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Paul Bloom: How Pleasure Works — Transcript

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0:08thank you very much um and I'm I'm very
0:11grateful to the humanities festival for
0:12having me here and for the Spencer
0:14foundation for supporting this this talk
0:16this means a lot I'm delighted to be
0:19here um you very
0:23well I'm delighted to be here is that
0:30could we make this a little bit darker
0:31if possible thank you um a few years ago
0:35the art critic James Elkins put ads in
0:38newspapers and magazines asking people
0:41to send him uh stories about paintings
0:44that made them cry and he put together
0:46these stories in this wonderful book
0:48pictures and tears now some of the
0:51stories that Elkin recounts make sense
0:54people describe being brought to Tears
0:56by the sort of paintings that depict
0:59things that they would see them for real
1:01would make them cry so may many people
1:03were brought to Tears by Picasso's gica
1:06which uh depicts the pain and tragedy of
1:09War um sometimes these paintings had
1:12personal resonances so an English
1:14Professor wrote to Elkins and described
1:16a painting that his wife did of an empty
1:19bed and a few weeks after she completed
1:21this painting uh she left him for
1:23another
1:26man it's not that funny um and
1:30and and then and then he's looking at
1:32the painting one day and he thinks about
1:33it he begins to cry and those are
1:35perhaps you know moving stories but
1:37there's no Puzzles there but some of
1:40Elkin's respondents said things that
1:43were very puzzling the paintings that
1:45made most people cry were in this
1:47building in a chapel in Houston Texas
1:50and they were the paintings of Mark
1:52Rothco which are giant purplish black
1:55canvases people would describe sitting
1:57on those benches over there looking at
1:59the painting things and weeping that's
2:01kind of a puzzle a different sort of
2:04puzzle but related I think is a more
2:06positive emotional responses elicited by
2:09paintings this is a painting by Ed rusa
2:12it's called talk about space it has the
2:14word space written on top in yellow and
2:17a a yellow line at the bottom and
2:19somebody must have liked this very much
2:21because they paid $3.5 million for it
2:24and this is kind of a puzzle too what is
2:26it about this sort of thing that could
2:27elicit this much regard this much this
2:30much liking um Modern Art is filled with
2:33such puzzles the most important the the
2:37the the art critics were asked a few
2:39years ago to nominate the most important
2:41artwork of the last century and it was
2:42this it was Marcel duchamp's Fountain
2:45which is one of the most important and
2:47influential and and in some way beloved
2:49artworks of our time but to many people
2:52it looks a lot like a urinal and and
2:55it's kind of puzzling how this could
2:56have its exalted status and of course
2:58Modern Art is filled with such examples
3:00there's Damian hurst's cows and faly uh
3:04there's um a recent piece by Tom fredman
3:07which is a piece of paper uh mounted on
3:10a canvas and it's called a thousand
3:12hours of staring and it's called that
3:15because Tom Freedman looked at this
3:16piece of paper for a thousand hours and
3:19this is again an important and and very
3:21expensive
3:23artwork these are puzzles of art that
3:25I'm interested in now these are puzzles
3:27that arise with more modern pieces but
3:29the same sorts of puzzles I think emerge
3:32with more traditional
3:34pieces this is a painting known as the
3:36supper atas and in the 1940s when it was
3:40thought to be painted by Johan vermier
3:42it was worth millions of dollars it was
3:45perhaps literally Priceless it was in
3:46Holland um and it was one of the most
3:48renowned paintings in Europe people
3:50would travel through Europe to see it
3:53until one terrible day when it was
3:56discovered that it was not painted by
3:58vermier at all but by the great forger
4:00van migren in other words it was
4:02discovered it was not this painting but
4:05that
4:06painting and all of a sudden its value
4:09dropped to nothing in fact I grew
4:12curious as I was writing my book um what
4:15happened to the forgery because it
4:16wasn't in that museum anymore so I did
4:19extensive research I I Googled it and
4:22and I and I and I found out that it was
4:24actually in a small Museum in Greenwich
4:26Connecticut which was about an hour away
4:27from my house so I got together at a
4:29family we drove up one weekend and I'm
4:31in the museum and I'm facing that
4:33artwork which was used to have guards
4:35around it so vandals wouldn't destroy
4:37and it was in a museum that was
4:38essentially empty with nobody around
4:40nobody watching it and I had this
4:42fantasy of grabbing it picking up and
4:44running to my minent throwing it back
4:46and driving home but if I did that the
4:49headline would not be you know greatest
4:52art theft of all time it would be
4:54deranged Professor Steel's worthless
4:57painting what what happened into it to
5:00make it lose value how do we explain
5:03these phenomena well there's an answer
5:05to this that many uh experimental
5:08economists and psychologists and
5:10evolutionary psychologists propose and
5:13that this is Flim
5:14Flam and this was nicely summarized um
5:17by Steven Pinker so Pinker writes in how
5:20the mind
5:21works Arts engaged not only the
5:24psychology of Aesthetics but the
5:25psychology of
5:27status modern and postmodern works are
5:29intended not to give pleasure but to
5:31confirm or confound a theories of a
5:33guild of critics and analysts to epit LA
5:35bouris or to baffle the Rubes and
5:39Peoria and what He suggests following a
5:42lot of work in sociology that what these
5:45artworks are people don't really like
5:46them rather they're conspicuous displays
5:49of wealth and discernment any can
5:52get pleasure from a beautiful painting
5:54but for me to spend a fortune on say a
5:56perfectly white canvas shows that a I'm
5:59very rich and B I can see things that
6:01normal people cannot and so and so
6:04Pinker wonders whether this can explain
6:06all of the mysteries of Modern Art and I
6:10think there's some truth to this I think
6:11some to some extent these social factors
6:14of status do affect how we perceive art
6:18and how we value art but what I want to
6:20try to convince you in this presentation
6:21is that this is not the whole story I
6:24want to try to convince you there's
6:25something else going on something that
6:27psychologists have called essential ISM
6:30and the idea of essentialism is we don't
6:33just focus on superficial aspects of
6:35things rather we look deep we are
6:39obsessed with origin and history this is
6:42natural Universal
6:44hardwired um and
6:47irresistible and I want to suggest that
6:49this explains much of the pleasure we
6:51get from art but also from sex food and
6:53the rest of life now I got interest in
6:57this from my work uh in developmental
7:00psychology with babies and young
7:01children and I was originally interested
7:04in a certain specific puzzle of art
7:06which is how do children name artworks
7:09how do they name representations how do
7:11they name pictures what determines what
7:13they call them now we know for adults
7:16the story is complicated for adults we
7:19often name things based on all sorts of
7:21factors that don't have much to do with
7:23what they look like um my favorite
7:25examples here are from Picasso's work so
