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Contemplative neuroaesthetics and architecture: A sensorimotor exploration |
Zakaria Djebbara1,2(), Juliet King3,4, Amir Ebadi5, Yoshio Nakamura6, Julio Bermudez7 |
1. Department of Architecture, Design, Media, and Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark 2. Biopsychology und Neuroergonomy, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany 3. Art Therapy Department, The George Washington University, Washington DC, United States 4. Department of Neurology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, United States 5. Dellustration, Washington DC, United States 6. Pain Research Center, Division of Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Utah, United States 7. School of Architecture and Planning, The Catholic University of America, Washington DC, United States |
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Abstract This paper takes initial steps towards developing a theoretical framework of contemplative neuroaesthetics through sensorimotor dynamics. We first argue that this new area has been largely omitted from the contemporary research agenda in neuroaesthetics and thus remains a domain of untapped potential. We seek to define this domain to foster a clear and focused investigation of the capacity of the arts and architecture to induce phenomenological states of a contemplative kind. By proposing a sensorimotor account of the experience of architecture, we operationalize how being attuned to architecture can lead to contemplative states. In contrasting the externally-induced methods with internally-induced methods for eliciting a contemplative state of mind, we argue that architecture may spontaneously and effortlessly lead to such states as certain built features naturally resonate with our sensorimotor system. We suggest that becoming sensible of the resonance and attunement process between internal and external states is what creates an occasion for an externallyinduced contemplative state. Finally, we review neuroscientific studies of architecture, elaborate on the brain regions involved in such aesthetic contemplative responses, provide architectural examples, and point at the contributions that this new area of inquiry may have in fields such as the evidence-based design movement in architecture.
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Keywords
Neuropheno menology
Neuroaesthetics
Contemplative states
Architectural experience
Well-being
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Corresponding Author(s):
Zakaria Djebbara
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Issue Date: 28 February 2024
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