When I have taken my children to art museums in the past (pre-COVID), they loved to strike the poses they saw in the sculptures and paintings around them, mimicking the positions and actions that inspired the works. While many of us adults may not act out pieces of art, we may be mentally simulating the […]
Ten Things I Learned from Art Shimamura (TILAS)
CNS 2021 Guest Post by Chelsie (Miko) Hart Memory, aesthetics, inhibitory control, visual perception, film, photography, and poetry — these were just a few of the themes on display on the last day of CNS 2021 and all brought together through a single remarkable individual, Art Shimamura. A founding member of CNS who passed away […]
Buildings, Beauty, and the Brain: Q&A with Anjan Chatterjee
We all know intuitively that place shapes our everyday experiences. From the colors of the walls to the amount of light in the room, how we design buildings affects how we think, feel, and behave. A growing body of research is examining how architectural design affects us on the neural level. And a new research […]
Beauty is in the Brain of the Beholder
The paintings of Paul Cézanne, whose birthday we celebrated this week, transport us to a different time and different place. His use of color and brushstroke force us to look at people and places in new ways. But any person’s evaluation of a single piece of art, of course, is subjective. While some may gravitate […]
Judging Beauty in Places, Faces
Seeing the new photos of the Pillars of Creation from the Hubble Telescope took my breath away. Beautiful and awe-inspiring. But what was happening in my brain when I looked at them? How and why we react to beauty is something we rarely think about, but neuroscientists are making progress in better understanding these processes. […]
