Technologies of Representation Ls9 Mirror Neurons April 2015 Digital Media Program, University of Lower Silesia Dr. Krystina Madej School of Literature, Media, and Communication Georgia Institute of Technology

Emotion ‘The painting will move the soul of the beholder when the people painted there each clearly shows the movement of his own soul...we weep with the weeping, laugh with the laughing, and grieve with the grieving. These movements of the soul are known from the movements of the body.’ Leon Battista Alberti ( ) Renaissance humanist and polymath

Emotions Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response

Emotions Effectiveness of Images to affect us History Culture Immediate Context

Emotions Effectiveness of Images to affect us History Culture Immediate Context and Neural Process

Emotions Empathetic Response Embodied Simulation Human capacity to empathize with others’ behaviors and experiences i.e. to pre-rationally make sense of the actions, emotions and sensations of others What human’s see activates their own internal representation of the body state seen

Emotions Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response Human response to art is not purely introspective intuitive metaphysical It is based in physical changes in the brain.

Emotions Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response Mirror Neurons Feeling of physical reaction to the perception of movement in works of art to the perception of the implied movement

Emotions Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response Mirror Neurons Underpin action understanding and intentions that underlie action

Emotions Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response Observing manipulable objects like tools leads to the activation of motor regions of the brain that control our interactions with the same object – not just the region of the brain associated with representation.

Emotions Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response Humans’ recognize emotions displayed by others, their facial muscles respond in kind.

Emotions Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response The brain reacts so as to assume the same state they would have had if engaged in the same actions

Emotions Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response When we see two objects touching our somatosensory cortices are activated as if our body were subject to tactile stimulation

Emotions

Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response Our brains can reconstruct actions by merely observing the static graphic outcome of the agent’s past action.

Emotions Effectiveness of Images: Empathetic Response Our brains can reconstruct actions by merely observing the static graphic outcome of the agent’s past action. Observers experience a sense of bodily involvement with the movemnts that are implied by physical traces of creative action.

Emotions Empathetic feel can no longer be regarded as a matter of simple intuition and can be precisely located in the relevant areas of the brain that are activated both in the observed and the observer.

Emotions Antiquity

Emotions Antiquity

Emotions Antiquity

Emotions Antiquity

Emotions Antiquity

Emotions Antiquity

Emotions Antiquity

Emotions Middle Ages

Emotions Middle Ages

Emotions Middle Ages

Emotions Middle Ages

Emotions Middle Ages

Emotions Middle Ages

Emotions Middle Ages

Emotions XV Century

Emotions XIX Century Edvard Munch, 1893 The Scream

Emotions XIX Century

Emotions XX Century Dorothea Lange, 1936 Migrant Mother

Emotions XX Century Barry, Godber, 1969 In the court of the Crimson King Roy Lichtenstein, 1964 The Kiss

Emotions Contemporary

Emotions Contemporary :-) Sept. 19, 1982, 11:44 a.m. Computer scientist Scott Fahlman suggested using :-) to indicate posts not meant to be taken seriously.

Emotion We generally vastly overrate the amount of information we process. Gombrich p. 301

Emotions 1.“Our capacity to pre-rationally make sense of the actions, emotions and sensations of others depends on embodied simulation. 2.“… brain imaging experiments in humans have shown that observation of manipulable objects like tools…. Leads to the activation of … a cortical region that is normally considered to be involved in the control of action and not in the representation of objects. 3.“…electromyographic responses in the facial muscles of observers are congruent with those involved in the observed person’s facial expressions.” Discuss in context of the images we have seen. Use examples to show us what these statements mean.