated activity between the brain regions involved in multiple decision making and those responsible for processing visual information. The findings about brain function probably have no specific consequences for understanding how people respond to the art of Rembrandt in comparison with their response to other artworks. However, the use of images of Rembrandt's portraits, his most intimate and personal works, clearly had a significant impact upon our viewers, even though they have been spatially confined to the interior of an MRI scanner at the time of viewing. Neuroscientific studies of humans viewing artwork have the capacity to reveal the diversity of human cognitive responses that may be induced by external advice or context as people view artwork in a variety of frameworks and settings.
spellingShingle Parker, A
Revealing rembrandt.
title Revealing rembrandt.
title_full Revealing rembrandt.
title_fullStr Revealing rembrandt.
title_full_unstemmed Revealing rembrandt.
title_short Revealing rembrandt.
title_sort revealing rembrandt
work_keys_str_mv AT parkera revealingrembrandt