Experts and non-experts approach and interpret artwork differently. Experts rely more on formal elements like style, while non-experts consider personal experiences and emotions. Studies show experts have different brain activations than non-experts during art judgments. It is unclear if one can become an expert in creativity due to its subjective nature, though some research suggests creative expertise may develop from years of practice and feedback. While experts and non-experts differ in skills like photo cropping, these differences may not impact creative interpretations or aesthetic ratings of artwork. More research is needed to understand creative expertise.
Building Design Knowledge: Creating and Disseminating Design Precedentcolin gray
An invited lecture at Iowa State University on October 9, 2014. This talk focused on the role of design precedent and knowledge-building within the instructional design community, with specific guidance on preparing design cases for publication in the International Journal of Designs for Learning.
The progressive regional agenda for South America: the case of Mercosur and i...Gustavo Matiuzzi de Souza
This work aims at exploring the relation between Mercosur's political agenda on borders and the local interactions at these spaces in the light of the 'left turn' in South America (2002-2014). This brief conjuncture analysis found that the 'regionalism by the left' did not foster structural changes in Mercosur nor resolved issues of coordination necessary for the border, regionalization dynamics to leave the informal sphere in which they reside
Building Design Knowledge: Creating and Disseminating Design Precedentcolin gray
An invited lecture at Iowa State University on October 9, 2014. This talk focused on the role of design precedent and knowledge-building within the instructional design community, with specific guidance on preparing design cases for publication in the International Journal of Designs for Learning.
The progressive regional agenda for South America: the case of Mercosur and i...Gustavo Matiuzzi de Souza
This work aims at exploring the relation between Mercosur's political agenda on borders and the local interactions at these spaces in the light of the 'left turn' in South America (2002-2014). This brief conjuncture analysis found that the 'regionalism by the left' did not foster structural changes in Mercosur nor resolved issues of coordination necessary for the border, regionalization dynamics to leave the informal sphere in which they reside
Quienes vivimos en mayor vulnerabilidad y exclusión, así como quienes nos comprometemos a su lado, hemos comprobado una y mil veces que el derecho a la vivienda es clave para poder ejercer otros derechos (derecho a la seguridad, a no sufrir tratos degradantes, a la intimidad y la vida en familia, a la educación, a la sanidad, etc.). Sin vivienda no existes para la sociedad.
A partir de nuestra experiencia y reflexión marcamos 5 compromisos y 5 garantías que consideramos fundamentales para conseguir hacer posible el objetivo por el cual nos movilizamos: “Vivienda Digna para Todas las Personas”.
Our panel shares good practices and strategies from small to medium sized public libraries as well as academic libraries. With David Lee King, Digital Services Director, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library and Publisher, davidleeking.com
Jessamyn C West, Librarian & Technologist, Open Library http://librarian.net
Dr. Frank Cervone, Director of Information Technology, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago Lecturer, San Jose State University
For HeroConf: 4 Search Query Focused Techniques You Must Be Using in Your Sho...Impression
This session will guide you through advanced applications of search query filtering for Shopping campaigns. Discover 4 advanced ways to proactively use search queries to improve your ROI and explore how considering user intent, analysing product performance and utilizing RLSA audience targeting will open up new possibilities for advertisers to use search queries more effectively. You will learn:
The 4 techniques
Real-life examples of how the techniques have individually improved ROI of already successful Shopping campaigns
How to use the hidden AdWords column which matches product ID and search query data
Liam Wade
IMPRESSION DIGITAL
Comparing Two Types of Decision-making: When experts are better -- or notKerry Cunningham
This brief presentation explains the difference between naturalistic decision-making and the heuristics and biases perspective; briefly explains how the two are synthesized.
Shaping an Organization Responsive to ChangeDavid King
How should a library board respond to emerging trends and community changes? This presentation provides some ideas on how a board can help shape a library that is responsive to change.
HOW TO USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS ACQUISITION REPORTS TO KNOW WHERE PEOPLE ARE COMI...Joseph Rivera
Understanding the point of origin of your website visitors is a very powerful analytics. This is so because you will have a better idea where to spend your time and money. These social networking sites, search engines, or website referrals where your visitors originated from are helpful in planning your marketing tactics. The features of these points of origin will give you an idea about “how to” and “whom to” market your site and your products.