7:28um this is a portrait and anybody in the
7:30know will tell you it's a portrait of
7:31Gertrude
7:32Stein now famously it doesn't look at
7:35all like Gertrude Stein in fact one of G
7:38there's a story probably apocryphal of a
7:40friend of gertrud Stein going up to
7:42Picasso and saying this looks nothing at
7:44all like Gertrude and Picasso says it
7:48will
7:51um but but but we know it's ger saying
7:54because he intended it to be of her
7:55similarly we know this woman is a woman
7:58and and one of caso's lovers not because
8:01of any particular physical resemblance
8:03but because we know that's what he
8:05intended to depict we know that for
8:07adults we could reason something can be
8:09a picture of something else even if it
8:10doesn't look like it so long as we can
8:12infer that the artists wanted it to be
8:15that now what about
8:18children um this is true for an adult
8:20walking through a museum but do young
8:22children had the same sort of powers and
8:24if you read the psychology textbooks
8:26they'll tell you they don't the standard
8:28line by developmental psychologists
8:30which the sort of stuff I would present
8:32in my own lectures was for young
8:34children pictures are name based on what
8:36they look like if something looks like a
8:38bottle it's a bottle if something looks
8:40like a person it's a person um now they
8:43become sophisticated more adultlike
8:45later on in life but much later probably
8:47as a result of schooling and
8:49culture and this makes a lot of sense
8:51but there's one problem with it and this
8:53is children's own drawings this is my
8:56son my younger son Zachary and Zachary
8:58would do a lot of dra drawing and I
9:00noticed something very odd which is he
9:03would do the drawing and then he would
9:05name the pictures he drew but his names
9:08had no connection to what his pictures
9:11look like so here's here's one of his
9:13paintings and I asked him what's that
9:15and he said it's an
9:16airplane but it did not resemble an
9:19airplane and it's not just Zachary um
9:21this is from um this is from a book by
9:24Marine Cox this wonderful book called
9:26children's drawing I'll read you the
9:28caption mummy by Gareth aged 4 years 7
9:31months this figure seems to have no body
9:33and the limbs protrude from the head now
9:36there was no accompanying picture of
9:38Garrett's actual mother but but
9:42presumably although this Bears some
9:44resemblance to a person it doesn't
9:46particularly look like any person in
9:47particular so what made it his mother
9:51what made it mummy what made Zachary's
9:53painting airplane and the idea I
9:55explored this is in collaboration for a
9:56graduate student of mine now at
9:58University of Washington Lori markson we
10:01explored the idea that for children just
10:03like adults the intention of the artist
10:06can determine what a picture represents
10:07and what it should be called so we then
10:09embarked in a series of experiments to
10:12explore this so for instance in one set
10:14of experiments we asked three and four
10:16year-olds to draw four pictures we asked
10:19them to draw a picture of a balloon a
10:21lollipop themselves and the
10:24experimenter and the logic of this was
10:27children that age can't draw well enough
10:29to draw something that looks that
10:30balloon that looks different from a
10:31lollipop or one person from another so
10:35if they name them based on what they had
10:37intended them to be they couldn't be
10:39doing so on the basis of appearance and
10:41in fact that's exactly what we found um
10:44if the child intended the top picture to
10:46be a balloon she'd call it a balloon if
10:48she intended to be a lollipop she'd call
10:50it a lollipop if the bottom picture was
10:52a picture of herself she'd say that's me
10:54if it was a picture of somebody else
10:56she'd say that's you um we also found
10:59the same effect with their naming of
11:01drawings of other people so we would
11:03have a situation um you would be the
11:05child here we'd be closer but you'd be
11:07the child and and in between us would be
11:10like a fork and a spoon and I would
11:12stare intently at one of the objects and
11:14draw a picture and then show it to you
11:17now this study was and then say what is
11:19this now this study was actually
11:21deceptive because um the uh the picture
11:25was actually pre-drawn to look
11:27intermediate between a fork and a spoon
11:29what we find is for young children also
11:31for adults but even for young children
11:32in another study even for two-year-olds
11:35what they'll call this depends on where
11:36I was looking when I drew it if I'm
11:38looking at the spoon they'd say that's a
11:40spoon if I'm looking at a fork they'd
11:41say that's a fork and this study and
11:44other studies suggest that even for kids
11:46when we name art the intention of the
11:48artist matters not merely what the art
11:50looks like and so going back to the idea
11:52of essentialism we are to some extent
11:54essentialists when it comes to how we
11:56talk about
11:57artwork but um we look
12:01deep I wondered though is this also true
12:04for pleasure do we also look deep when
12:07determining what we like for for does
12:09does this depth of of perception affect
12:12our preferences for one artwork versus
12:15another again the consensus is no the
12:18consensus is there's a simpler way to
12:20understand why we like art and I think
12:22the Simple Theory has some merits to it
12:25so The Simple Theory goes like
12:27this artwork gives pleasure to the
12:29extent it mimics the perception of nice
12:31look at real world
12:32objects so for whatever reason people
12:35like to look at fruit we like to look at
12:37fruit but you can't always have fruit
12:40around when you need it so you you get a
12:43picture like this and um and you look at
12:46it and it kind of reminds you of fruit
12:49and you're happy because it's sort of a
12:50fruit
12:52substitute anyway that picture there um
12:55and in fact this has some explanatory
12:58Merit because the sort of pictures we
13:00like in the real world are things like
13:02Landscapes and attractive people
13:04children animals plants and social
13:06occasions the sort of things we like to
13:08look at um in art are the same things we
13:10sort of like to look at in the real
13:11world I don't want to shock anybody but
13:14this is a theory that actually works I
13:16think best for
13:17pornography so for whatever reason we
13:20like to look at attractive naked people
13:22but you can always have attractive naked
13:24people around when you need
13:26them so so what what you do is you find
13:29a two-dimensional representation of an
13:31attractive naked person um you could do
13:34it like a picture or a painting or I'm
13:36told internet has pornography on it um
13:39so you go to Google Images you type an
13:41attractive naked person what what comes
13:43up on the screen is pleasurable to the
13:46effect that it mimics upon you the
13:48impression as if you were looking at a
13:49real person it's reality light it's a
13:52substitute and I think this theory has
13:54some merits it was explored and somewhat
13:57sazed in an experiment by two experiment
14:00in in a an artistic piece by two Russian
14:03performance artists named comar and
14:06melamid and they wanted to use what they
14:08call the methods of science to determine
14:10the Most Wanted painting in America so
14:13they hired a polling company to pull a
14:15thousand one Americans and ask Americans
