Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-7lfxl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-19T15:16:52.121Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tuning in to art: A predictive processing account of negative emotion in art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2017

Sander Van de Cruys ,
Rebecca Chamberlain  and
Johan Wagemans
Sander Van de Cruys
Affiliation:
Brain and Cognition Unit, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven BE-3000, Belgium. sander.vandecruys@kuleuven.be johan.wagemans@kuleuven.be www.sandervandecruys.be
Rebecca Chamberlain
Affiliation:
Brain and Cognition Unit, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven BE-3000, Belgium. sander.vandecruys@kuleuven.be johan.wagemans@kuleuven.be www.sandervandecruys.be Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London SE14 6NW, United Kingdom. r.chamberlain@gold.ac.uk www.gestaltrevision.be
Johan Wagemans
Affiliation:
Brain and Cognition Unit, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven BE-3000, Belgium. sander.vandecruys@kuleuven.be johan.wagemans@kuleuven.be www.sandervandecruys.be
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We use the example of art-derived solace to discuss a broader mechanism by which negative affect is instrumental in creating positive appreciation of artworks. Based on the theory of predictive processing, we argue that increasing attunement or reduction of prediction errors, which implies increasing validation of the agents (models), is experienced as positive, even if the artwork's content is negative.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e377
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Clark, A. (2013) Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36(3):181–204. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12000477.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Derryberry, D. (1988) Emotional influences on evaluative judgments: Roles of arousal, attention, and spreading activation. Motivation and Emotion 12:23–55. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00992471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedberg, D. & Gallese, V. (2007) Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11(5):197–203. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2007.02.003.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friston, K. J. (2010) The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11(2):127–38. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2787.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friston, K. J. & Frith, C. D. (2015) Active inference, communication and hermeneutics. Cortex 68:129–43. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.03.025.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gottlieb, J., Oudeyer, P.-Y., Lopes, M. & Baranes, A. (2013) Information-seeking, curiosity, and attention: Computational and neural mechanisms. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17(11) 585–93. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.09.001.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jackendoff, R. & Lerdahl, F. (2006) The capacity for music: What is it, and what's special about it? Cognition 100(1):33–72. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.11.005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kersten, D., Mamassian, P. & Yuille, A. (2004) Object perception as Bayesian inference. Annual Review of Psychology 55:271–304. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.142005.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silvia, P. J. (2005b) Emotional responses to art: From collation and arousal to cognition and emotion. Review of General Psychology 9(4):342. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a87a/95da82793dfe51b6f0a6d9d52c1c5d428f7c.pdf.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van de Cruys, S. (2017) Affective value in the predictive mind. In: Philosophy and predictive processing, ed. Metzinger, T. K. & Wiese, W.. MIND Group. Available at: https://doi.org/10.15502/9783958573253.Google ScholarPubMed
Van de Cruys, S. & Wagemans, J. (2011) Putting reward in art: A tentative prediction error account of visual art. Iperception 2(9):1035–62. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1068/i0466aap.Google ScholarPubMed
Wänke, M. & Hansen, J. (2015) Relative processing fluency. Current Directions in Psychological Science 24(3):195–99. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414561766.CrossRefGoogle Scholar