Having said all these, Google Analytics Acquisition Reports serves this purpose. It has the capacity of gathering a lot of data about how visitors discover your sites. In addition, its acquisition report gives you an insight as far as which online marketing strategies are driving the highest number of visitors to your website. Moreover, it tells you which one is the most qualified and converting leads.
Keeping with the behavior of visitors is always necessary. The behavior pattern must be studied carefully, and taken note of seriously if innovation in the social marketing platforms can lead to your success.
Contracts, RFPs, & Working with SuppliersDavid King
Have you ever had to write an RFP from scratch, work with vendors on a complex project, or even complain to a vendor about problems with their product? King shares the process his library goes through when choosing new technology and managing the project during installation. He also discusses effective ways to “get your voice heard” when something needs to change.
Technology Trends in Libraries - Today & TomorrowRachel Vacek
This presentation discusses the basic concepts of Web 2.0 and how they are being used in libraries. It provides examples of these concepts, and emphasizes that over the next several years, the concepts of Web 2.0 (collaboration, participation, tagging, community, etc.) will only grow, but the actual technologies themselves will change.
Do you know how to write for the modern, mobile, and interactive web? Our expert, King, discusses how to create a content strategy, how to write for the mobile web, and how to write content that makes customers respond. Blakiston talks about how to write more effectively for the digital user experience without jargon, overcomplicated instructions, and walls of unnecessary text. She highlights why good web writing matters, how users read online, how to define your audience and primary messages, and how to create good web writing by focusing on essential messages, creating a logical structure and format, using active voice, and cutting out what isn't necessary. Meyer discusses strategies to help make your library's website content easier for patrons to get the information they need faster, and easier for library staff to manage.
Implications for computation aesthetics, art market prediction and neuroaesthetics
...
Computational analysis, art market price modeling and generative modeling for visual arts with multidisciplinary approach consisting of neuroaesthetics, computational aesthetics, quant trading and deep learning.
Alternative download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gtass3pl7t5metx/visualArtsPredictionSystem.pdf?dl=0
CHAPTER 1Two Case Studies in Creativity Creative thinking brings a.docxwalterl4
CHAPTER 1Two Case Studies in Creativity Creative thinking brings about new things—innovations—ranging from solutions to simple puzzles and riddles to ideas and inventions that have radically altered our world. Creative people are those who produce such innovations, and the creative process consists of the psychological processes involved in bringing about innovations. Figures 1.1A and 1.1B give examples of some of the more impressive products of creative thinking. In Figure 1.1C are some simple exercises that might result in creative thinking on your part. If you had never seen those puzzles and riddles before, and if you solved one or more of them, then you were thinking creatively when you did so—you produced something new. In this book, we will consider the full range of creativity, ranging from solving simple puzzles to producing the seminal innovations shown in Figures 1.1A and 1.1B. We will examine a wide range of recent research on creativity, as well as theories that have been developed to explain the processes involved when people produce innovations. There are many reasons why creativity is a critically important topic for psychologists to understand. First of all, our world has been shaped by the products of creative thinkers. All of our modern conveniences—the telephone and other modes of communication, the automobile, the airplane, computers, and so forth—have been brought about through the creative work of inventors and scientists. Our healthy existences and our ever-longer lives are the result of scientific and medical advances, which are the result of creative thinking on the part of scientists in many domains. Much of the richness of our lives—art, music, drama, literature, poetry—is the result of artistic creativity. Society values greatly the products of creative thinking; we bestow honors, such as Nobel Prizes, on those who have produced such things, and the stories of their lives and accomplishments fill our history books and encyclopedias. By understanding how creative products are brought about, we may be able to increase the likelihood that innovations will occur, thereby making life better for us all. Figure 1.1 Examples of creative thinking (1937): A, DNA: The double helix; B, Picasso’s Guernica; C, Examples of problems In addition, creative thinking is also big business. Our largest and most prestigious corporations, as well as the largest government agencies, are constantly searching for ways to be more innovative, and they pay handsome fees to consultants who will help them achieve new levels of innovation from their employees. Institutions of higher education also take interest in teaching creative thinking. Many university business schools offer courses that are designed to provide business leaders—both those of the future and present-day ones who return for a refresher—with skills that will enable them to solve on-the-job problems. At the grassroots level, one constantly reads accounts of debates concerning the.