14:17what they like to see in paintings turns
14:19out Americans like traditional Styles
14:22Landscapes and other outdoor scenes
14:24water um wild animals children
14:29historical figures and the color of
14:32blue and they put this all together into
14:35one magnificent painting which I'm about
14:36to show you now which is the most Wanted
14:38painting in
14:39America and for those of you sitting in
14:41back that's George Washington there
14:45um now now their their intention was
14:50satirical but I want to tell you a few
14:51things about this first thing it's a bit
14:54dark in this room but it's actually when
14:55you see if you go on the web you can see
14:56a full to a full extent it's a fairly
14:58attractive painting it does look kind of
15:00good second they redid this experiment
15:03in many other countries like Kenya and
15:05Japan and Switzerland uh and Poland and
15:10all sorts of places around the world and
15:12the pictures the Most Wanted paintings
15:13across all these countries turn out to
15:15be kind of the same supporting the idea
15:18of a universal aesthetic finally this is
15:20the sort of thing that if you were to
15:22that looks good probably because if you
15:23were come across it in the real world
15:25you would get some pleasure for it from
15:27it and again it's sort of fits with the
15:29idea that that art gives us pleasure
15:32because of its mimicry because it
15:34because it it it affects us as if it was
15:37a real
15:38thing but we also know that that can't
15:41be the whole story and we know that
15:42can't be the whole story for many
15:44reasons it can't be the whole story
15:45because we get pleasure from art that
15:48doesn't mimic the sort of things we like
15:49to see in real life we get pleasure in
15:52art such as the work by Jackson Pollock
15:55which many of us get great pleasure from
15:56but it doesn't mimic anything it's not a
15:58real representation of anything directly
16:00in any obvious sense in the real world
16:03um another problem of this theory was
16:05presented by Aristotle in a poetic so
16:08Aristotle writes the sight of certain
16:10things gives us pain but we enjoy
16:12looking to most exact imitations of them
16:14whether the form of animals which you
16:15greatly despise or of corpses now you
16:18might not agree with Aristotle's
16:19examples but the point is a good one
16:21which is we sometimes like to look at
16:23something in art that we wouldn't want
16:26to look at in the real world um when I
16:29was in Madrid there was a a gorgeous
16:31painting of Saturn devouring his child
16:33and it's this gigantic painting and I
16:35was transfixed by it it was beautiful
16:37but of course if I left the museum was
16:39walking back to my hotel and saw this on
16:41the street I would not be pleased it's a
16:43sort of thing which is lovely in a
16:45painting not so lovely in the real world
16:48and
16:49finally you have the case of forgeries
16:52so you have the case were something
16:53which was when it was thought to be by
16:55vermier this was a Priceless Masterpiece
16:58when the discovered to be by Van migran
17:00it became virtually worthless yet the
17:02painting struck the eye in the same way
17:04whatever changed wasn't what it looked
17:07like or what it resembles what changed
17:09was how we thought about it so how do we
17:12explain these sort of puzzles of
17:15artistic pleasure I think the answer
17:18again is essentialism I think we look
17:20deep we are obsessed with origin and
17:21history so when it comes to
17:23Art what we like is powerfully
17:26influenced by our belief about what it
17:29is we're looking at how it was created
17:31who created under what circumstances and
17:34so on this theory is not original to me
17:37it was defended by many other people
17:39including the philosopher Arthur Danto
17:41and Danto says something interesting
17:42Danto says you might think this is
17:44something very strange about art that
17:47we're so obsessed with who did it is it
17:49an original is it a forgery but Danto
17:52says you know in fact this is more
17:53General this applies to pleasure more
17:55generally um so he writes part of sexual
17:58ual pleasure is surely to believe that
18:00one is having it with the right partner
18:02or at least the right sort of
18:04partner he says the same thing about
18:06food um the food may turn to ashes in
18:09one's mouth the moment one discovers the
18:11belief to be false the belief that
18:13you're eating a certain thing say that
18:15as pork if one is an orthodox Jew or
18:17beef if one is a practicing Hindu or
18:19human if one is like most of us and
18:21because he's a careful philosopher he
18:23parenthetically adds however good we
18:25might in fact
18:26taste I like his examples of sex and
18:29food and I want to start off with them
18:32these are stimuli that I've used in some
18:33of my experiments and in absence of any
18:36other information people judge this to
18:37be a fairly attractive man and a fairly
18:39attractive
18:40woman but what we also know is how
18:43attractive you find these characters is
18:45critically determined by who you think
18:48you're looking at if you were to
18:50discover that the person on the left was
18:53female instead of male or the person on
18:55the right was male instead of female it
18:57would affect your sexual and romantic
19:00response it would affect your response
19:02as well if you were to learn that one of
19:03them was much older or much younger than
19:06they look um it would affect it to a
19:10great extent if you were admiring one of
19:13them perhaps with some sexual feeling
19:15and then you discovered that this was
19:16your brother or sister in some sort of
19:18Disguise or your child um it would have
19:21an effect on you because knowing that
19:23someone is a relative shuts off sexual
19:26desire typically like that you could
19:28just still say look they're attractive
19:30but the sexual feelings will go away we
19:32know from several laboratory studies
19:34that the more you like somebody the
19:37better off they look to you so if you
19:39ask people in a happy marriage how
19:42attractive your spouse is and they
19:43filled it out anonymously in a happy
19:46marriage people think their spouses far
19:48more attractive than other people think
19:49their spouses because in a happy
19:51marriage they love their spouse and
19:53think the world of them so they look
19:55better to them it also matters which
19:59specific individual you think they are
20:01and there's a broader Point here we fall
20:04in love with and we're attracted to
20:05specific people not just appearances um
20:09George Bernard Shaw put it quite nicely
20:11love is a gross exaggeration of the
20:13difference between one person and
20:14everybody
20:17else and I want to illustrate this with
20:20two examples one of them very esoteric
20:23the other one I think more common the
20:24esoteric one comes from a neurological
20:27disorder known as CGR
20:29syndrome copass syndrome it's fairly
20:31rare but it's been attested many times
20:33is a tragic disorder where due to
20:35something like a brain injury or a
20:38stroke people develop a specific
20:41delusion and the delusion is that the
20:43people they love the most in the world
20:46have been replaced with perfect
20:47duplicates if you had capg grass
20:49syndrome a 100 years ago you might
20:51assume these duplicates were demons or
20:54Monsters if you have it now you might
20:56assume that the duplicates are you know
20:58foreign spies or
