Dyutiman Mukhopadhyay

This is a brief conceptual analysis of the limitations of scientific empiricism, which I have attempted to convey without relying too much on the scientific or philosophical jargon commonly used by experts—though I acknowledge the fact that ‘the truth’, as Oscar Wilde once said, ‘is rarely pure and never simple’. A while back, a psychic experiencer invited me to comment on his thesis concerning the reality of spiritual/psychic experiences. Through his lifelong, painstaking research, he sought scientific evidence—particularly from psychology, psychoanalysis, and cognitive neuroscience—to substantiate the reality of psychic phenomena. My attempt to respond is elaborated in this discussion note. Keywords: 'scientific' empiricism; faith; evidence; spirituality; psyche

EEG signal analysis is a powerful technique to decode the activities of the human brain. Emotion detection among individuals using EEG is often reported to classify people based on emotions. We questioned this observation and hypothesized that different people respond differently to emotional stimuli and have an intrinsic predisposition to respond. We designed experiments to study the responses of participants to various emotional stimuli in order to compare participant-wise categorization to emotion-wise categorization of the data. The experiments were conducted on a homogeneous set of 20 participants by administering 9 short, one to two minute movie clips depicting different emotional content. The EEG signal data was recorded using the 128 channel high-density geodesic net. The data was filtered, segmented, converted to frequency domain and alpha, beta and theta ranges were extracted. Clustering was performed using a novel recursive-split and merge unsupervised algorithm. The data was analyzed through confusion matrices, plots and normalization techniques. It was found that the variation in emotive responses of a participant was significantly lower than the variation across participants. This resulted in more efficient participant-based clustering as compared to emotive stimuli-based clustering. We concluded that the emotive response is perhaps a signature of an individual with a characteristic pattern of EEG signals. Our findings on further experimentation will prove valuable for the progress of research in cognitive sciences, security and other related areas.

In this work, we construct functional networks of the human brain using the coherence measure on the EEG time-series data, in response to external audio-visual stimuli. These stimuli were nine different movie clips selected to evoke different emotional states. The constructed networks for each emotion were characterized using network measures such as clustering coefficient, small worldness, the efficiency of information propagation, etc. in different frequency bands corresponding to brain waves. We used a community detection algorithm to infer the segregation of functional correlations in the brain into modules. Further, using the variation of information measure, we compare and contrast the modular organizations of different brain networks. We observe that the different brain networks are closest in their organization into modules in alpha frequency band while they farther apart in other bands. We identified crucial network nodes or hubs using centrality measure, and find that most of the hubs were common for all networks and belong to a specific location on the brain map. In summary, our work demonstrates the utilization of the network theoretical and statistical tools for understanding and differentiating different brain networks corresponding to the perception of varieties of emotional stimuli. Keywords: Brain networks · Functional connectivity · Modular organization · Hubs

Visual, audio, and emot ional perception by human beings have been an interesting research topic in the past few decades. Electroencephalography (EEG) signals are one of the ways to represent human brain activity. It has been shown, that different brain networks correspond to processes corresponding to varieties of emotional stimu li. In this paper, we demonstrate a deep learning architecture for the movie identification task from the EEG response using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The dataset includes nine movie clips that span across different emot ional states. The EEG time series data has been collected for 20 participants. Given one second EEG response of particular participant, we tried to predict its corresponding movie ID. We have also discussed the various pre-processing steps for data cleaning and data augmentation process. All the participants have been considered in both train and test data. We obtained 80.22% test accuracy for this movie classification task. We also tried cross participant testing using the same model and the performance was poor for the unseen participants. Our result gives insight toward the creation of identifiable patterns in the brain during audiovisual perception.