V.S. Ramachandran and William HirsteinThe Science of Art.docxjessiehampson
V.S. Ramachandran and William Hirstein
The Science of Art
A Neurological Theory of Aesthetic Experience
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 uni-
versals 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 sug-
gest that this principle explains not only caricatures, but many other aspects of art. Exam-
ple: 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 correla-
tions 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 enti-
ties 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 activa-
tion). Finally, given constraints on allocation of attentional resources, art is most appeal-
ing 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).
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 6-7, 1999, pp. 15–51
Correspondence: V.S. Ramachandran, Center For Brain and Cognition, Univ ...
Quienes vivimos en mayor vulnerabilidad y exclusión, así como quienes nos comprometemos a su lado, hemos comprobado una y mil veces que el derecho a la vivienda es clave para poder ejercer otros derechos (derecho a la seguridad, a no sufrir tratos degradantes, a la intimidad y la vida en familia, a la educación, a la sanidad, etc.). Sin vivienda no existes para la sociedad.
A partir de nuestra experiencia y reflexión marcamos 5 compromisos y 5 garantías que consideramos fundamentales para conseguir hacer posible el objetivo por el cual nos movilizamos: “Vivienda Digna para Todas las Personas”.
Our panel shares good practices and strategies from small to medium sized public libraries as well as academic libraries. With David Lee King, Digital Services Director, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library and Publisher, davidleeking.com
Jessamyn C West, Librarian & Technologist, Open Library http://librarian.net
Dr. Frank Cervone, Director of Information Technology, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago Lecturer, San Jose State University
For HeroConf: 4 Search Query Focused Techniques You Must Be Using in Your Sho...Impression
This session will guide you through advanced applications of search query filtering for Shopping campaigns. Discover 4 advanced ways to proactively use search queries to improve your ROI and explore how considering user intent, analysing product performance and utilizing RLSA audience targeting will open up new possibilities for advertisers to use search queries more effectively. You will learn:
The 4 techniques
Real-life examples of how the techniques have individually improved ROI of already successful Shopping campaigns
How to use the hidden AdWords column which matches product ID and search query data
Liam Wade
IMPRESSION DIGITAL
Comparing Two Types of Decision-making: When experts are better -- or notKerry Cunningham
This brief presentation explains the difference between naturalistic decision-making and the heuristics and biases perspective; briefly explains how the two are synthesized.
Shaping an Organization Responsive to ChangeDavid King
How should a library board respond to emerging trends and community changes? This presentation provides some ideas on how a board can help shape a library that is responsive to change.
HOW TO USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS ACQUISITION REPORTS TO KNOW WHERE PEOPLE ARE COMI...Joseph Rivera
Understanding the point of origin of your website visitors is a very powerful analytics. This is so because you will have a better idea where to spend your time and money. These social networking sites, search engines, or website referrals where your visitors originated from are helpful in planning your marketing tactics. The features of these points of origin will give you an idea about “how to” and “whom to” market your site and your products.
Having said all these, Google Analytics Acquisition Reports serves this purpose. It has the capacity of gathering a lot of data about how visitors discover your sites. In addition, its acquisition report gives you an insight as far as which online marketing strategies are driving the highest number of visitors to your website. Moreover, it tells you which one is the most qualified and converting leads.
Keeping with the behavior of visitors is always necessary. The behavior pattern must be studied carefully, and taken note of seriously if innovation in the social marketing platforms can lead to your success.
Contracts, RFPs, & Working with SuppliersDavid King
Have you ever had to write an RFP from scratch, work with vendors on a complex project, or even complain to a vendor about problems with their product? King shares the process his library goes through when choosing new technology and managing the project during installation. He also discusses effective ways to “get your voice heard” when something needs to change.
Technology Trends in Libraries - Today & TomorrowRachel Vacek
This presentation discusses the basic concepts of Web 2.0 and how they are being used in libraries. It provides examples of these concepts, and emphasizes that over the next several years, the concepts of Web 2.0 (collaboration, participation, tagging, community, etc.) will only grow, but the actual technologies themselves will change.
Do you know how to write for the modern, mobile, and interactive web? Our expert, King, discusses how to create a content strategy, how to write for the mobile web, and how to write content that makes customers respond. Blakiston talks about how to write more effectively for the digital user experience without jargon, overcomplicated instructions, and walls of unnecessary text. She highlights why good web writing matters, how users read online, how to define your audience and primary messages, and how to create good web writing by focusing on essential messages, creating a logical structure and format, using active voice, and cutting out what isn't necessary. Meyer discusses strategies to help make your library's website content easier for patrons to get the information they need faster, and easier for library staff to manage.