21:00robots the result of capg grass syndrome
21:03is typically tragic people have murdered
21:05their relatives believing them to be
21:07imposters but in at least one case capg
21:10grass syndrome had a happy ending and
21:13this was in a case reported in
21:141931 researchers described a woman with
21:17capg grass syndrome who complained about
21:19her poorly endowed and sexually
21:20inadequate lover but that was before she
21:23got capg grass syndrome then she was
21:26happy to report she has discovered that
21:28he possessed the double who was rich
21:30veral handsome and
21:32aristocratic she was looking at the same
21:35guy of course but believing he was
21:38different guy caused her to think about
21:40about uh him differently there's a
21:42there's a play by Isaac bashevis Singer
21:45that turns around this it involves this
21:47guy who's a total schlam and he's he's
21:49fallen out of love with his wife he
21:51looks at her and he's unmoved nothing
21:53just doesn't care about her frustrated
21:55he leaves he's going to discover a whole
21:57new new land he away from his town but
22:00he gets confused and he gets lost being
22:02a schlam and he ends up walk turning
22:05around and walking right back into his
22:07old town he believes however he has
22:09encountered a new land where people just
22:11so happen to look like all the people he
22:13had left behind he sees his wife he's
22:16powerfully aroused by the sexy new woman
22:18and Falls passionately in love with her
22:21the second case um was actually and and
22:24this I know Wendy Doner spoke at this
22:26Festival a few days ago um this is is
22:28called the bed trick and I also think it
22:30illustrates the effects of belief on
22:33sexual and romantic desire the bed trick
22:35is a term coined by Shakespearean
22:37Scholars to describe something which
22:39happens over and over again in
22:41Shakespeare's plays which is when you
22:43find yourself in bed with somebody who
22:45is not who or what you thought they
22:48were um and Doner summarizes the bedrick
22:53was a a has been a cause of concern
22:56through every literary tradition every
22:58culture every religion people are
23:01obsessively worried about making that
23:03sort of mistake um one particular
23:06version of the bed trick is the the
23:08Panic some straight men have of finding
23:11themselves in bed with somebody they
23:12believe to be a woman but who's actually
23:14a man but the bed trick shows up in also
23:17manifestations the Hebrew Bible has
23:19several bed tricks at its core um
23:22including one where Jacob um believes he
23:25is going to bed on a marital night with
23:28with Rachel but Rachel's father switches
23:31his daughters and there's a lovely
23:32passage in the Bible and it came to pass
23:35it in the morning behold it was Leia for
23:38the people had been switched and this
23:40matters to
23:41us food how many of you would eat that
23:46the answer I would think is it depends
23:49what is it some of you would eat it if
23:51it was chicken but not beef some of you
23:53would eat it if it's beef but not pork
23:56few of you would eat it if it was dog
23:58fewer still would eat it if it was human
24:01and um and some of you would only eat it
24:04if it was a very strange form of
24:08tofu that much that much is obvious
24:12what's more interesting is put aside
24:14your choice of what to eat how you taste
24:17something is critically affected by what
24:20you believe you're eating and this shows
24:22up in all sorts of ways um one nice
24:24finding involves children how do you get
24:26children not just to to eat their
24:28carrots and drink milk but after they
24:31have the carrots and milk to report that
24:33they tasted good better than your normal
24:36carrot better than your normal glass of
24:38milk it's actually terribly simple to do
24:41this this was done in a study a couple
24:42of years ago you take him out from a
24:45McDonald's
24:49bag
24:50now now you might think well you know
24:53that's that's kids can this happen with
24:55adults but in fact a lot of the research
24:57on the effect of this of our perception
24:59on our experience has been done with a
25:01very adult sort of Beverage of wine so
25:05how do you make somebody believe the
25:07wine they are tasting is much better
25:09than they normally would well the answer
25:12we fully well know pour it out from an
25:15expensive bottle so several studies use
25:17the design of pouring wine out from two
25:20bottles um I don't know anything about
25:21wine but one of these bottles says gr
25:24crew which I imagine is good the other
25:26one says van ordinaire which I imagine
25:28IM is is not good um this has the
25:32predictable effect on how people taste
25:34it in a recent study um with people just
25:37graduating from a wine from a wine
25:40tasting course uh at the final in a
25:42final graduation test they gave the
25:44students um they said we're going to
25:46taste this red wine we're going to give
25:48it to you in a black glass so you don't
25:49get any cues as to its exact shade and
25:52we want you to tell us what you think of
25:53it and the students tasted it some of
25:56them figured it out but others didn't
25:58and said oh it's FR they described it in
26:00terms of a red wine fruity and so on
26:02turned out it was white
26:04wine but and you could do this at home
26:07if somebody believes it's red wine they
26:09will be strongly influenced to taste it
26:11as red wine I'm not an uncritical fan of
26:14fmri neuroimaging studies I think they
26:16often overblown and exaggerated but this
26:19is one I like they get people into a
26:21brain scanner and as they're lying on
26:23their back there's a tube going into
26:24their mouth and they get to drink wine
26:26through the tube while their brains are
26:28being scan above them is a screen where
26:30they can read information about the wine
26:32that they're drinking everybody drinks
26:34the same wine if they think they're
26:36drinking the cheap stuff they'll report
26:39a doesn't taste so good and they have a
26:41low-level neural response if they think
26:43they're drinking 200 out of a $200
26:46bottle they say they love it and the
26:47pleasure senters of their brain light up
26:49like a Christmas
26:51tree a third case study I've talked
26:54about sex I've talked about food
26:55consumer products everyday objects
26:59one reason why we buy things is because
27:01of their utility in an economic sense
27:04because of uh of what they could do for
27:05us um from that perspective you could
27:07wear shoes on your feet you play golf
27:09with golf clubs and a chewed up
27:11bubblegum doesn't do anything for you
27:13but each of these three objects has
27:15value above and beyond its
27:18use the golf clubs were owned by John F
27:20Kennedy and sold for three4 of a million
27:24dollars the bubble gum was chewed by
27:26Britany Spears
27:28and sold for several hundred at
27:31auction and in fact there is there is
27:33apparently somewhat of a market in food
27:36that's been partially eaten by famous
27:38and important people um one recent
27:41example was Obama's happy
27:46breakfast
27:48the the
27:50shoes are perhaps the most valuable of
27:54all about a while ago a Saudi
27:56millionaire according to New York times
27:58offered $10 million for this pair of
28:01shoes now we don't know if he would have
28:04ever paid but this pair of shoes did
28:06have a certain significance by the end
28:08of its history for many people these
28:10were the shoes thrown at George Bush in
