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Empathy, engagement, entrainment : The interaction dynamics of aesthetic experience

Brinck, Ingar LU orcid (2018) In Cognitive Processing 19(2). p.201-213
Abstract
Empathy concerns the feeling of understanding others’ experiences from their perspective, and confronts you with the presence of a qualitative experience that you are not living through yourself. In aesthetics empathy has been conceived as bodily inner imitation. Taking a theoretical, interdisciplinary approach that merges insights from psychology, philosophy, and phenomenology within the dynamic framework, I develop an alternative account of empathy as embodied and enactive, and argue that aesthetic experience is grounded in entrainment and emerges in real time during episodes of emotional and material engagement between viewer and artwork. The interaction dynamics between viewer and artwork is organized relative to the viewer's needs and... (More)
Empathy concerns the feeling of understanding others’ experiences from their perspective, and confronts you with the presence of a qualitative experience that you are not living through yourself. In aesthetics empathy has been conceived as bodily inner imitation. Taking a theoretical, interdisciplinary approach that merges insights from psychology, philosophy, and phenomenology within the dynamic framework, I develop an alternative account of empathy as embodied and enactive, and argue that aesthetic experience is grounded in entrainment and emerges in real time during episodes of emotional and material engagement between viewer and artwork. The interaction dynamics between viewer and artwork is organized relative to the viewer's needs and interests as articulated in response to the aesthetic affordances of the context, and has the form of a motion-emotion loop that promotes continuous evaluation and sense-making. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
entrainment, Emotional engagement, aesthetic response, Aesthetic Judgement, Empathy, Dynamic systems, dynamic interplay, Phenomenological experience
in
Cognitive Processing
volume
19
issue
2
pages
13 pages
publisher
Springer
external identifiers
  • pmid:28391411
  • scopus:85017109243
ISSN
1612-4782
DOI
10.1007/s10339-017-0805-x
project
Matters of Art and Practice: In Dialogue with Things (RJ)
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
7e07aa67-c234-4207-a075-ad3a406128d1
date added to LUP
2017-02-02 15:55:23
date last changed
2022-04-16 23:03:21
@article{7e07aa67-c234-4207-a075-ad3a406128d1,
  abstract     = {{Empathy concerns the feeling of understanding others’ experiences from their perspective, and confronts you with the presence of a qualitative experience that you are not living through yourself. In aesthetics empathy has been conceived as bodily inner imitation. Taking a theoretical, interdisciplinary approach that merges insights from psychology, philosophy, and phenomenology within the dynamic framework, I develop an alternative account of empathy as embodied and enactive, and argue that aesthetic experience is grounded in entrainment and emerges in real time during episodes of emotional and material engagement between viewer and artwork. The interaction dynamics between viewer and artwork is organized relative to the viewer's needs and interests as articulated in response to the aesthetic affordances of the context, and has the form of a motion-emotion loop that promotes continuous evaluation and sense-making.}},
  author       = {{Brinck, Ingar}},
  issn         = {{1612-4782}},
  keywords     = {{entrainment; Emotional engagement; aesthetic response; Aesthetic Judgement; Empathy; Dynamic systems; dynamic interplay; Phenomenological experience}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{2}},
  pages        = {{201--213}},
  publisher    = {{Springer}},
  series       = {{Cognitive Processing}},
  title        = {{Empathy, engagement, entrainment : The interaction dynamics of aesthetic experience}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10339-017-0805-x}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s10339-017-0805-x}},
  volume       = {{19}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}