Implications for computation aesthetics, art market prediction and neuroaesthetics
...
Computational analysis, art market price modeling and generative modeling for visual arts with multidisciplinary approach consisting of neuroaesthetics, computational aesthetics, quant trading and deep learning.
Alternative download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gtass3pl7t5metx/visualArtsPredictionSystem.pdf?dl=0
CHAPTER 1Two Case Studies in Creativity Creative thinking brings a.docxwalterl4
CHAPTER 1Two Case Studies in Creativity Creative thinking brings about new things—innovations—ranging from solutions to simple puzzles and riddles to ideas and inventions that have radically altered our world. Creative people are those who produce such innovations, and the creative process consists of the psychological processes involved in bringing about innovations. Figures 1.1A and 1.1B give examples of some of the more impressive products of creative thinking. In Figure 1.1C are some simple exercises that might result in creative thinking on your part. If you had never seen those puzzles and riddles before, and if you solved one or more of them, then you were thinking creatively when you did so—you produced something new. In this book, we will consider the full range of creativity, ranging from solving simple puzzles to producing the seminal innovations shown in Figures 1.1A and 1.1B. We will examine a wide range of recent research on creativity, as well as theories that have been developed to explain the processes involved when people produce innovations. There are many reasons why creativity is a critically important topic for psychologists to understand. First of all, our world has been shaped by the products of creative thinkers. All of our modern conveniences—the telephone and other modes of communication, the automobile, the airplane, computers, and so forth—have been brought about through the creative work of inventors and scientists. Our healthy existences and our ever-longer lives are the result of scientific and medical advances, which are the result of creative thinking on the part of scientists in many domains. Much of the richness of our lives—art, music, drama, literature, poetry—is the result of artistic creativity. Society values greatly the products of creative thinking; we bestow honors, such as Nobel Prizes, on those who have produced such things, and the stories of their lives and accomplishments fill our history books and encyclopedias. By understanding how creative products are brought about, we may be able to increase the likelihood that innovations will occur, thereby making life better for us all. Figure 1.1 Examples of creative thinking (1937): A, DNA: The double helix; B, Picasso’s Guernica; C, Examples of problems In addition, creative thinking is also big business. Our largest and most prestigious corporations, as well as the largest government agencies, are constantly searching for ways to be more innovative, and they pay handsome fees to consultants who will help them achieve new levels of innovation from their employees. Institutions of higher education also take interest in teaching creative thinking. Many university business schools offer courses that are designed to provide business leaders—both those of the future and present-day ones who return for a refresher—with skills that will enable them to solve on-the-job problems. At the grassroots level, one constantly reads accounts of debates concerning the.
V.S. Ramachandran and William HirsteinThe Science of Art.docxjessiehampson
V.S. Ramachandran and William Hirstein
The Science of Art
A Neurological Theory of Aesthetic Experience
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 uni-
versals 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 sug-
gest that this principle explains not only caricatures, but many other aspects of art. Exam-
ple: 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 correla-
tions 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 enti-
ties 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 activa-
tion). Finally, given constraints on allocation of attentional resources, art is most appeal-
ing 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).
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 6-7, 1999, pp. 15–51
Correspondence: V.S. Ramachandran, Center For Brain and Cognition, Univ ...
Poetry explication essay - Orozco 1 Poetry Explication Essay Edgar .... Here is an example of an explication. Example Of Explication - Printable Templates Free.
This presentation includes a brief introduction to theory, strategies, and examples of visualization and visual
pedagogies that promote collaborative learning, followed by conversation and activities designed to illustrate the
meaning-making; deeper levels of learning; and dynamic interaction elicited within visual approaches to the curriculum.
Presented at the Sloan-C 14th Annual International Conference on Online Learning
November 7th, 2008
AESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE AND AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN CHILDRENijejournal
How do children experience music, art, emotions, and beauty? Is aesthetic potential in children innate or
acquired? Do children understand the world around aesthetically? Is aesthetic experience a developmental
process? How can teachers provide students with opportunities to experience aesthetics for cognitive,
social, cultural, and psychological development? These are some of the fascinating questions in the field of
contemporary aesthetic education. This paper presents what is aesthetic experience and how it enriches the
lives of children. Children should be exposed to fine arts and support from teachers will help them to find
meaning in fine arts. Visual arts curriculum will help children in cognitive development by continuously
constructing new knowledge and integrating it into existing knowledge. Curriculum designed to teach
aesthetic experience should incorporate both art viewing and art making. Aesthetic experience integrates
mind, body, and emotion. It can induce personal growth in children, and it is intrinsically satisfying.
