The Emerging Mind

Vilaynur Ramachandran

Ramachandran

Born in India (1951)

Neurologist

Professor in the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the USC, San Diego

Agenda

V. Ramachandrans research

The Artful Brain

Questions, discussion, applause

The Emerging Mind

Neurological disorders can have implications far beyond confines of medical neurology humanities, philosophy, art?

Anomaly/curiosity Insight

Synesthesia

Ability to see numbers (or musical notes etc...) in colours

Affects 1 in 200 people

Due to cross-wiring between number and colour area in brain due to genetic abnormality

The Artful Brain

Science = Universal principles

Art is celebration of human individuality and originality opposite of the homogenising effects of science

Neuroaesthetics

10 universal laws of art

10 universal principles of art

1. Peak shift

2. Grouping

3. Contrast

4. Isolation

5. Peceptual problem solving

6. Symmetry

7. Abhorrence of coincidence

8. Repetetion, rhytm and orderliness

9. Balance

10. Metaphor

10 universal principles of art

1. Peak shift

2. Grouping

3. Contrast

4. Isolation

5. Peceptual problem solving

6. Symmetry

7. Abhorrence of coincidence

8. Repetetion, rhytm and orderliness

9. Balance

10. Metaphor

Peak shift

art...involves deliberate hyperbole, exaggeration, even

distortion, in order to create pleasing effects in the brain.

-Ramachandran

Peak shift

Explaining Picasso/Cubism

- Seagull sexy super beak

- artists know how to recreate the super beak

- cells in fusiform gyrus respond to individual faces

- neurons higher up respond to any view of face (frontal vs. Profile)

Grouping

Grouping

Humans need to connect the dots

Vision evolved to discover objects and to defeat camouflage

Example: primate ancestor hiding in tree from lion he sees yellow fragments behind leaves and makes the assumption that the yellow colour belongs to the lion he links the colour fragments into one object! a-ha moment limbic system RUN

Attention and arousal culminate in titillating the limbic system

An artist tries to create as many a-ha signals in as many visual areas as possible

Perceptual problem solving

Perceptual problem solving

Example: Chasing mate in dense fog/darkness you want every partial glimpse of her to be pleasing and to prompt further search/hunt so that you do not give up get to the mating

Art of searching / solving puzzle is as pleasing as the final a-ha moment!

The effort itself forms an essential component of the artistic experience sense of achievement

Law of isolation

Less is more!

Law of isolation

Why is it not better to activate more areas of brain at the same time?

Because: There can NOT be two overlapping patterns of neural activity simultaneously

Bottleneck of ATTENTION

The nude outline (cave paintings) saves brain trouble!

Savant syndrome: ALL attentiontional resources allocated to one part of brain (isolation)

Out, out brief candle

-Macbeth

Metaphor

Methaphor is an important component of art

Artists skillful at creating metaphors (Shakespeare)

An artist is 7 times more likely to suffer from synesthesia

Metaphor - Synesthesia

Numbers: Visual appearence (fusiform gyrus) + abstract concept of sequence / number (Angular gyrus) Arabic numbers 5, 7 etc. vs Roman numbers V, VII

Lower synesthete (numbers have colours): faulty gene in fusiform gyrus

Higher synesthete (days, months have colours): faulty gene close to angular gyrus

In artists (maybe) the faulty gene is expressed more diffusely throughout the brain. Not just in fusiform or angular gyrus HYPERCONNECTIVITY

More prone to metaphor ability to link seemingly unrelated things

Booba / Kiki?

Cross-modal abstraction

Kiki: -visual shape: sharp

-auditory cortex: sharp

Cross-modal synesthetic abstraction

People with damage in angular gyrus cannot make shape-sound associations

Progressive enlargement of angular gyrus in mammals (from lower mammals to humans)

Opportunity hi-jacking (from tree-tops to metaphors)-

Language

Cross-activation between sound / vision (booba / kiki)

Cross-activation between visual area and Brocas area (muscles of vocation, phonation and articulation how we move lip, tongue and mouth

Cross-activation between hand area and mouth area (Penfield hommunculus)

Combined these all lead to emergence of primitive language

Questions?