28:12an Iraqi press conference in fact
28:15there's a bit of a market for throne
28:17objects in general so I don't know about
28:19the shoes but one Canadian entrepreneur
28:22paid $3 million for a home run
28:24baseball now in all of these cases these
28:27objects get their value not because of
28:30their physical properties the golf clubs
28:32are no physically different than any
28:34other golf clubs that baseball looks and
28:37feels the same as any other baseball but
28:39by the end of their history where they
28:41came from this matters to us now there's
28:43different ways objects could be get
28:46value from their history one way was
28:49explored by the psychologist Paul rosin
28:51who noted that contact with negative
28:53objects or negative people lowers the
28:54value of an object so people are
28:56unwilling for instance to wear a sweater
28:59that was worn by Hitler or put on a
29:01baseball cap that Jeffrey dmer
29:03wore with my colleagues at Yale I was
29:06interested in the question of whether or
29:08not contact with admired or special
29:10people can raise the value of an object
29:13and this is work I did with um the my my
29:15colleague in School of Management George
29:17Newman and my postdoc who's now at Baron
29:19University uh Gil
29:21dendr what we did was we did this with
29:24hundreds of adults we asked them first
29:25to name a living famous person that they
29:27deeply ired and one answer that people
29:30gave was George
29:32Clooney and then we asked him how much
29:34would you pay for George Clooney's
29:35sweater sweater that was worn by George
29:38Clooney answer was on average $135 which
29:42is quite a lot more than it pay for that
29:45same sweater it wasn't own owned by
29:46anybody special then we asked them about
29:49the effects of certain
29:51Transformations and restrictions so we
29:53took one group and we said look how much
29:56would you pay for the sweater but let me
29:57tell you something
29:58you cannot tell anybody you own a
30:00sweater you cannot boast about it and
30:02you cannot resell it it dropped a bit so
30:06people won't pay quite as much but the
30:09other manipulation had an even bigger
30:11effect we said okay you could tell
30:13anybody you want about it you could
30:14resell it but before it got to you it
30:16was thoroughly
30:18washed now it drops
30:23substantially and in fact there's a real
30:26world uh uh U case of this there was a
30:28there's a charity that sells clothes
30:30that actors and actresses wear to the to
30:32the Oscars and and then they sell it and
30:34use the money for charity and after they
30:36were in business for a couple of years
30:37they added to their web page said by the
30:39way don't worry we thoroughly dry clean
30:41the clothes before sending to you them
30:43to you and people protested people said
30:45no don't do that I want it with the the
30:47the sweat on it um what what my wife
30:50described as the cloi cooties
30:54um and we also asked how much pleasure
30:57would you get from wearing it um it
30:59turns out if you tell them they can't
31:01sell it or um or tell anybody about it
31:03it makes no difference at all but if
31:06it's washed the pleasure drops
31:09significantly finally art if ever
31:12there's a case where the origin and
31:14history matters is with artwork and this
31:16is a point made by Dennis Dutton in his
31:18wonderful book The Art Instinct so
31:19Dutton says the sort of history that
31:22matters most for artwork is performance
31:25the value of an artwork is rooted in
31:26assumptions but the human performance
31:28underlying its
31:29creation I love shagal I would love to
31:32have an original work by shagal but I
31:34wouldn't pay anywhere near as much for a
31:36perfect copy even if I can't tell the
31:39difference this isn't only snobbery of
31:42some sort rather it's because what why I
31:45want an original shagal is because I
31:47want the sort of thing that shagal
31:48himself created I want it to have the
31:51right sort of History a duplicate
31:53wouldn't have that history and I think
31:55that captures how many of us feel about
31:57art
31:58it's the difference between the same
32:00painting by verir and Van
32:03migran which is in one case the history
32:06of the artwork is as a unique creative
32:08work in another case is as a cheap
32:10ripoff it explains I think differences
32:14in taste so this is Jackson Pollock how
32:16many people here like the work of
32:18Jackson poock of a
32:20fan how many people here it does nothing
32:23for them just honestly does nothing okay
32:25people so there's a difference and I you
32:27know I have an opinion but all I want to
32:30say is that there's a way I could
32:32predict that these groups differ those
32:34who love his work and those who don't
32:36and that has to do with the intuitions
32:38of the performance involved in their
32:40creation if you tend to believe my kid
32:43could paint that he just splashed paint
32:44on a wall on a canvas you're not going
32:46to like it very much if you see this as
32:48an intensive and difficult and lengthy
32:50process your your attitudes will change
32:53correspondingly and I use Pollock as an
32:56example here because there's a young
32:58artist who paints in the style of
33:00Jackson Pollock who under who went
33:02through exactly the same sort of
33:03transformation we saw under verir van
33:05megran case and she's a young artist
33:08she's a very young artist um she's she's
33:12a she's Mara Olstead who would paint her
33:16abstract paintings in the style of
33:18Jackson Pollock among others and her
33:20paintings sold for many uh thousands of
33:23dollars and this is chronicled in a
33:25wonderful documentary my kid could paint
33:27that
33:28what happened was um she made what in
33:30retrospect was the mistake of allowing
33:32the TV show 60 minutes to come into her
33:34house and film her painting and 60
33:37Minutes did a show on this
33:40and they reported that her father was
33:42coaching her when this came the value of
33:46paintings dropped to nothing they
33:47couldn't give them away and you should
33:49get the DVD because at the end of the
33:51DVD there's um an interview with the man
33:54who made the DVD and a at a town meeting
33:57in the girl
33:58uh Town Bingington New York and and
34:01basically the gallery owner stands up
34:04and you could tell he's Furious and he
34:06says what difference does it make if you
34:09like the art before who cares that her
34:12father was coaching her and the guy who
34:15made a DVD stands up and says something
34:17which to me made a lot of sense which is
34:18he said look when you buy art you buy a
34:21story you buy a history and when it
34:24turned out that it wasn't done entirely
34:26by her the story changed and that
34:28affects how much we like it now
34:31psychologists have done very little
34:33research exploring the effects of
34:35history on how much we like something
34:37right now we have a lot of stories from
34:38the art world not much experimental
34:39research but I'll tell you about two
34:41experiments one was done in a lab by
34:44Justin Krueger and his colleagues he
34:46showed groups of of subjects the same
34:49painting but he told half of them it was
34:52painted in 6 hours and the other half it
34:55was painted in 26 hours
34:57this subtle manipulation made a huge
34:59difference the people who thought the
35:01painting was done in 26 hours thought it
35:04was a better painting would pay more for
35:06it and claimed to get more pleasure out