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Analysis Assignment 1 (35 pts) DUE DATE 03.09.22
Part 1: Cinematic Space: An Existential Analysis
Utilizing Juhani Pallasmaa’s readings as a foundation for your exploration and analysis, explore
the following ideas (and others) as they have been applied to cinema, and to the specific films
that we’ve viewed to date. Outline your own ideas and conclusions…
(select two films - approximately 700+ words each)
-Existential Elements
-Layered Meaning
-Poetic Imagery and Considerations
-Authenticity (how the film maintains the sense of reality)
Note:
Additional Reading: Koeck, Richard; Cinematic Spaces in Architecture and Cities.
Chapter 3: Existential and Experiential Notions of Space (additional readings may also apply).
Part 2: Map out a Spatial Sequence Analysis
Break down a sequence of your choosing from one specific film that you’ve selected in Part 1, in
a diagram in thorough detail. Map out the scene, or rather give a tour of the space from a high
angle shot (aka; a rendition on a floor plan). Note: you cannot select a film that you’ve already
been assigned for the weekly class review.
Part 3: Written Narrative of Sequence Analysis
Discuss how the interior architecture/design and furnishings (+ color/material/pattern/finishes)
become crucial elements to the narrative of the film. Explain how the maps/diagrams of your
sequence analysis break down a scene in detail, and how that relates to both the film and
filming techniques in the scene and the film in general. Note, this is less an exercise in narrative/
plot, but more exercise about movement through space.
Written sequence analysis should include:
-around 700 words
-how movement through the space impacts the plot/atmosphere
-how it works as a space that was shot in a single location
-how the interior (or other) space effects the plot/characters/action
-what spatial qualities can you relate to interior design thinking
-why you chose this sequence
Spring 2022
Introduction to Art Chapter 5: Finding Meaning 56
Chapter 5: Finding Meaning
How We See: Objective and Subjective Means
Up until now we’ve been looking at artworks through the most immediate of visual effects: what
we see in front of our eyes. Now we can begin to break down some barriers to find specific
meaning in art, including those of different styles and cultures. ...
1. “Could you do that?”
Differences in artistic expertise and creative expertise
4261303
PSYC3052
2. “Could you do that?”
Differences in artistic expertise and creative expertise
“I could have done that,” is a common phrase tossed around in art galleries by lay-
people when encountering modern art. Over the past century there has been a shift away from
content driven art (e.g. landscapes, still life, and portraiture) towards art movements
exploring aesthetic elements (e.g. cubism, expressionism, and minimalism). Recently the
trend is towards individual artists developing unique styles and focusing on concepts over
content (Augustin & Leder, 2006). As art shifts towards concept and style the division
between experts and non-experts becomes wider. So the questions arises: How does one
become an expert in interpreting modern art?
Kahneman and Klein (2009) explain the process of acquiring expertise involves an
environment that is regular enough to be predictable combined with sufficient practice at
learning these regularities. As pieces of artwork belong to a particular art movement, which
are reliably located within a particular period of time the domain of art history does meet the
requirement of a regular environment. Though artists may develop different styles and can
produce very different bodies of work throughout their career, overall they maintain unique
and reliable markers that signal an individual style. Therefore it is a realistic assumption that
people can study these artworks, receive almost immediate feedback as to the accuracy of
their judgements and develop expertise in this field.
Researchers into artistic expertise have investigated the difference between experts and
non-experts in terms of categorising artworks. They found that non-experts were more likely
to use personal experiences, emotions, and content to group paintings while experts relied on
the elements of style (Augustin & Leder, 2006; Hekkert & Wieringen, 1996; Hershler &
Hochstein, 2009; Mulas, Troffa, & Caddeo, 2012). Arts experts may not be able to explain
exactly why one picture is dada and the other surrealism – they just know. In explaining
3. expertise Kahneman and Klein (2009) speak about intuition and the role it plays. In his book
‘Thinking, fast and slow’ Kahneman applies an anthropomorphic description to the mind,
describing two characters: System 1 and System 2. System 1 is automatic and effortless. It
does not require a conscious decision to be activated and is responsible for much of what we
call “intuition”. System 2 is more effortful. It is what we think of when we think of
“ourselves” and our subjective experiences. (Kahneman , 2011, p. 20). He explains the
development of expertise within this System framework. By repeated exposure of judgment
and feedback pairings, memories are formed. System 1 locates these memories automatically
upon seeing a stimulus (an artwork) and presents a response (a judgement of the artwork).
