PROJECTS
Art, empathy, and justice: An exploration of cognitive aesthetics (2022-2023)
The bulk of research related to empathy, justice, and aesthetic experiences has been conducted in WEIRD nations (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic), with a corresponding loss of relevance and depth. Relatedly, studies of empathy and justice are often dominated by the Christian tradition, latent Christian values, or Christian scholars, with Jewish and Muslim voices considerably less well heard and integrated. In addition, empirical investigations of empathy and justice have been insufficiently informed by theological and philosophical reflection, perpetuating a lack of context and nuance that could inform and affect constructions and perceptions of these phenomena. Finally, research regarding art’s effects on cognition, particularly across sociocultural difference, is in its infancy; however, a surging multidisciplinary interest in art’s effects on cognition, mental health, and social connection indicates a window of opportunity for highly interdisciplinary research aimed at collective impact.
This 18-month, interdisciplinary, multi-faith, multi-culture and multi-country project set out to examine the cognitive influence of the arts on empathy and justice, with a focus on how these concepts can be understood and applied across social, cultural, political, and religious difference.
With institutional homes in Johns Hopkins International Arts+Mind Lab and Istanbul’s Moral Intuitions Laboratory, the project brought together philosophers, theologians, psychologists, artists, and neuroscientists to listen to and learn from one another, in order to co-develop conceptually richer empirical studies of the cognitive influences of the arts on empathy and justice. The project’s aim was to conduct preliminary trial studies in the USA, Turkey, and Israel and set a course for future research on effects of the arts on empathy and justice.
Culture Connections (2021)
The Culture Connections pilot study investigated the psychological and social support value of online art conversations with Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), which had been tailored to people living with, or alongside rare forms of dementia.
The aim of the Culture Connections pilot workshops was to i) scope public interest, ii) test the content, structure and delivery and iii) measure the impact of the online art conversations on psychological and social wellbeing.
The project included training workshops for students and staff connected to the UCL Dementia Research Centre, and support workshops for members of the Rare Dementia Support Network. The training workshops had a stronger emphasis on the research background of the project and elaborated on how the VTS facilitation techniques scaffold observations, thought processes, and collaborative communication skills. The outcomes of the study showed that the online VTS art conversations enhanced feelings of social connectedness of the participants in both the training and support workshops.
Funded by a UCL Grand Challenges Special Initiatives Award, this project was a spin-off from the UCL I&E-funded CelebrAGE Innovation Network and expanded on a successful working relationship with The Thinking Eye, while simultaneously developing a new cross-disciplinary collaboration with the UCL Rare Dementia Support (RDS) Impact Study.
PUBLICATIONS
Pupil responses to colorfulness are selectively reduced in healthy older adults
Janneke E. P. van Leeuwen, Amy McDougall, Dimitris Mylonas, Aida Suárez-González, Sebastian J. Crutch & Jason D. Warren
Scientific Reports volume 13, Article number: 22139 (2023)
Abstract
The alignment between visual pathway signaling and pupil dynamics offers a promising non-invasive method to further illuminate the mechanisms of human color perception. However, only limited research has been done in this area and the effects of healthy aging on pupil responses to the different color components have not been studied yet. Here we aim to address this by modelling the effects of color lightness and chroma (colorfulness) on pupil responses in young and older adults, in a closely controlled passive viewing experiment with 26 broad-spectrum digital color fields. We show that pupil responses to color lightness and chroma are independent from each other in both young and older adults. Pupil responses to color lightness levels are unaffected by healthy aging, when correcting for smaller baseline pupil sizes in older adults. Older adults exhibit weaker pupil responses to chroma increases, predominantly along the Green–Magenta axis, while relatively sparing the Blue–Yellow axis. Our findings complement behavioral studies in providing physiological evidence that colors fade with age, with implications for color-based applications and interventions both in healthy aging and later-life neurodegenerative disorders.