35:08of it their beliefs about its origin
35:11affected how they felt about it the
35:15second study was done not by a
35:17psychologist but by a journalist by Jean
35:19wearden for the Washington Post and this
35:22was not done in um in a lab but in a
35:25Washington DC subway station and anybody
35:27know who this guy is josu with the with
35:30the kind help of the very famous uh
35:33violinist Joshua Bell so the question
35:35that wine Garden was interested in was
35:38how much would people like Joshua Bell
35:40if they didn't know he was Joshua
35:42Bell so he so with his help what he did
35:46was he set up Bell in a Washington DC
35:48subway station with his million dooll
35:51Stratovarius and the question is he
35:53stood there for stands there for an hour
35:55and I'll show you a little clip from the
35:59thing if he stands there for an hour how
36:01much money would he make and he's there
36:03hard to see but he's in the he's on the
36:05left
36:09[Music]
36:17[Applause]
36:18[Music]
36:33at the end of an hour he made about uh
36:36$38 which isn't bad but it's not good
36:39either it's sort of what the average
36:40person makes in fact he made $20 more
36:43than that but he didn't count it because
36:45this was as they Point put it uh tainted
36:47by recognition what happened was towards
36:50towards the end of his performance this
36:52woman walks by you could see her on the
36:53video if you watch the end of the video
36:55she walks by and she Stomps it she saw
36:58Bell at the Boston Symphony Orchestra a
37:00while ago and paid a fortune to see him
37:02so she's staring at him and finally she
37:05goes into her purse she takes out $20
37:07and she walks up to him and she she
37:09drops it in his case and says to him I'm
37:12so sorry you're down on your
37:23luck now now there's different morals to
37:26be drawn from this but but I think one
37:27interesting thing is Joshua Bell sounds
37:30different if you know he's Joshua Bell
37:32your beliefs about what you're
37:33experiencing trans transform your
37:35sensory experience um here's another
37:38musical case which I just like because
37:40it's sort of dramatic this is John
37:42Cage's work uh comes under different
37:44names was often called 4 minutes 33
37:46seconds because it was a famous Modern
37:48Performance where The Pianist is is
37:50instructed to sit at a piano and be
37:53silent for 4 minutes and 33 seconds now
37:56as you can imagine this is fairly
37:58controversial uh whether or not this is
38:00brilliant or just ridiculous but my
38:02favorite fact about this is you can go
38:04on to iTunes and you
38:07can you
38:09can you can buy for
38:12$1.99 the entire the entire thing of 4
38:16minutes 33 seconds which is of course
38:18silent um and and and I've read
38:22commentaries on this where people are
38:23outraged they say look just turn down
38:25the volume on your computer and sit
38:27there 4 minutes 3 seconds but
38:30psychologically I think that wouldn't be
38:31the same silence this is that Silence
38:34from that from that
38:36performance
38:38um I'm a developmental psychologist so I
38:41want to return to studying kids and I
38:44want to ask the question how natural is
38:46this way of looking at the world to what
38:48extent are young children swayed by
38:51history when determining what to like
38:54and we're doing several experiments but
38:57one sort of experiment we're starting
38:58off with is we're looking at the objects
39:00that we have reason to believe children
39:03develop a specific particular attachment
39:05to and these are their security blankets
39:08their attachment objects teddy bears and
39:10security blankets and so on and the
39:12question we're interest in asking is
39:15when children become attached to a
39:16security blanket is it true as parents
39:18sometimes report that they lock on to
39:20that particular one and they will not
39:22accept a duplicate even if the duplicate
39:24is perfectly indistinguishable from the
39:26original
39:28so this is research I did in
39:29collaboration with my colleague at
39:30Bristol University Bruce hood and Bruce
39:33is an amateur magician which helped us
39:35set up the study for our first study we
39:38tested
39:40um 20 children who had attachment
39:43objects we got them to bring attachment
39:44objects into the lab and 21 children who
39:48didn't have attachment objects we just
39:49got them bring a toy from their house
39:51into the lab and once the children were
39:53in the lab we showed them a duplicating
39:55machine this is a three-dimensional
39:56duplicate machine the way it works is um
40:00there there you have two empty boxes you
40:02put something into one of the boxes like
40:03an apple you close the boxes a siren
40:07goes off lights Flash and then they drop
40:09and then there's an apple on the other
40:10one too um we did not really have a
40:13three-dimensional duplicating machine
40:15but we just stuck in objects through
40:16that black curtain and back children
40:18totally bought it children live in a
40:20world where there's two-dimensional
40:22duplicating machines why not a
40:23three-dimensional duplicating machine
40:25and then for the first part of the
40:26experiment we duplicated this rubber
40:29stretchy man this Red Rubber stretchy
40:30man and we asked children who they want
40:32to take home with them and what we found
40:35was for this unexceptional new object
40:37the majority of kids both with an
40:39attachment objects and an unattach
40:41without an attachment object wanted to
40:43bring home the duplicate they were both
40:45good but the duplicate is kind of cool
40:46because it's a duplicate and we were
40:48just interested in that to show kids
40:49weren't timid about reaching for the
40:51duplicate what about when kids took the
40:54object they brought from home and put
40:56that into the machine
40:57well for the unattached kids they
40:59treated it exactly as if it was the
41:02stretchy man they just said whatever
41:03I'll choose to duplicate or they won't
41:06you know either way but they didn't show
41:07a strong preference for the kids with
41:10attachment objects are responses are
41:11quite different the majority did not
41:14choose the duplicate only one in four
41:16kids picked the duplicate those of you
41:18with sharp eyes will notice the numbers
41:20at the bottom do not add up to 100% this
41:23is because some of the children refuse
41:25to put their thing into the duplicating
41:26machine
41:30and um and we're currently want to
41:35explore what happens when when when we
41:37Face Expos children to duplications of
41:39of art both art they make and art other
41:41people make to see to what extent do
41:43they does history matter for them
41:46too I've argued that it matters for our
41:49pleasure what we think something is and
41:51we came from um I presented this largely
41:53as a theory of appreciation of art but
41:55I'd like to try to persuade you to to
41:57consider at least is that this could
41:58extend to the appreciation of everything
42:00it could be part of a general theory of
42:03pleasure now a question you might ask
42:06when any When anybody gives you a talk
42:08like this is who cares why does it
42:11matter and I will give you two two
42:13answers to that one is I think this is
42:16an interesting fact about a human mind
42:18put aside practical matters
42:20um we often think many philosophers and
42:23psychologists and Humanity people when
42:26they think about human pleasure they
42:28they deride it as simple sensory
42:31perceptual we respond to a set of things