Kahneman also describes the bias of System 1 to substitute easier questions for harder ones
(Kahneman, 2011, pp. 97-99). In the case of judging art (especially modern art, where
content falls secondarily to style and concept) a non-expert can substitute the easier question
of ‘how does this make me feel?’ while an expert who has the background of many years
studying the differences between artists styles and techniques does not.
In terms of specific aesthetic judgements, Leder, Belke, Oeberest, and Augustin (2004)
proposed a five stage process of cognitive analysis which non-experts and experts engage
differentially. The first stage is Perceptual Analysis where people focus on what they can
perceive. This includes taking in aesthetic elements such as contrast, colour, and symmetry.
The second stage is Implicit Memory Integration which happens beneath consciousness and
involves scanning for associative memories. These first two stages are carried out by System
1 and any judgements made here can be affected by biases such as the mere-exposure effect
(we like things we are more familiar with) (Kahneman, 2011, p66) and cognitive ease (we
like things that are easier to process) (Kahneman, 2011, p60). Experts will have different
associative memories collected from years of feedback within art history and will be able to
recognise prototypical pieces that fall within a category. The third stage is the deliberate
4. System 2 process of Explicit Classification which is affected by the differential categorisation
techniques used be experts compared to non-experts. The final stages are Cognitive
Mastering and Evaluation. These two function within a feedback loop, as fully evaluating the
artwork requires a deeper understanding which in turn affects evaluation. It is at these stages
that non-experts use substitution to replace the complex questions involved in deeper
interpretation with easier questions based on personal experience. In terms of modern art this
difference is very important, as it requires conceptual interpretation, not just affective
interpretation, which only experts engage in.
In order to explain the differences between experts and non-experts there have been
several fMRI studies showing art experts have different activation in neural structures
compared to non-experts during art judgement tasks. These structures are primarily related to
perception and memory (Kirk, Skov, Christensen, & Nygaard, 2009; Panga, Nadalb, Müller-
Paulc, Rosenbergd, & Kleine, 2013). Kirk et al., (2009) compared architecture experts to
non-experts revealing that experts had greater activation in particular areas of the brain
(subcallosal cingulate gyrus and medial orbito-frontal cortex (OFC)) when making
judgements of buildings. Previous research suggests that the OFC is engaged when decision
making based on stimulus reward is required – i.e. when making aesthetic judgements about
something that gives you pleasure (Bechara, Damasio, & Damasio, 2000, as cited in Kirk et
al., 2009).
Other research into expert versus non-expert categorisation of artworks have confirmed
that there is a difference between experts and non-experts in this domain (Augustin & Leder,
2006; Hekkert & Wieringen, 1996; Hershler & Hochstein, 2009; Mulas et al., 2012). Yet this
is looking at art from one side; from the side of the viewer. It is a specific type of expertise
that can be taught. Most of the research into art-expertise has been carried out on art
academics who have studied the facts about art movements and artists. Within the same
5. realm, there is a completely different type of expertise; that of the visual artist themselves.
This comes back to the common overheard statement of ‘I could do that’. Could you? Is
visual art technique considered expertise? Is the artist who can paint photo-realistically more
of an expert than the artist who executes a complex idea in a simple visual form? These
questions are more difficult to answer within the framework of existing expertise research.
If expertise is a product of a stable predictable environment and sufficient opportunities
to practice it should follow that to become an expert in a creative field you would simply
need to practice being creative while receiving reliable feedback. However, creative pursuits
aren’t nearly this simple. Simonton (2000) analysed creative expertise and described how
while it is acceptable for an athlete to hone a performance again and again, for an artist to
produce the same work multiple times would not result in favourable feedback.
