Aesthetic reactions, unlike many other kinds of emotional reactions, are never evoked by biologically urgent action-demanding events, such as threats or opportunities. The examined effects were created by various concept manipulation devices: class expansion, identification of new relations, repetition, symmetry, parsimony, and emotional displays for the audience to mirror . The effects would occur only for individuals with the necessary priming, in circumstances that include effective potentiating factors. Synergetic stimuli that evoke aesthetic responses tend to be reinforcing, via mechanisms related to their biological utility during our evolution. I offer a theory as to how aesthetics may have evolved from its primordial pre-aesthetic roots, with examples of how consideration of those roots often explains aesthetic and related effects. The article suggests that aesthetic phenomena are a special case of a more pervasive aspect of behavior and proposes research approaches involving laboratory models and fMRI technology.Seeking to identify the common and distinguishing attributes of effects one might call “aesthetic,” I examined hundreds of examples in music, visual arts, poetry, literature, humor, performance arts, architecture, science, mathematics, games, and other disciplines. I observed that all involve quasi-emotional reactions to stimuli that are composites of multiple elements that ordinarily do not occur together and whose interaction, when appropriately potentiated, is transformative—different in kind from the effects of the separate constituent elements. Such effects, termed  Part 1 The Quest For a Theory1.1 A Provocative Phenomenon1.2 What Is Special About the Stimulus?1.3 The Aesthetic Response 1.4 Operant Components1.5 Applications Beyond Aesthetics1.6 Synergetic Interaction: Nature’s Master Key1.7 Synergetic Interactions in Behavior1.8 The Synergetic Brew1.9 Synergetic Effects in the Arts1.10 Devices that Create Effective Synergetic Brews1.11 Potentiation and Priming of Aesthetic Responses1.12 Common Features of Aesthetic Phenomena1.13 A Diagrammatic Overview1.14 Synergistic Versus Synergetic Interactions1.15 How the Present Approach Differs1.16 The Domain of Emotional Reactions1.17 Research Models of Aesthetic Phenomena1.18 Research Implications for Sub-Aesthetic EffectsPart 2 The Central Concept of Concept2.1 How the Term is Used2.2 Nonverbal Noncognitive Concepts2.3 The Concept Repertoire2.4 Concepts and Their Relations2.5 Why Concepts are Central to the TheoryPart 3 Evolutionary Roots of Aesthetic Phenomena3.1 Emotion-Evoking Effects of Synergetic Brews3.2 A Theory of How Aesthetic Responses Evolved3.3 Evolution of the Beauty Concept3.4 The Explanatory Functions of Evolutionary Origins3.5 Evolutionary Origins of Aesthetic Themes3.6 Features and Functionalities of Aesthetic ResponsesPart 4 Reinforcing Effects of Aesthetic Phenomena4.1 Reinforcing Effects of Learning4.2 Surprise in Synergetic Interactions4.3 Reinforcing Effects of Concept Learning4.4 Reinforcing Effects of Repertoire Refreshment4.5 Maintaining the Aesthetic Impact of Familiar Works4.6 Why We Continue to Enjoy Great Works4.7 Reinforcing Effects of Power Amplification and Parsimony4.8 Why Parsimony Is Attractive4.9 The Biological Utility of Parsimony4.10 Reinforcing Efffects of Displacement of Aversive Stimuli4.11 Reinforcing Effects of Audience InvolvementPart 5 The Roles of Mirroring5.1 Mirroring and Imitation5.2 The Biological Utility of Operant Imitation5.3 Emotional Mirroring as an Ingredient of Synergetic Brews5.4 Potentiation by Emotionalizing Feedback5.5 The Biological Utility of Emotional MirroringPart 6 Priming and Potentiating Factors6.1 The Pervasiveness of Priming in Biology6.2 Forms of Priming6.3 The Priming of Paths through the Concept Repertoire6.4 Factors that Potentiate Synergetic Interactions6.5 Culture as a Potentiating Factor6.6 The Diversity of Aesthetic MemesPart 7 Devices Used in Creating Aesthetic Effects7.1 Repetition and its Biological Significance7.2 Symmetry7.3 The Use of Symmetry in Synergetic Brews7.4 Descriptions of the DevicesPart 8 Aesthetic Effects in the Arts8.1 Evidence for the Theory8.2 Use of the Devices in Poetry8.3 Use of the Devices in Literature8.4 Use of the Devices in Music8.5 Use of the Devices in the Visual Arts8.7 Use of the Devices in Performance Art8.8 Use of the Devicesin Architecture8.9 Use of the Devices in Culinary Arts8.10 The Devices in Natural Aesthetic PhenomenaPart 9 “Aesthetic” Effects in Other Disciplines9.1 Semantic Issues9.2 The Devices in Film9.4 The Devices in Videogames9.5 The Devices in Humor9.6 The Devices in Science9.7 The Devices in Mathematics9.8 The Devices in Chess and Go 9.9 The Devices in Actions of Individuals and Groups9.10 It Does Not Matter What We Call ItPart 10 Future Avenues of Inquiry 10.1 Mainly or Purely Mental Synergetic Brews10.2 Methodological Issues10.3 Alternative Research Stretegies10.4 Observations and Conclusions10.5 Final CommentsAppendix A—Research Topics for Experimental AnalysisAppendix B—Prior Work on AestheticsReferencesTABLE OF CONTENTSBeautiful! Wow! Brilliant! Aha! Eureka! Magnificent! Amazing! Awesome! Elegant! Hilarious! Moving!