The Emerging Mind

Vilaynur Ramachandran
Ramachandran
Born in India (1951)
Neurologist
Professor in the Psychology Department and Neurosciences
Program at the USC, San Diego
Agenda
V. Ramachandrans research
The Artful Brain
Questions, discussion, applause
The Emerging Mind
Neurological disorders can have implications far beyond confines
of medical neurology humanities, philosophy, art?
Anomaly/curiosity Insight
Synesthesia
Ability to see numbers (or musical notes etc...) in colours
Affects 1 in 200 people
Due to cross-wiring between number and colour area in
brain due to genetic abnormality
The Artful Brain
Science = Universal principles
Art is celebration of human individuality and originality
opposite of the homogenising effects of science
Neuroaesthetics
10 universal laws of art
10 universal principles of art
1. Peak shift
2. Grouping
3. Contrast
4. Isolation
5. Peceptual problem solving
6. Symmetry
7. Abhorrence of coincidence
8. Repetetion, rhytm and orderliness
9. Balance
10. Metaphor
10 universal principles of art
1. Peak shift
2. Grouping
3. Contrast
4. Isolation
5. Peceptual problem solving
6. Symmetry
7. Abhorrence of coincidence
8. Repetetion, rhytm and orderliness
9. Balance
10. Metaphor
Peak shift
art...involves deliberate hyperbole, exaggeration, even
distortion, in order to create pleasing effects in the brain.
-Ramachandran
Peak shift
Explaining Picasso/Cubism
- Seagull sexy super beak
- artists know how to recreate the super
beak
- cells in fusiform gyrus respond to
individual faces
- neurons higher up respond to any view
of face (frontal vs. Profile)
Grouping
Grouping
Humans need to connect the dots
Vision evolved to discover objects and to defeat
camouflage
Example: primate ancestor hiding in tree from lion he
sees yellow fragments behind leaves and makes the
assumption that the yellow colour belongs to the lion he
links the colour fragments into one object! a-ha
moment limbic system RUN
Attention and arousal culminate in titillating the limbic
system
An artist tries to create as many a-ha signals in as many
visual areas as possible
Perceptual problem solving
Perceptual problem solving
Example: Chasing mate in dense fog/darkness you want
every partial glimpse of her to be pleasing and to prompt
further search/hunt so that you do not give up get to the
mating
Art of searching / solving puzzle is as pleasing as the final
a-ha moment!
The effort itself forms an essential component of the artistic
experience sense of achievement
Law of isolation
Less is more!
Law of isolation
Why is it not better to activate more areas of brain at the
same time?
Because: There can NOT be two overlapping patterns of
neural activity simultaneously
Bottleneck of ATTENTION
The nude outline (cave paintings) saves brain trouble!
Savant syndrome: ALL attentiontional resources allocated
to one part of brain (isolation)
Out, out brief candle
-Macbeth
Metaphor
Methaphor is an important component of art
Artists skillful at creating metaphors (Shakespeare)
An artist is 7 times more likely to suffer from synesthesia
Metaphor - Synesthesia
Numbers: Visual appearence (fusiform gyrus) + abstract concept of
sequence / number (Angular gyrus) Arabic numbers 5, 7 etc. vs
Roman numbers V, VII
Lower synesthete (numbers have colours): faulty gene in fusiform gyrus
Higher synesthete (days, months have colours): faulty gene close to
angular gyrus
In artists (maybe) the faulty gene is expressed more diffusely throughout
the brain. Not just in fusiform or angular gyrus HYPERCONNECTIVITY
More prone to metaphor ability to link seemingly unrelated things
Booba / Kiki?
Cross-modal abstraction
Kiki:
-visual shape: sharp
-auditory cortex: sharp
Cross-modal synesthetic abstraction
People with damage in angular gyrus cannot make shape-sound
associations
Progressive enlargement of angular gyrus in mammals (from lower
mammals to humans)
Opportunity hi-jacking (from tree-tops to metaphors)
-
Language
Cross-activation between sound / vision (booba / kiki)
Cross-activation between visual area and Brocas area (muscles of
vocation, phonation and articulation how we move lip, tongue and
mouth
Cross-activation between hand area and mouth area (Penfield
hommunculus)
Combined these all lead to emergence of primitive language
Questions?