Aesthetic delight is a unique and paradoxical psychological experience of simultaneous emotional exaltation and a state of serenity towards a percept when an individual experiences the percept with the approach of an art-experiencer or artist. The primary drawback of neuro-scientific investigation of art is that it fails to trace the functional coherence of the entire process of generation of aesthetic delight. At least two recent seminal works by Vessel et al., and Cela-Conde et al., tried to resolve this deficiency using two different neuro-imaging techniques (fMRI and MEG respectively) and assessed the relevance of the Default Mode Network (DMN) of the brain in the generation of aesthetic pleasure. However, their works are yet to precisely highlight what primarily separates aesthetic experience from similar psychological experiences. This article formulates the ‘dual phase oscillation’ hypothesis based on the neural correlate of the paradox of aesthetic delight, explaining the precise logic behind linking aesthetic delight and DMN activity. The hypothesis focuses on two seemingly paradoxical unique attributes of aesthetic delight: the phenomenon of suspension of disbelief (SOD) whereby the person experiencing art temporarily suspends the belief of surface reality and the phenomenon of introspective detached contemplation whereby the same person, while experiencing the same art, reflects on the artistic phenomenon and is simultaneously aware of the surface reality. The hypothesis proposes that aesthetic delight is the dynamic, oscillatory balance between SOD and introspective detached contemplation and is orchestrated by the functional coherence of the DMN. The article integrates the two previous works with the fundamentals of this proposal and thus offers a unique neuro-psychological solution to the problem of aesthetic paradox. Keywords: aesthetic delight; suspension of disbelief; introspective detached contemplation; Default Mode Network; ‘dual phase oscillation’ hypothesis

The dual phase oscillation (DPO) hypothesis recently proposed by Mukhopadhyay (2014), is based on the neural correlate of aesthetic paradox; the paradox referring to a state of simultaneous heightened emotional experience and a state of detached composure during art appreciation. The hypothesis proposed that aesthetic delight is the dynamic, oscillatory balance between Suspension of Disbelief (SOD) and Introspective Detached Contemplation (IDC) and is orchestrated by functional coherence of the Default Mode Network (DMN) of the brain. This article is an extrapolation of the concepts of the DPO hypothesis which here is theoretically integrated with the experience of the art form of film. In film, an important functional aspect of SOD, in addition to other central elements, is the suppression of the literal identity of the performer in the narrative performance and an overall suspension of the awareness that the art form is staged. Docu-fiction film, a developing genre in contemporary filmmaking, attempts to capture documentary reality while simultaneously introducing fictional elements in the narrative. The article proposes that in docu-fiction film, the SOD-IDC dynamics of both a fiction film and a documentary film operates oscillating in a bigger scenario and the preconceived mindset of the audience cannot offer a stable expectancy regarding the genre of the film which introduces the element of ambiguity. Thus docu-fiction film-making exploits the unique attributes of the art form of film (by portraying verisimilitude as well as imaginative abstraction and fiction) at its fullest following the DPO hypothesis. Keywords: DPO hypothesis; aesthetic paradox; Suspension of Disbelief (SOD); Introspective Detached Contemplation (IDC); fiction film; documentary film; docufiction film

The definition of ‘Archetype’ typically refers to an original which has been imitated. The origin of the concept of Archetype in the traditional sense of the term refers to the primitive, universal perceptual imprint – a theory that dates back to Plato. The idea of the archetypal image is conceptually integrated with the aesthetics of visual arts and discussed under the guise of widely researched equivalent terms. The philosophical and scientific propositions on the concept of Archetype with reference to visual arts tended to have a neurological constitution even from ancient times. Starting from the 1990s, a radical outlook emerged in the field of cognitive aesthetics in the form of ‘neuroaesthetics’ which shows a significant potential in dealing with the problem of construction of the symbolic system in visual arts. Does the represented image of an aesthetically appealing artwork have structured within it the roots of an archetype? Is it innately constructed? And finally, is there at all any difference between pattern recognition among humans and other animals and the philosophical descriptions of Ideal, Form and Archetype? The review tries to interpret the developments. Keywords: Archetype; Ideal; Form; Pattern recognition; Neuroaesthetics

