Art, like language, is a unique feature of human behavior. Here I present a biologi
cal account for the evolution of artistic behavior in humans. To do this, I first utilize
the idea of “four questions” formulated by Tinbergen in classical ethology. By that, I
point out the importance to deal not only proximate causes but also ultimate causes of
artistic behavior, because such an approach enables an inclusive treatment of classical
and contemporary arts. I then submit a dimensional theory of art, which is inspired
from the dimensional theory of emotion. The dimensional theory of emotion accounts
for the perception of facial expressions in terms of the two dimensions, the valence and
the arousal. Likewise, the dimensional theory of artistic behavior tries to identify the
axes by which the product of art is evaluated. I suggest that aesthetic, arousal, and
social dimensions are necessary to account for art. In this schema, art is a process of
finding a new niche in the 3-dimensional art space.

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Creative activities are becoming increasingly important in modern society. Studies
have been conducted to promote understanding and support of creative experts in var
ious creative domains such as art, music, science, and technology. At the same time, it
has also been pointed out that many ordinary citizens do not have opportunities to par
ticipate in creative activities and do not have knowledge about creative processes and
methods. Does this mean that citizens should be just consumers of creative products?
In this paper, we claim that a creative society needs not only creative experts who
professionally participate in creative activities, but also ‘people with creative literacy’
who understand creative activities and enjoy participating in such activities in their
daily life. We discuss practices to cultivate people’s understanding of and motivation
for creative activities, and the ways that cognitive science can contribute to the support
of such practices.

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A Noh mask, carved out of wood, is often said to be a byword for impassivity.
However, a Noh mask expresses various emotions during traditional Japanese Noh per
formances. A Noh mask that looks upward expresses happiness, while a mask looks
downward expresses sadness. Nevertheless, previous studies reported the opposite re
sults: people recognize pictures of masks with upward inclinations as being sad, whereas
masks with the larger downward inclinations were perceived as happy. This absurdity
seems to be occurred partly due to something realized in Mona Lisa’s smile. Livingstone
(2000) pointed out that we cannot directly see Mona Lisa’s smile. Her smile appears
only when we look at her eyes with seeing her mouth peripherally. A recent empirical
study confirmed that this peripheral vision for smile makes a face more mysterious than
a neutral or continuously smiling face. I will argue that a smiling mouth of Noh masks
with downward inclinations makes a Noh mask mysterious during Noh performances,
because hardly Eastern Asia people look at a mouth when they judge facial expressions (i.e., people see a mouth only peripherally). In experimental settings, people look at a
mouth of a Noh mask directly, that causes the oppsite results from those expected in
the framework of Noh world. I will also discuss similarities and differences between a
Noh mask and “Hello Kitty”, which is a fictional character that also expresses countless
facial expressions without a mouth.

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When producing a new series of artworks, how does the artist form an art concept?
In order to capture this formation process, we conducted a case study of a contempo
rary artist. We interviewed the artist about his creation process once per three weeks
for about ten months. During that period, in order to develop his art concept, the
artist first drew his ideas on paper and then took photographs to collect visual infor
mation. After these two phases, he began the hands-on creation of the artworks. As
he discovered the core part of his new art concept during the photography phase, we
analyzed the photographs and interview data collected during this phase. The results
show that the visual information collected through the photography led to his discovery
of sub-components of his art concept.

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Manga is a visual art consisting of still images, words, and various symbolic rep-
resentations. “Speed lines” are type of the symbolic representation in manga. They
are typically depicted as several lines placed on the opposite side of the direction of
motion. Although readers of manga can empirically estimate the motion direction of
objects with speed lines, few studies have experimentally examined the perception of
speed lines. We hence investigated spatial attention arising from speed lines by using a
pre-cuing technique (Posner, 1980). For example, if speed lines placed on the left side of
a depicted object induced a rightward motion perception, then spatial attention to the
right should be enhanced. A total of thirty university students who have read manga
before participated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, we employed schematic balls
with or without speed lines as cues and measured reaction times for three different
conditions. Target stimuli were presented on the opposite or the same side of the speed
lines across the balls in the congruent and incongruent conditions, respectively. In the
neutral condition, the schematic balls without speed lines were used as cues. Reaction times were found to be shorter for the congruent condition than the incongruent
and neutral conditions. In Experiment 2, schematic balls with four figures instead of speed
lines were used as cues in order to elucidate the particularity of the speed lines. Reac-
tion times were shorter for the congruent and incongruent conditions than the neutral con-
dition, and did not differ significantly between the congruent and incongruent conditions. These results indicated that spatial attention toward the direction of motion
corresponding to manga artists’ intention was aroused by speed lines. Therefore, we
conclude that adults who read manga can perceive the motion direction of objects with
speed lines.