Does this mean that you cannot be a creative expert? Or is creative expertise somehow
different to other kinds of expertise? His research into opera composers addresses how much
experience leads to expertise, whether this experience needs to be domain specific, and what
the developmental progression to creative expertise entails (Simonton, 2000). Simonton
found that previous musical experience did account for the level of artistic expertise
composers possessed. However it didn’t appear to make a difference how prolific a composer
was. This suggests it is not the number of operas written, but the amount of time put into
creative musical endeavour (practicing music, listening to music, thinking about music etc)
that leads to expertise. He suggests that experience does not need to be domain specific and
that by tackling different disciplines the artist broadens their scope of thinking and problem
solving. From Kahneman’s System perspective, this is likened to seeing alternative outcomes
and thus avoiding the common bias of ‘what you see is all there is’ (Kahneman, 2011, pp. 85-
88). Simonton suggests the progression of creative expertise is an inverted U shape where
creativity declines at a certain point. It appears that creativity increases if a composer has
6. been working for a number of years, but a greater number of operas composed can have a
negative impact. This is opposite to what we find in other areas of expertise where expertise
is cumulative. Simonton suggests it is the number of years the artists has had to think about
past successes and failures, and not the actual number of successes that is important. This
could be an outcome of the long time required to ponder an idea creatively before acting upon
it. Another explanation is that the artist has had the opportunity to gather more feedback from
the last artistic endeavour. Further research into the inverted U progression of creativity is
needed.
Simonton’s findings suggest that there is the ability to become a creative expert; at least
in the realm of opera composers. However other researchers have not found significant
differences between experts and non-experts in artistic expertise. For example Lazreg and
Mullet (2006) explored what rules people used to judge the aesthetic pleasantness of colour
and form combinations and what differences arise between experts and non-experts. They
used the Functional Theory of Cognition (Anderson, 1981, as cited in Lazreg & Mullet,
2006) which involves two processes: valuation and integration. During valuation perceptions
of the stimulus are transformed into a psychological representation. This process is impacted
by the goal of the participant. If the goal is to take pleasure in the aesthetic form then the
information will be transformed into a “subjective representation” of that pleasure. In terms
of System theory this is akin to intensity matching where System 1 will automatically replace
one scale with another (Kahneman, 2011, p. 94). The second process is integration, where the
participant uses the information from valuation to generate a response. So a participant will
perceive a colour and react based on their subjective interpretation.
Lazreg and Mullet were expecting experts to make more complex judgements about
form and colour than non-experts who would make simple additive judgements involving one
element (either form or colour). However, they found little differences between experts and
7. novices. Both made equally complex judgements and, when prompted, were unable to
articulate how they made these judgements, suggesting intuition in the task. Other studies
have found that humans generally have levels of expertise simply from repeated experience
in our daily lives (McKone, Kanwisher, & Duchaine, 2007). Experiencing colour and form
may be a global human type of expertise and not one restricted to those who have artistic
training.
Another study into artistic ability explored expertise in relation to photo-cropping as
this task involves a complex understanding of composition (McManus et al., 2011). The
study compared the cropping abilities of experts and non-experts and found differences in the
way the two groups approached the task. Experts took longer to crop the images and were
more likely to keep the cropping window still while non-experts moved it around searching
for the best composition. Experts also spoke more while doing the task and were more likely
to refer to the formal rules of composition while non-experts commented on the content of
the photograph. There was also a noticeable difference in the outcomes of the cropped
images, with experts choosing more dynamic compositions. However, these differences had
no effect on the aesthetic ratings of the photographs. So while this study reveals a difference
between the way experts and non-experts engage in photo-cropping it does not suggest they
gained any advantage from a creative perspective.
The area of research into creative expertise is still small, and currently has contrasting
results. It is clear there is a difference in the way experts and non-experts make judgements
about art. This has arisen in both behavioural and neurological studies. What isn’t clear is
whether it is possible to develop expertise in creativity. The subjective and fluctuating nature
of creativity makes it a difficult environment to predict and therefore may not be suitable for
developing expertise. An artist may have technique and artistic skill in order to become an
expert, in photo-cropping for example. Yet being an expert in these skills does not appear to
8. predict how creatively a piece will be interpreted. Returning to our indignant gallery-goer,
scoffing at the piece of modern art. Could they have done that? Probably not. The artist who
created it has spent years learning the skills to put it together. But a new question arises, is
this artwork the result of creative expertise? The current research does not have an answer yet
and further investigation is encouraged.
9. References
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spaces. Psychology Science, 48(2), 135-156.
Hekkert, P., & Wieringen, P. C. W. v. (1996). The impact of level of expertise on the
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