EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Dr. Eileen Cardillo, cognitive neuroscientist and Associate Director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, discusses her research interests and career path. From her early childhood encounters with chimpanzees and a fascination with what makes humans unique in the animal world to a career in cognitive neuroscience, Dr. Cardillo explains how she realized that studying the brain was essential for understanding the human mind, leading her to pursue a career in science. Eventually focusing on linguistics, Dr. Cardillo’s recent work is at the intersection of aesthetics and moral concepts.
Dr. Carillo shares her research journey from studying language to focusing on neural mechanisms of aesthetic experience, particularly through her work at the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics. Her team develops a vocabulary to study aesthetic experiences, using both behavioral studies and fMRI data to understand how people perceive and respond to art. She emphasizes that while some thinking occurs pre-linguistically, language can help articulate otherwise ineffable aesthetic experiences, and her team uses a statistical approach to map how different words related to aesthetic experiences cluster together.
Neurosetics, a field combining neuroscience and aesthetics, has emerged in the last two decades alongside brain imaging technology, with many foundational questions still unanswered. Dr. Cardillo discusses how she, along with her mentor, and now colleague, Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, along with their team, takes an interdisciplinary approach to neuroaesthetics. Collaborators from art history, neuroanthropology, and other fields help determine clear research questions. The center’s team meets weekly to brainstorm and refine research ideas, with projects falling into three domains: people (focusing on beauty and morality in face perception), spaces (aesthetic experiences in the built environment), and things (art engagement outcomes).
Dr. Cardillo also discusses her experience as a scientist who appreciates the creative aspects of scientific work, emphasizing the intersection between science and art. The center’s artist-in-residence program, for example, provides insights into the creative process and demonstrates the shared human capacity for creativity across different fields.
Of particular interest is beauty, which is often described as a property of objects, but also as an experience or feeling. Dr. Cardillo is interested in how beauty can be found in both human creations and virtuous actions; cognitive neuroscience can help test these seemingly different accounts of beauty. For example, scientific research could investigate how often and in what contexts the word “beautiful” is used. Results of scientific investigation into beauty may help us learn how to heighten people’s sensitivity to beauty and its potential effects on their lives.
Dr. Cardillo also generously shares stories from her own life in connection with attempts to balance academic work with life as a single parent. With support from her colleague and mentor, Anjan Chatterjee, Dr. Cardillo has worked through remarkable challenges in her personal life.
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