top of page

Neuroscience of Art Resources

The neuroscience of art is a growing field of interdisciplinary research whose scope encompasses questions about the nature of art, aesthetics, creativity, motivation, and value that emerge from a range of disciplines including empirical aesthetics, philosophy of art, cognitive neuroscience, perceptual psychology, affective neuroscience, art history, anthropology and neuromarketing, among others. The focus of this loosely defined body of research is the way classify, understand, and communicate through artworks and engage with natural and artificial aesthetic stimuli. 

Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics

​

International Arts+Minds lab

Johns Hopkins University

​

International Association for Empirical Aesthetics

​

The Art, Humanities, & Neuroscience Project

The Italian Academy

Columbia University

​

Vision and Art, Livingstone Lab

Department of Neurobiology

Harvard University

​

Brain on Dance, Social Brain in Action lab (SOBA)

Dr. Emily Cross, Ph.D.

ETH Zürich

​

​

Books (a representative sample)

​

  • ​Anjan Chatterjee, The Aesthetic Brain, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

  • Dennis Dutton, The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution,  New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009.

  • Margaret Livingstone, Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002

  • William P. Seeley, Attentional Engines: A Perceptual Theory of Art, New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

  • Gabrielle Starr, Feeling Beauty: The Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

​

  • David Huron, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.

  • Daniel J. Levitin, This Is Your Brain on Music,  New York: Penguin, 2007.

  • Isabelle Peretz and  Robert J. Zatorre (eds.), The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

​

  • Michelle Guerra and Vittorio Gallese, The Empathic Brain: Cinema and Neuroscience, New York: Oxford, 2015.

  • Arthur Shimamura, Psychocinematics: Exploring Cognition with Movies, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

​

  • Bettina Bläsing, Martin Puttke, and Thomas Schack, the Neurocognition of Dance: Mond, Movement, and Motor Skills, New York: Toutledge, 

​

  • Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen Cardillo (eds.), Brain, Beauty, and Art: Essays Bringing Neuroscience into Focus, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

  • Joseph P. Huston, Marcos Nadal, Francisco Mora, Luigi F. Agnati, and Camilo Jose Cela Conde (eds.), Art, Aesthetics, and the Brain, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

  • Arthur Shimamura & Stephen Palmer (eds.), Aesthetic Science: Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

​

​

​

bottom of page