—responses to music, visual art, poetry, film, literature, mathematics, science, performing arts, humor, architecture, culinary arts, and games like chess. What do these reactions, and the events that evoke them, have in common? What evokes them? What are their biological origins?Although phenomena we may call “aesthetic” permeate our daily lives, there is nonetheless something special about them. This may be why they captured the attention of many of the world’s greatest thinkers through the ages, from the ancient Greeks through today’s neuroscientists. And yet a general and scientifically satisfying theory of aesthetics is still elusive. This article takes an approach that opens aesthetics to the experimental methods of the behavioral and biological sciences, and positions aesthetics as a special case of a pervasive type of human behavior.Mainly, because it keeps the focus on observable phenomena and minimizes bias due to preconceptions, always a potential hazard when the subject matter is culturally entrenched. I wanted to start with an open mind and minimize hypotheses—B.F. Skinner's recommendation for the scientific exploration of uncharted territory Skinner, . To makecomposites of multiple elements that don’t ordinarily occur together. When they do, their joint effect is different in kind from the separate effects of the individual elements. They interact transformatively.I observed that stimuli that evoke responses we might call aesthetic are always An iconic example: Picasso combined and transformed two familiar concepts—the handles and seat of a bicycle—into a surprising third concept, the head of a bull. Neither the handles nor the seat would produce this effect separately. Their interaction is thus transformative, and can evoke an “aesthetic” In our daily lives, we routinely experience likes and dislikes, small ones and large ones. Our reactions to the mundane stimuli we encounter range from beautiful to ugly, attractive to unattractive, appealing to unappealing. When minor and ephemeral, these reactions usually go unnoticed. When large, they may give rise to the kinds of exclamations listed in the first lines of this article. Intense or fleeting, the aesthetic response proper is of the emotional type, usually covert (private), and often surprise tinged (as in the bicycle/bull example). It may or may not be accompanied by an overt manifestation.Our private emotional reactionovert operant responses, like gasps or exclamations (“Wow! “Beautiful!” etc.). These are easily conflated with their covert antecedents, and when they are, the covert antecedent is easily overlooked.The covert emotional response is distinct from the operant actions that potentiate it—looking at the painting, listening to the music, reading the poem, or putting food in the mouth. Such potentiating operantThis diagram shows how the aesthetic response is comprised of overt operant and covert emotional components.But the main reason the covert component is easily overlooked and has not yet received systematic research attention is that it is private, and thus difficult to observe and measure separately (though fMRI technology may be changing that). As such, it is not as accessible for study as, for instance, our verbal behavior.The aesthetic response is usually surprise tinged  are learning, trauma, epiphanies, and emotional reactions. For example, the words of a sentence interact synergetically when they are arranged in a certain order—they acquire a meaning that they do not have individually.Particularly striking instances of behavioral synergetic interaction effects are the extraordinary ones of film and video games. The film medium is unmatched in its ability to capture and hold for hours the rapt attention and intense emotional involvement of an audience. And video games are notorious for their power to exert a virtually addictive hold on the behavior of players, sometimes even at the expense of their social relationships or work obligations.These behavioral phenomena  involve elements interacting to create effects that differ in kind from the effects of the elements acting