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Savant but not Idiot: Perché l'arteterapia ci restituisce un talento
Abstract
The artistic talent of some autistics, some patients with fronto-temporal dementia, and some of the students to whom low-frequency magnetic pulses into the left fronto-temporal lobe were directed confirm both the specialization of the right parietal lobe in artistic talent and the inhibitory control exerted by the left hemisphere on the ability of spatial representation. In this paper, we advance the hypothesis that the art therapy cures to the extent that it reduces the control over the content of the information carried by the left hemisphere. It causes the activation of the right hemisphere areas acting on bodily sensations rather than on verbal forms, communicating through emotions rather than with words, stimulating feelings and emotional expressions rather than thinking. Art therapy would force a permanent or prolonged change because, unlike the momentary stimulation exerted by an electromagnetic stimulation, it would act with the effectiveness of a structured learning that, as found in a study of art experts, would modify the automatisms of aesthetic judgment through a therapeutic intervention.
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We present a theory of human artistic experience and the neural mechanisms that mediate it. Any theory of art (or, indeed, any aspect of human nature) has to ideally have three components. (a) The logic of art: whether there are universal rules or principles; (b) The evolutionary rationale: why did these rules evolve and why do they have the form that they do; (c) What is the brain circuitry involved? Our paper begins with a quest for artistic universals and proposes a list of Eight laws of artistic experience -- a set of heuristics that artists either consciously or unconsciously deploy to optimally titillate the visual areas of the brain. One of these principles is a psychological phenomenon called the peak shift effect: If a rat is rewarded for discriminating a rectangle from a square, it will respond even more vigorously to a rectangle that is longer and skinnier that the prototype. We suggest that this principle explains not only caricatures, but many other aspects of art. Example: An evocative sketch of a female nude may be one which selectively accentuates those feminine form-attributes that allow one to discriminate it from a male figure; a Boucher, a Van Gogh, or a Monet may be a caricature in colour space rather than form space. Even abstract art may employ supernormal stimuli to excite form areas in the brain more strongly than natural stimuli. Second, we suggest that grouping is a very basic principle. The different extrastriate visual areas may have evolved specifically to extract correlations in different domains (e.g. form, depth, colour), and discovering and linking multiple features (grouping) into unitary clusters -- objects -- is facilitated and reinforced by direct connections from these areas to limbic structures. In general, when object-like entities are partially discerned at any stage in the visual hierarchy, messages are sent back to earlier stages to alert them to certain locations or features in order to look for additional evidence for the object (and these processes may be facilitated by direct limbic activation). Finally, given constraints on allocation of attentional resources, art is most appealing if it produces heightened activity in a single dimension (e.g. through the peak shift principle or through grouping) rather than redundant activation of multiple modules. This idea may help explain the effectiveness of outline drawings and sketches, the savant syndrome in autists, and the sudden emergence of artistic talent in fronto-temporal dementia. In addition to these three basic principles we propose five others, constituting a total of eight laws of aesthetic experience(analogous to the Buddha's eightfold path to wisdom).
The subject under discussion concerns the existence of an automatic aesthetic evaluation. When we encounter an object like an artwork or an architectural structure that activates an aesthetic response, does the associated evaluation appear in our mind as an automatic process? From the broad field of aesthetic appraisal, we will be considering a specific aspect that refers only to the positive and negative affects related to an individual's preference between two art styles (figurative vs. abstract) and two architectural styles (classic vs. contemporary). The hypothesis is that there is a preexistent preference within the visual arts and architecture that can clearly be identified using implicit measurements. Results from two experiments that were conducted with the use of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) showed that participants' reaction times were faster in associating positive words to figurative art and classical architecture (the so-called compatible task) than to abstract art and contemporary architecture (the so-called incompatible task). The results are in line with the hypothesis that aesthetic preferences can also be experienced automatically. Prototypicality (i.e., the degree to which an object is representative of a general class of object), familiarity and the relative simplicity of figurative art and classical architecture (compared to abstract art and modern architecture) can explain the shorter reaction time and as a consequence, an implicit aesthetic preference for these kinds of stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Misattributions people make about their own affective reactions can be used to measure attitudes implicitly. Combining the logic of projective tests with advances in priming research, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was sensitive to normatively favorable and unfavorable evaluations (Experiments 1-4), and the misattribution effect was strong at both fast and slow presentation rates (Experiments 3 and 4). Providing further evidence of validity, the AMP was strongly related to individual differences in self-reported political attitudes and voting intentions (Experiment 5). In the socially sensitive domain of racial attitudes, the AMP showed in-group bias for Black and White participants. AMP performance correlated with explicit racial attitudes, a relationship that was moderated by motivations to control prejudice (Experiment 6). Across studies, the task was unaffected by direct warnings to avoid bias. Advantages of the AMP include large effect sizes, high reliability, ease of use, and resistance to correction attempts.
Certain autistic children whose linguistic ability is virtually nonexistent cart draw natural scenes from memory with astonishing accuracy. In particular their drawings display convincing perspective. In contrast, normal children of the same preschool age group and even untrained adults draw primitive schematics or symbols of objects which they can verbally identify. These are usually conceptual outlines devoid of detail. It is argued that the difference between autistic child artists and normal individuals is that autistic artists make no assumptions about what is to be seen in their environment. They have not formed mental representations of what is significant and consequently perceive all details as equally important. Equivalently, they do not impose visual or linguistic schema-a process necessary for rapid conceptualisation in a dynamic existence, especially when the information presented to the eye is incomplete.
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Savant-like skills exposed· in normal· people by suppressing the left frontotemporal lobe
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5021%35203000287
Uhiwisiri di Rruna lit, Roma. lWcaid. s. (toll). ~ne: ii. mJCW04'Ue arti .tlerapie
- Di Segal
Di Segal, S..(291S). Analbi deUe diffetenze di giudi7i estetki impllciti tta csperd in ane
c non~ (Masur), Uhiwisiri di Rruna lit, Roma.
lWcaid. s. (toll). ~ne: ii. mJCW04'Ue arti.tlerapie. Jn.A. M. ~.It 0. Rossi
(Eds.). Le nuovc arti.-.pic..Percorsl·ndlattluionc cfaiucq (pp. 13-lS). Milano, IT:
F~
~A.:~McGhcc, D. JL, at ~J. L. K. (1"8).Mcasuring Individual
Dift«cnca in Implicit Cognition: The lrnplidt Assodadeo. Te& journal of Penonality
and SQcla1 ~ 74(6). 1464-1480, dok 1Q.10S7/00.U.3St4.14.6.1464 Kandel,
E. (1998:). A MW intellectual frarnewwk fut psychiatry. American.Journal of ~Wey;