Welcome the New Peer-Reviewed By My Neurons

New site. New look. Same ridiculously awesome content. (That was my attempt at “marketing.”)

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There’s a New URL in Town — Update Your Feeds!

In what I suppose qualifies for big news around here I’m pleased to announce that the new and marginally-improved Peer-Reviewed By My Neurons has arrived. Specifically, it’s arrived here: peerreviewedbymyneurons.com.

The only big change for readers it that you’ll have to re-subscribe to the new feeds. (For me it means I get to see the depressing drop in subscribers as my deserting readers fail to reappear.)

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A Housekeeping Post

I’ve been sitting on the domain name peerreviewedbymyneurons.com for months, but this is the week I’m finally going to take my own advice about accepting short term costs for long-term benefits and move the site off WordPress and to a self-hosted domain. Hopefully not much will change, but you’ll probably need to resubscribe on Google Reader, Feedburner, etc. to reflect the new domain name. Those of you subscribed through WordPress may have to find another way. Please let me know if there are issues with the new site.

In other news, the site recently had it’s 61,247th page view! So thanks to all the readers, linkers, and re-tweeters. I know this isn’t one of those blogs with a hyperactive comment section, but that’s fine with me. Your anonymous presence in the daily stats numbers provides all the motivation I need to keep going. Also, feel free to email me with any feedback, suggestions, comments, or crazy scheme ideas. I like getting emails.

Can Viewing Art Literally Move You?

The subjective nature of art makes it an odd fit for something as computational as cognitive psychology, but a new study at the nexus of those two subjects suggests something surprising about the way we respond to certain paintings. Through a series of five experiments researchers from Purdue and Colorado State believe they have found the first evidence that  looking at a painting can unconsciously lead people to simulate the actions of the painter.

Participants in the study were shown a series of paintings that appeared to have been made with gestural brushstrokes that moved to the left or to the right. After initially placing their finger on a center button, participants were asked to press a button on the right or left based on the painting’s color (experiment 1) or an unrelated symbol superimposed on the painting (experiment 2). The researchers found that it took less time for participants to move their finger when they were moving it in the same direction as the painting’s brushstrokes. After ruling out certain visual factors that could account for the difference in times, the researchers concluded that participants were faster when moving in the direction of the brushstrokes because they were already unconsciously simulating the actions of the painter.

The researchers went on to speculate about what it means for understanding how we experience art:

Observers automatically simulated the actions implied by a painting’s brushstrokes, revealing a connection between the artist and audience never before demonstrated by cognitive science. This result confirms the action painters’ anecdotal insight that action is expressed through painting. It is remarkable because it implies a new aspect of the cognitive processing of abstract, gestural art. These processes can no longer be limited to strictly visual patterns on the canvas; instead, we have shown that an artist can resonate with her audience via her action. Consequently, attempts to understand the cognitive processing of gestural art should include the science of action observation.

The interesting follow-up question is why our brains behave this way. I think one possible explanation is that it’s part of a deep-rooted and unconscious learning mechanism. When we see something that’s been made, we unconsciously mimic the actions we believe were taken to make it. That way if a situation should arise in which we want to reproduce what was previously observed, our procedural memory contains a stronger trace of whatever movements were used to create it.

Alternatively, one could take the study to mean that there really is a tiny artist inside all of us who’s screaming to be let out. But whatever you do, don’t let him out. He knows too much and can’t be trusted.
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Taylor, J.E.T., Witt, J.K., & Grimaldi, P.J. (2012). Uncovering the connection between artist and audience: Viewing painted brushstrokes evokes corresponding action representations in the observer Cognition DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.06.012