A Generalised Semantic Cognition Account of Aesthetic Experience

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Electronic versions

Documents

DOI

Given that aesthetic experiences typically involve extracting meaning from environment, we believe that semantic cognition research has much to offer the field of neuroaesthetics. In the current paper, we propose a generalised framework that is inspired by the semantic cognition literature and that treats aesthetic experience as just one example of how meaning accumulates. According to our framework, aesthetic experiences are underpinned by the same cognitive and brain systems that are involved in deriving meaning from the environment in general, such as modality-specific conceptual representations and controlled processes for retrieving the appropriate type of information. Our generalised semantic cognition view of aesthetic experience has substantial implications for theory development: it leads to novel, falsifiable predictions and it reconfigures foundational assumptions regarding the structure of the cognitive and brain systems that may be involved in aesthetic experiences.

Keywords

  • Aesthetic appreciation, Neuroaesthetics, Semantic cognition
Original languageEnglish
Article number108288
JournalNeuropsychologia
Volume173
Early online date9 Jun 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 13 Aug 2022

Total downloads

No data available
View graph of relations