Mixing Memory

[First published on 1/22/05 at the old blog.]

Recall V.S. Ramachandran’s 10 principles of art.

  1. Peak shift
  2. Perceptual Grouping and Binding
  3. Contrast
  4. Isolation
  5. Perceptual problem solving
  6. Symmetry
  7. Abhorrence of coincidence/generic viewpoint
  8. Repetition, rhythm and orderliness
  9. Balance
  10. Metaphor

In the last post, I talked about the first three. In this post, I’ll discuss 4, 5, 6, 7, and 10.




Henry Matisse, “Icarus (Jazz).”

The third principle, isolation, refers to “the need to isolate a single visual modality before you amplify the signal in that modality” (from RH). RH use the example of an outline drawing (or something similar, like the Matisse above), arguing that it is more aesthetically pleasing than a photograph, because it isolates one visual modality, in this case form (think also of a Robert Morris or Ellsworth Kelly sculpture, or other works by minimalists), which allows for the allocation of more attention to that modality. They write:



As evidence for this principle, Ramachandran (here and here) uses as examples stroke patients and an autistic child named Nadia who have damage to most areas of their brain, but whose right parietal lobes are largely intact. In stroke patients who fit this description, artistic abilities that they had not previously had often develop suddenly. Nadia is severely retarded, but she is capable of producing vivid drawings that are far more sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing than other children her age. Ramachandran argues that this is because one of the right parietal lobe’s functions is artistic perception, and the ability to allocate all of one’s attention to this area (due to the fact that so many other areas of the brain are damaged) allows these stroke patients and Nadia to produce exceptional works of art. In fact, autistic savants, even those whose brains are not as severely damaged as Nadia’s, are often able to produce vidid works of art. RH argue that this is consistent with theories of autism in which the autistic mind tends to allocate all of its attentional resources to one channel, to the exclusion of others that may be relevant, as well as theories that argue that the lack of conceptual processing in autistics allows them to process visual information better.



[O]ne might predict that if you record from master ‘face cells’ in monkeys they might actually respond better to outline drawings than to half tone photos even though the latter have ‘more information’ (assuming that the masking by irrelevant attributes occurs earlier than the neuron’s response). The extra information is not part of the defining attribute of the face–only the outline is. Lastly if you obtain GSR (galvanic skin response) from humans or do non-invasive brain imaging you should see a bigger signal (either on the palm or in the fusiform brain area) for outline drawings of faces than would be the case with half tone photos– and an even bigger response if the drawing is also subjected to peak shift, caricature or exaggeration. (from Ramachandran’s interview).

I don’t know that anyone has conducted such experiments (if they have, they haven’t published them, which means they may not have worked), but the fact that Ramachandran is able to derive these predictions is indicative of the strength of the neuroaesthetic approach, and in keeping with its goals.



Vincent Van Gogh, “Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum.”

Perceptual Problem Solving




Marcel Duchamp, “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2.”



It’s well known that both facial1 and body2 symmetry are generally considered attractive, though the role of symmetry in attractiveness may not be as large as previously thought3.In fact, symmetry can give us a great deal of information about the environment, such as the presence of biological forms (which are usually symmetrical) and human-created artifacts. It’s not surprising, then, that we find symmetry appealing in art. RH write:




M.C. Escher “Up and Down.”

Abhorrence of Coincidence/Generic Viewpoint

The human visual system is a Bayesian deduction machine. There are Bayesian models of virtually every aspect of lower and higher-level vision (if you don’t believe me, go to any article database, and use the keywords Bayesian and vision). This means, among other things, that out of all of the possible interpretations of a particular visual input, the visual system will pick the most likely. This has two implications, which Ramachandran uses to formulate another principle of art: we prefer generic viewpoints, and we abhor coincidence. To understand the first part, the preference for generic viewpoints, consider the following two figures from RH:


As the caption notes, we automatically intepret Figure A as depicting one figure partially occluding another, instead of as the two objects in B. This is because, while there are multiple viewpoints from which the image in A might be produced through occlusion, the objects in B could only produce it from one viewpoint.

The next two figures from RH help to illustrate the “abhorrence of coincidence”:





While Ramachandran lists metaphor as a principle of art on all of his lists, he doesn’t really explain any neurological reasons for including it. He and Hirstein write:


I, however, think there are good reasons for including this as a principle of art that is based on fundamental cognitive principles. Therefore, everything I’m going to say here about metaphor is my own, and you should not blame Ramachandran for it.

Much like the visual system is designed to notice groupings, contrasts, and to be excited by exaggeration, our cognitive system is designed, at all levels (including the perceptual) to notice connections between inputs. You might say that we have “analogical minds.” It’s likely that in order to facilitate the search for such connections, finding them is itself rewarding, and thus may contribute to the pleasurable experience that many visual metaphors elicit. However, metaphor and analogy (of which metaphor is likely a special case) also allow the artist to activate a wide range of images, concepts, and experiences, sometimes vivid ones, which carry with them their own affective appeal. There is evidence, for instance, that poetry using vivid perceptual metaphors is more appealing than poetry using less vivid metaphors. One of RH’s examples illustrates this well. They write:


“Sucking” and “honey” are vivid perceptual images, and when combined with the strong emotions elicited by the concept of death, they produce a very intense experience in the context of Shakespeare’s story. Consider also Archibald MacLeish’s description of poetry, in which he uses the following metaphor:

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown–


A poem should not mean
But be.



  1. #1 agnostic
    July 18, 2006

    The only one I find getting stuck going down my digestive tract is the one on symmetry — many tests of artistic appreciation or art skill test how much one appreciates complex and asymmetric designs (like the Barron Walsh Art Scale). For instance, most Egyptian statues look boring because in order to emphasize symmetry, the statues are frozen solid, stiff. Most of the early Greek male & female statues are like this as well, although eventually they placed on foot forward, which broke up the symmetry somewhat and conveyed movement. The really interesting stuff came with the invention of the contrapposto sculpture (classical-era Laocoon, or Renaissance-era Michelangelo’s David) — it’s not symmetrical from any viewpoint.

    You could argue that the human form is still present, and it’s this symmetric thing that’s grabbing our attention, and as it requires mental rotation / re-orientation to detect the symmetry (unlike the easy-to-figure-out Egyptian statues), it’s doubly pleasurable. But like I said, even with abstract designs, the asymmetric is more appealing than the symmetric. It could be that asymmetry is a cue of movement, so this is really just tripping our motion detectors (again on the theory that they’re vigilant around potential predators).

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