Cognitive neuroscience of art continues to be criticized for failing to provide interesting results about art itself. In particular, results of brain imaging experiments have not yet been utilized in interpretation of particular works of art. Here we revisit a recent study in which we explored the neuronal and behavioral response to painted portraits with a direct versus an averted gaze. We then demonstrate how fMRI results can be related to the art historical interpretation of a specific painting. The evidentiary status of neuroimaging data is not different from any other extra-pictorial facts that art historians uncover in their research and relate to their account of the significance of a work of art. They are not explanatory in a strong sense, yet they provide supportive evidence for the art writer's inference about the intended meaning of a given work. We thus argue that brain imaging can assume an important role in the interpretation of particular art works.
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
Global communities are currently confronted with a number of complex problems and threats, the reality of which is amplified by the media. These environmental and socio-political stressors have been accompanied by the spread of problematic psychological and behavioural tendencies, such as the growing polarisation of opinions and values, online radicalisation and extremism, deepening xenophobia and nationalism, the proliferation of irrational beliefs and conspiracy theories, and resistance to rational public policy measures. Here we argue that although they fall outside the scope of psychopathology, they nevertheless currently constitute a major challenge for psychiatry as a research domain and a clinical practise. To substantiate this claim, we outline the mechanisms by which media-transmitted stressors impact mental well-being and possibly psychopathology. The common denominator of these global problems and the media's construction of reality is the increase in uncertainty, unpredictability, and uncontrollability, which prompts defensive responding and, in predisposed individuals, functions as a potent source of chronic stress. These contribute to cognitive inflexibility, a strong predisposing factor for the development of rigid beliefs and attitudes, which to varying degrees underlie the adverse psychological and behavioural tendencies mentioned above. We suggest that the tightening of beliefs and ideas that is the result of cognitive rigidity may correspond to the clinical characteristics of induced delusional disorder. This can be seen as a (ultimately maladaptive) defensive strategy for coping with a high degree of uncertainty and unpredictability. We conclude by briefly outlining the possible ways in which psychiatry can face this challenge.
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
The evolving COVID-19 pandemic and its likely consequences add to the already substantial psychosocial burden caused by global problems, existential threats and heightened uncertainty, which are increasingly confronting communities worldwide. Here we briefly outline three challenges for clinical psychiatry and research, related to coping with the social epidemiology of negative moods, stress and socially mediated traumatic experiences brought on by these adverse developments.
- MeSH
- adaptace psychologická * MeSH
- celosvětové zdraví MeSH
- duševní zdraví trendy MeSH
- koronavirové infekce * epidemiologie psychologie MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- nejistota MeSH
- pandemie * MeSH
- podrážděnost MeSH
- psychický stres * epidemiologie psychologie MeSH
- psychologie * MeSH
- sociální média MeSH
- virová pneumonie * epidemiologie psychologie MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- Publikační typ
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
- úvodníky MeSH
This study analyzes how people's attitudes to the European refugee crisis (ERC) correspond to selected psychological state and trait measures and impact the neural processing of media images of refugees. From a large pool of respondents, who filled in an online xenophobia questionnaire, we selected two groups (total N = 38) with the same socio-demographic background, but with opposite attitudes toward refugees. We found that a negative attitude toward refugees (high xenophobia - HX) was associated with a significantly higher conscientiousness score and with a higher trait aggression and hostility, but there was no group effect connected with empathy, fear, and anxiety measures. At the neural level we found that brain activity during the presentation of ERC stimuli is affected by xenophobic attitudes-with more xenophobic subjects exhibiting a higher BOLD response in the left fusiform gyrus. However, while the fMRI results demonstrate increased attention and vigilance toward ERC-related stimuli in the HX group, they do not show differentiated patterns of brain activity associated with perception of dehumanized outgroup.