separately. The effects always depend on elements occurring together in an unusual combination and interacting transformatively—the definition of synergetic interaction.synergetic brew as a shorthand for “amalgam of elements, some of which interact synergetically.” Other elements of the brew may interact in other ways—they may be mutually contradictory, incongruous, synergistic, and so forth. The term brew encompasses the many different kinds of elements that may comprise it. These may consist of the following:any type of stimulus—exteroceptive, internal, or abstract;covert (private) effects of verbal or nonverbal thinking Rolls, ;any type of emotion;social factors and the behavior of others Malott, , 2016;elements of the existing concept repertoire see Part ;elements generated by audience involvement;prevailing behavioral contingencies;environmental states like ambient temperature; andlevel of physiological states like hunger, thirst, fatigue, or pain.I will use the term Synergetic brews comprised of these types of elements act as stimuli for many types of emotional responses, including aesthetic and subaesthetic ones. The multitude of possible interactions among the elements of synergetic brews—the interactions’ historic frequencies, durations, probabilities, contexts, sensory modalities, and so forth—offers whole new vistas for studying the genesis of emotional reactions.Elements that interact synergetically normally don't occur together. If and when they do, they interact only when the interaction is appropriately primed and potentiated. The effects of synergetic interactions are termed aesthetic when they generate responses of the types described previously in Sections Artists, composers, poets, and others arrange the elements of their disciplines to create synergetic brews that have aesthetic effects for appropriately primed audiences. These brews bring together stimuli that may be unremarkable individually for "a magical metamorphosis of the ordinary" Gibson, . For exaA remarkably small set of concept manipulation devices (I have identified 16) accounted for all of the hundreds of observed effects. These devices are summarized in Section The operation of these 16 devices is responsible for the aesthetic emotional impact that some synergetic brews create. Parts Responses to synergetic brews occur when they are potentiated. While chemical or culinary brews often require heat or catalysts for their potentiation, synergetic brews that evoke aesthetic responses require potentiating factors that include the audience’s behavioral and physiological state as well as environmental and sociocultural factors  in which the creators configure synergetic brews into Works. They apply creative energy symbolized by the flames under the cauldron. The Works become accessible to audiences via potentiating factors symbolized by the ladle and dish. For audiences (the face) that have the requisite priming history, the Works evoke covert emotional aesthetic responses sometimes accompanied by overt manifestations, like the exclamations shown in the bubble on the left. The smile is intended to indicate that synergetic stimuli that evoke aesthetic responses are emotionalizing and often positively reinforcing.The following figure presents my metaphors for the creation of aesthetic responses. The sketches at the upper right represent creators of aesthetic effects as they combine and configure the elements of their arts. Some of these elements are listed in the broad arrows that lead to the cauldron. The devices the creators use in creating the synergetic brews are represented by the manual, synergistically, or not at all. Synergetic interactions differ from synergistic ones in that their effects are transformative (different in kind from the interacting elements), whereas those of synergistic interactions are quantitative and incremental , but not different in kind. Both synergistic and synergetic effects can be involved in the creation of aesthetic effects in synergetic brews.As mentioned in Section This figure illustrates the difference between synergetic and synergistic interactions of elements. The analysis of such interactions is still unexplored territory in behavioral science. The challenge is to analyze, describe, and categorize interactions on the basis of their features and functions. For instance, synergistic interactions among elements often create new elements that will then interact synergetically (transformatively) with other elements. Thus, synergistic interactions can potentiate synergetic ones. The study of types of interactions may prove to be a fruitful area of research .Most prior work