This study used multi-faceted behavioural and quantitative experimental measures to explore observations of paintings of celebrated 19th-century Indian painter Raja Ravi Varma, widely accepted as the father of Indian modern art. The study tried to trace the different aspects of a subject’s emotional and perceptual involvement with his work of art using the emotion classification system in Indian aesthetics based on the Rasa theory. Rigorous analysis was performed to investigate seven hypotheses on art perception and emotion with forty Ravi Varma paintings featuring 15 different subjects. We looked at various factors like the complexity and entropy of composition, perception based on eye-tracking, art-experience, creativity, familiarity, and emotional reactions. The human eye-tracking data was compared with heat-maps generated through image analysis software. The research provides crucial information about the complex nature of aesthetic experiences and highlights certain limitations of current empirical aesthetics in decoding the subjective experience of art.

I see you not from your face I see You, from—Me. As a scientist, I am interested in how humans respond to constructs of representations and reality—to know more about the world outside and the world within. However, beyond the sheer joy of artistic expression, every intellectual pursuit has, for me, eventually faltered—like the blind man trying to see an elephant. The pretence of scientific authenticity, which is actually a coping strategy to conceal modern science’s limitations, often leads to an existential crisis which many great scientists have admitted to suffering from even at the peak of their careers (Newton, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Grothendieck, and Gödel to name a few). I am nowhere near these giants and fortunately, my disreputable indifference to scientific empiricism and my passion for the arts have saved me from this contagious crisis. This book is a selected collection of my poems and photo essays anchored in the paradox of detached passion (Sanskrit: Anāsakta Anurāga). Dream, desire, longing, separation, love, lust, death, illusion, obsession, delusion, faith, fate, and liberation—their inherent contradictions and commonalities—are my primary motifs.

This is a brief review of the Rasa theory of Indian aesthetics and the works I have done on the same. A major source of the Indian system of classification of emotional states comes from the ‘Natyasastra’, the ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, which dates back to the 2nd Century AD (or much earlier, pg. LXXXVI: Natyasastra, Ghosh, 1951). The ‘Natyasastra’ speaks about ‘sentiments’ or ‘Rasas’ (pg.102: Natyasastra, Ghosh, 1951) which are produced when certain ‘dominant states’ (sthayi Bhava), ‘transitory states’ (vyabhicari Bhava) and ‘temperamental states’ (sattvika Bhava) of emotions come together (pgs.102, 105: Natyasastra, Ghosh, 1951). This Rasa theory, which is still widely followed in classical Indian performing arts, classifies eight Rasas or sentiments which are: Sringara (erotic), Hasya (comic), Karuna (pathetic), Raudra (furious), Vira (heroic), Bhayanaka (terrible), Bibhatsa (odious) and Adbhuta (marvellous). There was a later addition of the ninth sentiment or Rasa called Santa (peace) in later Sanskrit poetics (pg.102: Natyasastra, Ghosh, 1951). According to ancient Indian aesthetics (especially in the context of Bharatas’ ‘Natyasastra’, Anandavardhana’s ‘Dhvanyaloka’ and Abhinavagupta’s ‘Abhinavabharati’), ‘Rasa’ is the relishable state of elemental human emotions called ‘Bhavas’. Bharata’s ‘Natyasastra’ originally spoke of eight Rasas. The concept of the 9th Rasa was a later interpolation by the Kashmiri Shaivist Abhinavagupta (10th Century AD) and also his predecessor Anandavardhana (9th Century AD). Abhinavagupta extends the eight Rasas by adding the concept of the Santa Rasa which he regards as the essence of all Rasas. It is this 9th Rasa which according to Abhinavagupta lets the Rasika attain the aesthetic detachment and savour the essences of all other Rasas and therefore the true aesthetic delight. The introduction of 9th Rasa integrates the concepts of Bharata’s Rasasutra and Patanjali’s Yoga theory – the detachment necessary to introspect inwards into the inherent state of freedom and bliss (aesthetic consciousness).