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- Klíčová slova
- reprezentace, negativity bias, asimilace,
- MeSH
- duševní zdraví * MeSH
- emoce MeSH
- hromadné sdělovací prostředky * MeSH
- komunikace MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- Publikační typ
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
One of major challenges facing contemporary psychiatry is the insufficient grasp of relationship between individual and collective mental pathologies. A long tradition of diagnosing "mental illness" of society-exemplified by Erich Fromm-stands apart from approach of contemporary social psychiatry and is not perceived as relevant for psychiatric discourse. In this Perspective article, I argue that it is possible to uphold the idea of a supra-individual dimension to mental health, while avoiding the obvious pitfalls involved in categorical diagnosing of society as suffering from mental illness. I argue for an extended notion of public mental ill-health, which goes beyond the quantitative understanding of mental health as an aggregate of individual diseased minds captured in statistics, and which can be conceived as a dynamic, emergent property resulting from interactions of individual brains/minds in social space. Such a notion, in turn, presents a challenge of how to account for the interfacing between individual minds/brains and the collective mental phenomena. A suitable theoretical framework is provided by the notion of epidemiology of representations, originally formulated by cognitive anthropologist Dan Sperber. Within this framework, it is possible to highlight the role of public (material) representations in inter-individual transfer of mental representations and mental states. It is a suitable conceptual platform to explain how the troubling experiences with causal or mediating role on mental health, to a significant degree arise through a person's direct interaction with material representations and participation in collective mental states, again generated by material representations.
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
In this study, we use separate eye-tracking measurements and functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neuronal and behavioral response to painted portraits with direct versus averted gaze. We further explored modulatory effects of several painting characteristics (premodern vs modern period, influence of style and pictorial context). In the fMRI experiment, we show that the direct versus averted gaze elicited increased activation in lingual and inferior occipital and the fusiform face area, as well as in several areas involved in attentional and social cognitive processes, especially the theory of mind: angular gyrus/temporo-parietal junction, inferior frontal gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The additional eye-tracking experiment showed that participants spent more time viewing the portrait's eyes and mouth when the portrait's gaze was directed towards the observer. These results suggest that static and, in some cases, highly stylized depictions of human beings in artistic portraits elicit brain activation commensurate with the experience of being observed by a watchful intelligent being. They thus involve observers in implicit inferences of the painted subject's mental states and emotions. We further confirm the substantial influence of representational medium on brain activity.
- MeSH
- dospělí MeSH
- emoce fyziologie MeSH
- lidé středního věku MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- magnetická rezonanční tomografie MeSH
- malířství * MeSH
- mapování mozku MeSH
- mladý dospělý MeSH
- mozek diagnostické zobrazování fyziologie MeSH
- oční fixace fyziologie MeSH
- pohyby očí fyziologie MeSH
- pozornost fyziologie MeSH
- sociální percepce * MeSH
- Check Tag
- dospělí MeSH
- lidé středního věku MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mladý dospělý MeSH
- mužské pohlaví MeSH
- ženské pohlaví MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
- MeSH
- empatie * fyziologie MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mozek MeSH
- nervová síť MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- Publikační typ
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
- přehledy MeSH
Among the main challenges of the predictive brain/mind concept is how to link prediction at the neural level to prediction at the cognitive-psychological level and finding conceptually robust and empirically verifiable ways to harness this theoretical framework toward explaining higher-order mental and cognitive phenomena, including the subjective experience of aesthetic and symbolic forms. Building on the tentative prediction error account of visual art, this article extends the application of the predictive coding framework to the visual arts. It does so by linking this theoretical discussion to a subjective, phenomenological account of how a work of art is experienced. In order to engage more deeply with a work of art, viewers must be able to tune or adapt their prediction mechanism to recognize art as a specific class of objects whose ontological nature defies predictability, and they must be able to sustain a productive flow of predictions from low-level sensory, recognitional to abstract semantic, conceptual, and affective inferences. The affective component of the process of predictive error optimization that occurs when a viewer enters into dialog with a painting is constituted both by activating the affective affordances within the image and by the affective consequences of prediction error minimization itself. The predictive coding framework also has implications for the problem of the culturality of vision. A person's mindset, which determines what top-down expectations and predictions are generated, is co-constituted by culture-relative skills and knowledge, which form hyperpriors that operate in the perception of art.
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
