The Neural Imagination: Aesthetic and Neuroscientific Approaches to the Arts (Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture)

249 Pages·2009·6.28 MB·English

by  Irving Massey

Th e Neural Imagination
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Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture Series
Edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, Arturo J. Aldama,
and Patrick Colm Hogan
Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture includes monographs and
edited volumes that incorporate cutting-edge research in cognitive sci-
ence, neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, narrative theory, and related
fi elds, insofar as this research bears on and illuminates cultural phenomena
such as literature, fi lm, drama, music, dance, visual art, digital media, and
comics, among others. Th e volumes published in this series represent both
specialized scholarship and interdisciplinary investigations that are deeply
sensitive to cultural particularities and grounded in an understanding of
cross-culturally shared emotive and cognitive principles.
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Th e Neural Imagination
Aesthetic and Neuroscientific
Approaches to the Arts
Irving Massey
University of Texas Press austin
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Copyright © 2009 by Irving Massey
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 2009
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to:
Permissions
University of Texas Press
P.O. Box 7819
Austin, TX 78713-7819
www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html
∞ Th e paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO
Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Massey, Irving.
Th e neural imagination : aesthetic and neuroscientifi c approaches to the arts /
Irving Massey. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Cognitive approaches to literature and culture series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-292-75279-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Neurosciences and the arts. I. Title. II. Title: Aesthetic and
neuroscientifi c approaches to the arts.
NX180.N48M37 2009
701'.1—dc22
2009013152
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Th is book is dedicated to
Anne and Joel Huberman
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Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiv
Part 1: Th e Imagination, Neural
Chapter 1. Background, Purposes,
and Limitations of the Inquiry 3
Chapter 2. Neuroscience and the Visual Arts 29
Chapter 3. At the Limits of Language 59
Chapter 4. Music and Language in Dream 101
Part 2: Th e Imagination, Plain
Chapter 5. Th e Th ree Fields 135
Part 3: Conclusions
Chapter 6. Ideas and Values 163
Bibliography 190
Index 213
Color photo section follows page 160.
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Illustrations
Figure 1. (a) David A. Moore, “Undulating Lines.” 41
(b) Photograph of the square in front of the
opera house in Manaos, Brazil. 42
Figure 2. Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie. 45
Figure 3. (a) Isia Leviant, “Enigma.” 46
(b) Akiyoshi Kitaoka, “Rotating Snakes.” 46
Figure 4. Gestalt grouping principles. 49
Figure 5. Mary Cassatt, Young Mother. 50
Figure 6. Mary Cassatt, Children Playing on the Beach. 51
Figure 7. Mary Cassatt, Child in a Straw Hat. 52
Figure 8. Page of book ads in the New York Review of Books. 53
Figure 9. Joseph Mallord William Turner, Th e Burning
of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 1834. 54
Figure 10. Partial score of two of Shepard’s musical dreams. 105
Figure 11. Melody heard in dream by the author. 109
Figure 12. Schubert’s “Die Forelle.” 153
Figure 13. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait. 166
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Preface
Art and technology have been converging rapidly in the past
few years; an important example of this convergence is the
alliance of neuroscience with aesthetics, which has produced the
new fi eld of neuroaesthetics.
Th e Neural Imagination examines this alliance. Neuroscience
has demonstrated its relevance for aesthetics in several ways. First,
it has identifi ed specifi c neural accompaniments to aesthetic activi-
ties of both artists and audiences. One of the means by which such
“localizations” are established is through the study of artists (such
as Ravel) who have brain lesions. Nowadays, of course, this work
is greatly facilitated by the use of brain imaging techniques. Th e
changes in an artist’s work aft er a stroke, for instance, help to local-
ize the constituent elements of artistic production at the neurologi-
cal level. Th us an injury to a particular area in the right hemisphere
might interfere with a musician’s appreciation of melodic contour
without aff ecting other aspects of his/her musical abilities, and one
might conclude that the injured area has an important role in “pro-
cessing” melodies. As for audiences, Jonah Lehrer (2007, pp. 141–142)
proposes that the 1913 riot at the fi rst performance of Stravinsky’s
“Rite of Spring” was caused by the eff ect of unfamiliar sounds on
certain neurons which, when overstimulated, precipitate a fl ood of
dopamine that can, in turn, produce symptoms resembling those
of schizophrenia. (Th e example of individuals such as Boris Pav-
lovich Nikonov, in whom music induced seizures, is perhaps more
persuasive [cf. Avanzini, 2003]. I understand that Jock Murray of
Halifax, Nova Scotia is studying musicogenic epilepsy.)
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