Thinking eyes: Visual Thinking Strategies and the social brain
Janneke E. P. van Leeuwen, Sebastian J. Crutch, Jason D. Warren
Front. Psychol., 27 September 2023
Sec. Emotion Science Volume 14 – 2023
ABSTRACT
The foundation of art processes in the social brain can guide the scientific study of how human beings perceive and interact with their environment. Here, we applied the theoretical frameworks of the social and artistic brain connectomes to an eye-tracking paradigm with the aim to elucidate how different viewing conditions and social cues influence gaze patterns and personal resonance with artworks and complex imagery in healthy adults. We compared two viewing conditions that encourage personal or social perspective taking—modeled on the well-known Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) method—to a viewing condition during which only contextual information about the image was provided. Our findings showed that the viewing conditions that used VTS techniques directed the gaze more toward highly salient social cues (Animate elements) in artworks and complex imagery, compared to when only contextual information was provided. We furthermore found that audio cues also directed visual attention, whereby listening to a personal reflection by another person (VTS) had a stronger effect than contextual information. However, we found no effect of viewing condition on the personal resonance with the artworks and complex images when taking the random effects of the image selection into account. Our study provides a neurobiological grounding of the VTS method in the social brain, revealing that this pedagogical method of engaging viewers with artworks measurably shapes people’s visual exploration patterns. This is not only of relevance to (art) education but also has implications for art-based diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
More than meets the eye: Art engages the social brain
Janneke E. P. van Leeuwen, Jeroen Boomgaard, Danilo Bzdok, Sebastian J. Crutch and Jason D. Warren
Front. Neurosci., 25 February 2022
Sec. Perception Science
ABSTRACT
Here we present the viewpoint that art essentially engages the social brain, by demonstrating how art processing maps onto the social brain connectome—the most comprehensive diagram of the neural dynamics that regulate human social cognition to date. We start with a brief history of the rise of neuroaesthetics as the scientific study of art perception and appreciation, in relation to developments in contemporary art practice and theory during the same period. Building further on a growing awareness of the importance of social context in art production and appreciation, we then set out how art engages the social brain and outline candidate components of the “artistic brain connectome.” We explain how our functional model for art as a social brain phenomenon may operate when engaging with artworks. We call for closer collaborations between the burgeoning field of neuroaesthetics and arts professionals, cultural institutions and diverse audiences in order to fully delineate and contextualize this model. Complementary to the unquestionable value of art for art’s sake, we argue that its neural grounding in the social brain raises important practical implications for mental health, and the care of people living with dementia and other neurological conditions.
Closer collaborations between artists, (arts) educators and social cognitive neuroscientists are needed to investigate the materiality and experiential dimensions of art production and engagement and unpack big concepts like “aesthetic response” and “creativity”—to get at their neural building blocks so we can better understand them. But alongside the deconstruction and reductionism that neuroscience seeks, this process also needs reintegration, to capture our experience of art in the world at large. VTS, for example, offers a non-directive method to engage audiences with art from their personal perspective in a social setting and is ideally placed to further elucidate how art engages the social brain.
Anti thesis: Towards a doctoral framework for embodied artistic research
Janneke E.P. van Leeuwen (2020)
ABSTRACT
The traditional model of knowledge transfer in academia has for centuries been a written thesis. Embodied experiences have been discarded as an unreliable source of knowledge acquisition in Western societies.
In this essay I will argue the case for the inclusion of other dimensions of knowledge acquisition and transfer that artistic methods can tap into par excellence.
I will set out how embodied artistic research can engage with multimodal neural knowledge systems, drawing on novel insights from my research on the intersection of social neuroscience and visual art. Different elements of embodied artistic research will be contextualised in the Social Brain Atlas, which I have drawn based on the largest meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies on social cognition to date by Alcala-Lopez et al. (2017).
Using the ‘Creator Doctus’ pilot by the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam as a guiding example, I will discuss the unique requirements and challenges of creating a European doctoral framework for embodied artistic research programmes.
Especially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, investigating and redefining our deep entanglements with the physical world will be more urgent than ever. Advanced embodied artistic research could lead the way in these endeavours, counterbalancing the progressive shift towards the immaterial.
Seeing the bigger picture: Visual imagination and the social brain
Janneke E.P. van Leeuwen (2020)
ABSTRACT
The PhD thesis of Dr Janneke van Leeuwen describes multimodal aspects of visual imagination in relation to visual art and complex images, defining ‘visual imagination’ broadly as a dynamic of complex psychological processes that integrate visual information with prior experiences and knowledge to construct internal models of oneself, others and the outside world.
Complementary neuroscientific and artistic research methods were used to probe relationships between visual imagination and social brain functions in neurologically healthy young adults (age 20 – 30) and senior adults (age 50+). The research also included 14 case studies of senior adults (age 50+) living with various forms of dementia.
The research took place between the Wellcome Collection, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, and the Limehouse Art Foundation in London, UK, in collaboration with the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, NL.
Shaping open minds, 2nd edition (2018)
Shaping Open Minds explores the brain dynamics of perception, communication and the experience of visual art. Written for a broad audience and illustrated by striking drawings, it offers insight into how we make sense of the world.
While it’s easy to understand how verbal languages differ across cultures, we are far less aware how cultural and social context also influences the way we perceive things. Arts-based learning with Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) connects what we see to what we think and communicate and opens up our minds to different perspectives. Based on an extensive review of neuroimaging research, the case is made how VTS engages our brains in a way that benefits both cognitive development and social wellbeing.
Shaping Open Minds is available as Magazine and e-Book.