42:33we've evolved to respond to and there's
42:35no depth to it no richness I think it's
42:38interesting that this is perhaps
42:40mistaken I think it's interesting to
42:42find out even for Pleasures as as
42:45exalted as an artwork but as rudimentary
42:49as as a glass of milk or or an orgasm
42:53your perception of it can be transformed
42:56by your belief of About It by by by by
42:59what you think it is I also think this
43:01has practical value
43:03um like most of you I get pleasure from
43:06art I I I enjoy art um this is a good
43:10chunk of my life and it is my strong
43:12belief that a better understanding of
43:16the nature of pleasure um a better
43:20understanding of why we like what we
43:22like can serve to enrich and expand
43:26these pleasures of every everyday life
43:28thank
43:44you so we have 15 minutes for questions
43:47if you could raise your hand I'll come
43:48around and please keep it brief thank
43:51you what do we know of anything about
43:55the genetic component of
43:57pleasure um and how it's uh distributed
44:02in the brain there okay
44:08um the question is about the genetic and
44:10neurological basis of pleasure um the
44:13answer about what we know about this is
44:15very little um we know so there's two
44:18ways to ask the question one is a
44:20question about universals I've made a
44:21claim about how pleasure Works in
44:23general and you could ask how is this
44:25wired up in the brain how is just wired
44:27up into genome and I think the only
44:29answer to honest answer is nobody knows
44:32Neuroscience is an incredibly young
44:34science and has told us very little
44:36about about these questions same with
44:38genomics we just don't know I think it's
44:41an incredibly fruitful area for the
44:42future but now I think it could tell us
44:44very little a different question is
44:47about human
44:48differences um why do you know why do
44:51why does sexual preference vary why do
44:53artistic preferences vary and so on
44:55their genetics plays a tool not at the
44:58level of sort of genetic analyses but at
44:59studies of behavioral genetics and there
45:02there's a lot of interesting research
45:03looking at why are people different to
45:05what extent are our differences do our
45:07differences have to do with our families
45:09how we're raised with random events that
45:12happen in our life are through our genes
45:14and there I think to answer is going to
45:15differ from pleasure to pleasure in
45:17interesting ways so for instance one
45:19surprising fact about the pleasures we
45:21get from
45:22food is everybody here if you listed
45:26your 10 favorite foods and your 10 least
45:28favorite foods everybody come up with a
45:29list this list is largely predictable
45:32from your culture Americans tend to like
45:34different food Foods than Koreans um but
45:38within a culture it is very hard it is a
45:40mystery why we like the foods we like it
45:43is not easily explained by genetics
45:45people's food tastes differ a lot from
45:47their parents they differ a lot from
45:49their siblings it is not easily
45:51explained by early experience there
45:53seems to be some sort of Randomness that
45:55we know nothing about and it's just a
45:57great
46:04puzzle one one area where status is used
46:08because I heard stories about some high
46:11class restaurants figure they could
46:12serve average tasting Foods if they have
46:15expensive
46:18Decor there's a lot yes there's a lot of
46:21research I'm not sure this is status so
46:24the effect is Right which is if you
46:26convince people people that it's
46:27expensive it's an expensive it's in a
46:29it's in a fancy restaurant it costs more
46:32people tend to like it more this might
46:34reflect status because look at me I'm
46:37eating food in this fancy fancy
46:39restaurant or it might reflect a belief
46:41that what costs more is better and hence
46:44that affects the pleasure you get from
46:51it how about looking at the other way
46:55like like uh could looking at images
46:59create sadism maoism just the opposite
47:03of
47:05pleasure the opposite of
47:07pleasure um you repeat
47:10question looking at the other way
47:14pleasure sadism Masis could images
47:18looking images create that kind of uh
47:24experience absolutely um the the
47:27arguments I've made about essentialism
47:30and essentialist bias I've always framed
47:32in terms of pleasure in terms of what we
47:34like but one could easily flip them
47:36around and certainly what counts as
47:38unpleasant or repellent or repugnant is
47:41also strongly influenced by what we
47:43think we're looking at not just
47:45perceptual experiences I'll give an
47:48example this isn't exactly what you're
47:49getting at but from a different domain
47:50it's a lovely study done by um by Kurt
47:52gray and Dan Wagner and they were
47:54looking at pain where what they do is
47:57they got undergraduates and said to
47:59undergraduates we're going to give you
48:00painful electric shocks strangely
48:03undergraduates love this kind of things
48:05great and I stra
48:07like there's two conditions everybody
48:10gets the same shocks the same intensity
48:12but there's two conditions in one
48:14condition they're persuaded that they're
48:16getting the shocks because of an
48:17accident because the machine will
48:19sometimes randomly give you shocks no
48:21person behind it in the second condition
48:23they believe that somebody in the Next
48:25Room is malevolently cruy shocking them
48:28they're asked to report how much it
48:31hurts it turns out that if you think
48:34you're getting shocked by a random
48:36machine it hurts but then you get used
48:38to it and it fades and Fades and Fades
48:40if you think you're getting shocked by a
48:41person it hurts and it keeps on hurting
48:44you don't get used to it to be kicked in
48:47The Shins by somebody hurts a lot more
48:49than banging your shin against against a
48:51a leg of a table um another example
48:54where this has been studied has been
48:55tickling so so so imagine the feeling of
48:58being tickled and you could be laughing
49:00but but one could be tickled by somebody
49:01they know to be a loved one if you're
49:03standing you know at the subway station
49:05and somebody starts tickling you it's
49:07not not quite the same so I'm not sure
49:10i' I've answered the question as it was
49:11intended but but the point I want to
49:12raise in connection what you're saying
49:14is it's not just
49:18pleasure I have a question about the
49:20Joshua Bell experiment do you know if um
49:23there was a control violinist put there
49:26that that that in and what he or she
49:29earned or was that not done it's a very
49:32the answer is yes this is a place where
49:34where there had been other violinists
49:36playing and they made roughly the same
49:38amount of money on the on the other hand
49:41um it was it was an experiment only sort
49:43of in quotation marks um so there's
49:45critics of it Dan Simons and Christopher
49:47shabri argue that this talk about this
49:49very case and they said the situation
49:51was not conducive to hearing B at his
49:53best and if only you would if only you
49:56would hear him at his best um it would
49:58have worked out differently I doubt that
50:00but that's but that's a but that's a
50:02legitimate
50:05response the Rothco piece that you
50:08discussed at the beginning and you I
50:10heard you just say that that made people
50:13cry more than others or feel sad why
50:18sadness as opposed to right right I've