in aesthetics considered mainly phenomena termed beautiful or pleasurable rather than ugly or unpleasant. But the present analysis, as well as some prior ones  their uniquely powerful behavioral effects and (b) the unusually large number of elements and devices that comprise their synergetic brews  to the most abstract or fuzzy ones . The notion has foundations in the past century’s body of laboratory research relating to discrimination between, and generalization within, classes. It is also flexible: any instance of a concept is described by a subset of the general concept’s attributes. For a subset of attributes to be sufficient for a valid description of a concept, it is sufficient for the subset to consist of only some of the attributes of the general concept, with no single attribute being necessary.This conceptualization of The above conceptualization of “concept” includes noncognitive and nonverbal ones and is thus broader than the colloquial one, which tends to emphasize verbal and cognitive concepts, often tagged with their category names. The present conceptualization goes beyond the operant and cognitive ones to include emotional responses and the responses involved in classical conditioning. For instance, the salivary reflex generalizes among some stimuli and discriminates these from others. Like operant responses, emotional responses occur selectively, in response to some stimuli and not others  or potential. Potential relations become current when they are perceived, learned, or realized. When a multiple-link chain of potential relations becomes a single-link current relation  performances.Though the mate selection functionality of displays and performances may largely have fallen away, the disposition to be attracted by the various features described in the sections on symmetry Sections  and 7.3,The theory that aesthetics has its evolutionary roots in the gradual broadening of the alerting function and the procreational fitness advertising function does more than fill an important explanatory gap: it is also a source of prompts for identifying various features of aesthetic phenomena that might otherwise escape notice and for explaining the functionality of those features, including their positively reinforcing properties. Among these features are symmetry, parsimony, concept learning, surprise, and repetition.An account of the evolution of aesthetics provides hints for where to look as we try to parse its nuances and subtleties. Tracing these to their pre-aesthetic roots often points to significant present-day features that may otherwise escape notice. Here are some examples:Dance—Of all the art forms, dance, with its physical and erotic attributes, is the one most readily traceable to primordial mating displays and performances , and all kinds of games, are obviously and directly related to the alarm and danger signals in their evolutionary roots.Voice—For most terrestrial animals, voice is the main medium for signaling danger, opportunity, or calls for urgent action. It is therefore not surprising that voice has evolved into one of humankind’s most powerful media for the conveyance of emotion, as via vocal music, speech, poetry, and oratory.Competition—Artists, performers, and other creators of aesthetic effects commonly have a strong tendency to compete for approval and acceptance of their works, as well as for personal status and fame, to a degree not readily explained by economic factors. The procreational fitness theory of the evolutionary roots may help explain this tendency.Humor—Since humor is based on the identification or creation of incongruities, contradictions, or double meanings , that variant may find new functions. As it becomes elaborated over time, it loses some of its original features, retains some, and adds some new ones.The synergetic brew’s attention-getting feature—a potentiating factor that the aesthetic response still requires for its evocationThe synergetic brew’s emotion-evoking effectThe requirement that at least one of the synergetic brew’s elements is unusual, that is, not ordinarily present, evokes the surprise-tinged emotional componentAn advertising medium for the general competence of creators of aesthetic effects, though no longer for procreational fitnessSusceptibility to enhancement by the 16 devices described in Section aisthētikós.These are a consequence of the newly evolved nuances of the elaborated emotional responses to the widened range of synergetic phenomena that the ancient Greeks termed Expanding the audience’s repertoire of concepts and conceptual relations Part A new type of positive reinforcement: the pleasurable