 Cognitivism (aesthetics)

Aesthetic Cognitivism is a school of thought in film theory, literary theory and similar fields about the value of the arts that approaches them not simply (or not even) as sources of delight, amusement, pleasure, or emotional catharsis, but, instead, as sources of understanding.As philosopher Nelson Goodman put it in "Ways of Worldmaking" (1978), “the arts must be taken no less seriously than the sciences as modes of discovery, creation, and enlargement of knowledge in the broad sense of advancement of the understanding.” 

Cognitivism is a departure from methodologies that have dominated studies of art in the past, particularly in literary theory and film theory, which have not employed scientific research.