Sherman Aleksandra, Morrissey Clair
Department of Cognitive Science, Occidental CollegeLos Angeles, CA, United States.
Department of Philosophy, Occidental CollegeLos Angeles, CA, United States.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2017 Aug 28;11:411. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00411. eCollection 2017.
Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes of art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities.
科学家、人文学者和艺术爱好者都重视艺术，不仅因其美，还因其社会和认知重要性；也就是说，因其交际本质、增进自我认知和促进个人成长的能力，以及挑战我们的模式和先入之见的能力。然而，实证研究往往忽视艺术参与的此类社会和认知结果的重要性，而是将重点放在个人偏好、对美的判断、愉悦感或其他情感评估上，将其作为艺术欣赏的主要结果。在此，我们认为，对艺术欣赏进行系统的神经科学研究必须超越仅理解美学，而转向研究艺术欣赏的社会重要性。我们首先通过将艺术欣赏定位为一种积极的社会实践来论证这种重点的转变。接着，我们回顾现有的心理学和认知神经科学证据，即艺术欣赏培养诸如自我理解和他人理解等社会认知技能，并讨论一些哲学框架，这些框架建议进行更全面的实证研究。最后，我们认为关注艺术参与的社会认知价值凸显了艺术在我们生活中所起的重要作用。因此，关于艺术欣赏的实证研究可用于表明参与艺术具有特定的社会和个人价值，培养这种价值对我们作为个体以及作为群体而言都很重要。