50:21never explained that and I don't know
50:23but I have a I have a suggestion I have
50:25a guess
50:27if people believed that these um that
50:30these giant purplish black canvases were
50:31done by a computer randomly mixing paint
50:34it wouldn't have evoked that reaction if
50:36they believed it was by an anonymous
50:38artist it wouldn't have evoked that
50:40reaction but it was done by Rothco and
50:43my bet is that everybody who showed up
50:45and who wept knew something about Rothco
50:48they knew that a year after he completed
50:50these paintings he killed
50:52himself so they so they registered in
50:55this a message that they wouldn't have
50:57otherwise registered and a feeling that
50:59they wouldn't have otherwise felt and I
51:01think that that partially explains what
51:05happened uh most of your uh attention
51:08has been on the our pleasure being
51:10enhanced by our ability to discern the
51:13intention of the artist um I'm happy
51:15that you brought up the Dutton book I
51:16just finished reading it and his project
51:18seems to be to trace back our sources of
51:21pleasure to uh our kind of evolutionary
51:24history and so the reason why we like
51:25the landscape
51:27is uh sort of rooted in uh the
51:29preference of our prehistorical
51:30ancestors for Open Spaces where they
51:33where danger was reduced and game was
51:35plentiful and that sort of thing uh
51:39is that understanding of the kind of
51:42evolutionary origins of our pleasure in
51:45art also contributing to that pleasure
51:48that we we seek or we find in it I'm
51:50glad you raised that
51:53um dunen's book is excellent one reason
51:55why it's excellent is because he
51:57discusses there's many sources of
51:59artistic pleasure and I view this sort
52:01of essentialist bias as focus on
52:04intention as one significant origin and
52:07I view this as an evolutionary accident
52:08a byproduct we have an evolved the fact
52:11we we care so much about differ in
52:13original and a forgery is not a
52:14biological adaptation it's a byproduct
52:17of the fact we're so interested in
52:18history in
52:20general but I entirely agree with Dutton
52:23that a lot of our pleasure in art really
52:25is a straightforward W biological uh
52:28adaptation basically we are often drawn
52:30towards art that connects up to things
52:33that that from a reproductive point of
52:35view it behooves us to like like certain
52:37Landscapes that are just perfect places
52:39to be certain faces and people that are
52:42attractive because they're they're
52:44they're reproductively available and
52:46they're healthy and so on scenes of
52:48safety scenes of Adventure and so any
52:52theory of art um there's going to be no
52:54magic bullet for theory of why we like
52:56art culture plays a huge role in all
52:58sorts of unexpected ways I've argued
53:00here that the intention of the artist
53:02artwork's history is critically relevant
53:04but I think doesn't is exactly right to
53:05point out these sort of more fundamental
53:07evolutionary building blocks there's
53:09even another part of the story which is
53:11why do we like certain geometrical
53:13patterns and lines and and colors and
53:16that might involve a whole other story
53:17involving the sort of priming of our
53:19visual system and what activates and
53:21sort of at a very low low neurological
53:24level excites our visual system
53:29here there's a true wisdom that you
53:31don't get to choose what you love and I
53:34certainly have I mean that would that's
53:36been my experience how does that
53:40correspond to what you've
53:43discovered um I think the TR the truism
53:46is for the most part true
53:50um in that in that so much of a first
53:52thing there's the our evolved tastes and
53:55there individual differen between us are
53:57often sort of distributed way beyond our
53:59conscious control um you can't choose to
54:02like spicy foods just by an act of will
54:05um if if if you are not sexually
54:07attracted to men or not sexually
54:08attracted to to women you can't throw a
54:10switch and change things that way so in
54:13a lot of ways things are just beyond
54:14your your willpower
54:17however if it's true which I think it is
54:20that your pleasure is deeply conditioned
54:23upon um your understanding of something
54:26for wine for for food and for art this
54:30makes a prediction which is one can
54:33enhance one's pleasure by learning more
54:35about a domain I'll give you two I'll
54:37give you two examples nobody starts off
54:40um enjoying classical music for the most
54:43part is that and that but but as you
54:46listen to it and learn about it and and
54:48absorb its structures it becomes it's in
54:51fact it's lack of easy access is often a
54:53source of great pleasure but you have to
54:55work at in a different sense than you
54:57have to work at at some popular music
54:59wine is the same way people might enjoy
55:01wine but you'll enjoy wine more if you
55:04take a wine tasting course you will
55:06there actually studies find it you will
55:08taste it differently I'll end with
55:10Jackson Pollock which is some people in
55:12the room hate his stuff and I'm not
55:15saying that that's wrong but what I am
55:17saying is if you attended to how he
55:20created his artwork um and learned more
55:24about it and understood more about it it
55:25will at least change change your
55:26perceptions of it to some extent so you
55:29can't through an act of will say I want
55:30to like this I don't want to like that
55:32but you can through an act of will say I
55:35want to enhance my understanding of a
55:37domain and therefore indirectly you
55:39might be able to change your
55:41pleasures so this will be our last
55:43question and then Professor Bloom will
55:45be available signing books in the lobby
55:46afterwards thank
55:48you you cited the importance to our
55:51appreciation of art from knowing the
55:53artist's intention by virtue of the name
55:55that was given
55:57so what's on the mind of artists and how
55:59do they contribute to this phenomena
56:01when they choose to call their work
56:03Untitled
56:09right
56:10there's philos of art have pointed out
56:13there's two sorts of Untitled Works um
56:16that differ importantly the first is
56:18just works that for some reason we don't
56:20know what their title is you discover a
56:23painting that no one's known about and
56:25then it's just Untitled
56:26but then there's your case which is very
56:28interesting which is what about when an
56:30artist says my title is
56:33Untitled that's an act of will that's
56:36that's a purposeful um dining to provide
56:41some sort of not to provide information
56:43that many artists will provide and what
56:45artists know just like novelists know
56:48this and movie directors know this is
56:50that there's often a sweet spot of how
56:52much information you want to give how
56:54much you want to provide so so what we
56:56want to do to some extent when we see an
56:58artwork is capture its history what was
57:01it where is it from what does it mean
57:03how was it created but part of the
57:05pleasure of art is doing this for
57:07ourselves if it's transparently laid out
57:09in front of us it's often
57:11boring and so part of art is is part of
57:14the pleasure of art is actively trying
57:16to explore these things and some artists
57:18strategically choose them to make it
57:20hard for you in certain ways
57:25[Applause]
57:33you

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