Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Scientists believe that we respond to art primarily physiologically and only then we form an emotional response. Why is it important to study visual perception from a scientific point of view, and how do the characteristics of the visual system affect our understanding of visual art?

The eye is an incredibly complex organ. It is "the part of the brain that is peripherally located". The structure and functioning of the different levels of the visual system largely determine how we perceive works of art. Have you ever wondered how artists create the illusion of depth in space on canvas? What is the secret of Gioconda’s enigmatic smile and what enables an abstract painting to convey emotion? The answers to these and many other questions will be found during our meeting on 8 June.

Lecturer

Daria Podvigina graduated from the Faculty of Psychology at St Petersburg University in 2002 and started working at Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the same year. Since 2015, she has been Senior Research Associate at the Laboratory for Cognitive Studies at St Petersburg University (since 2020 — the Institute for Cognitive Studies at the University). Her main research interests are neurophysiological and psychophysiological mechanisms of visual perception and recognition of complex images. She is the author of more than 40 scholarly papers. In addition to her research activities, she teaches a number of courses at the Institute for Cognitive Studies and at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at St Petersburg University: lecture courses "Introduction to Life Sciences", "Human: Evolution, Culture, Behaviour", and others.

The meeting will be held online in Russian with simultaneous interpreting into Spanish.

Registration