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The creation of a work of art is indicated to result from expressive awareness,achieved
as the artist matches images and methods. This study examined how novices, who tend
to produce artistic expressions reproductively, acquire such expressive awareness over
several weeks of practice of photography. We conducted case studies with two con-
ditions: 1) one participant took photographs and reflected on her own work; 2) one
participant imitated eminent works of creative expression in the domain and reflected
on her own work. The results showed that the participants acquired expressive aware-
ness in both conditions, but the scope of the expressive awareness was different. The
participant who practiced only reflection on her own work started to focus on precise
methods of expression, while the participant who practiced imitation as well as reflec-
tion started to produce creative expressions and tried consciously to control her creative
processes. The findings of this study are potentially useful for developing educational
practice in art schools.

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Music induces a wide range of emotions. However, the influence of physiological
functions on musical emotions needs further theoretical considerations. This paper
summarizes the physical and physiological functions that are related to musical emo-
tions, and proposes a model for the embodied communication of musical emotions based
on a discussion on the transmission of musical emotions across people by sharing move-
ments and gestures. In this model, human with musical emotion is represented with
(1) the interfaces of perception and expression (senses, movements, facial and vocal
expressions), (2) an internal system of neural activities including the mirror system
and the hormonal secretion system that handles responses to musical activities, and
(3) the musical emotion that is enclosed in the internal system. Using this model, mu-
sic is the medium for transmitting emotions, and communication of musical emotions
is the communication of internal emotions through music and perception/expression
interfaces. Finally, we will discuss which aspect in music functions to encourage the
communication of musical emotions by humans.

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It is known that naïve viewers have “reality constraints” in art appreciation, namely
strong tendency to insist on identifying depicted object and its realistic expression in
the artwork. Relaxing the reality constraints might help the naïve viewer to appreciate
artworks in more creative way. In this paper we investigated whether reading com-
mentary on artwork helps appreciation and what kind of commentary is more effective.
Fifty college students without particular art education participated in an experiment.
The participants were assigned to one of four conditions. The experiment consisted of
two phases: preliminary appreciation phase and main appreciation phase. In the pre-
liminary appreciation phase, three groups of participants were presented paintings by
Renoir, Matisse and Klee, and made free descriptions on their thoughts on each paint-
ing. Along with each of painting, a commentary on objects depicted in the painting was
provided to participants in object commentary condition, a commentary on formal and
technical aspects of the painting was provided to formal commentary condition, and
no commentary was provided no commentary condition. No preliminary appreciation
condition skipped the preliminary appreciation phase. After the preliminary apprecia-
tion phase, all the participants were presented two paintings by Gogh and Kandinsky
without any commentary and made free description. Analysis of free description in
main appreciation phase showed that (1) reading commentary activated verbalization
during the appreciation, (2) the participants generally focused on what was depicted
in the painting, (3) reading commentary on technical aspects was more effective for
relaxing reality constraints and deepening the experience of paintings.

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According to Meyer, musical emotion is elicited by deviations from musical expecta-
tion. We assume such deviations as a musical complexity. In this study, we focused
on the structure of melodies, and created complexities built in either or both types
of structures: one made of notes and the other made of grouping hierarchic elements,
which we called level 1 structure and level 2 structure. We conducted a psychological
experiment revealing relationships between emotion and musical complexities. Par-
ticipants assessed musical emotions (GEMS-9) and feeling that something is wrong as
sensory psychological quantity of complexities. As the results of ANOVAs, we found
that destructions of both level 1 structure and level 2 structure effected feeling that
something is wrong. Moreover, destructions of level 2 structure effected tension, sad-
ness,andtranscendence of musical emotions. These results indicate that manipulating
destructions level of musical structure might control specific musical emotions.

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