effects of synergetic brews that evoke aesthetic responses Part A rich communication mediumA glue for social cohesion and a medium for meme formation, similar to language Section A medium for emotional stabilization and displacement of aversive states Section The main new functionalities:As our evolutionary ancestors made contact with these new features and functions, they learned to control and enhance them and developed various devices for doing so ; tears as in Walt Disney’s classic children’s movies; horror as in thrillers; anger; laughter; and other emotional responses.Since our vocabulary does not come close to providing names for all the nuanced emotional responses that are evoked in the arts and sciences, I am using the term surprise commonly refers to the covert emotional reaction when an expectation is not realized, an unexpected event occurs, or new information is received. The surprise may be subtle or blatant, and may or may not give rise to an overt manifestation: if subtle, perhaps a smile; if major, perhaps “Wow!”The term Neutral or innocuous stimuli can interact synergetically to signal surprising or informative events, like opportunities or dangers. Unremarkable, minor discrepancies can assume new significance when they occur together in certain contexts. A tendency to notice strange sounds or unfamiliar objects—usually meaningless but potentially a matter of life-and-death—undoubtedly had survival value during our evolution. A footprint in the sand evoked a strong emotional reaction from Robinson Crusoe when it interacted synergetically with his belief that he was the island’s only inhabitant, in conjunction with his recognition that the footprint was not his own.confirmation of an expectation, which can be instructive (and thus reinforcing) when it resolves an uncertainty.A common type of surprise event is the non-confirmation of an expectation.A concept’s relations to other concepts correspond to what is often referred to as its “meaning” . Adding a new relation to a concept thus amplifies its meaning. A familiar example is the mutual amplification of meaning between a melody and its lyrics, as in songs. The meaning of either would be very different in isolation. Another familiar example is the addition of a soundtrack of “scary” music to danger scenes in thriller movies. All of these emotion-inducing effects are instances of synergistic or synergetic interactions.n such items, and the relational concept is multiplication by n. Once learned, this relation may transfer to other situations where the measure of one unit is known and that of n such units is sought. In general, establishing a new relation often generalizes to similar situations and concepts  The behavioral scientist’s challenge is to explain how it came about that parsimony is considered desirable—beautiful, pleasing, elegant, positively reinforcing. Often, a good heuristic is the phenomenon’s biological utility, like its relevance to our evolutionary ancestors’ ability to predict and control their environments.Ode on a Grecian Urn. Mathematicians and logicians agree when they interpret truth to mean formal consistency. Scientists agree when they interpret truth to mean empirical validity and correctness: “Too beautiful to be false,” is the way Einstein referred to his general theory of relativity . Humor often achieves such displacement by generating competing incompatible emotions.Another mechanism involves concept manipulation and learning. Since humor is always based on the identification of incongruities, contradictions, or double meanings, the effect is to reveal hidden relations or other unexpected kinds of class expansion.Humor is also a medium used by its agent to display facility, proficiency, and discernment in identifying conceptual relations and using them. Given humor’s reinforcing properties and its consequent power to entertain, the agent gleans the audience’s appreciation and approval. The relationship of these dynamics to their evolutionary roots in the procreational fitness display theory is evident.In certain instances of aesthetic phenomena, the audience’s own behavior contributes to the elements of the synergetic brew. In music, this can involve performing the music, either solo or with a group; in visual arts, copying the work; in poetry, reciting it; in literature, reading it aloud or performing the lines of a play; in performance arts, mirroring the performer Part ; in videActive participation that consists of overt operant behavior adds multiple elements to the synergetic brew—kinesthetic, sensory, and cognitive ones. According to the hypothesis put forward in Section The evolutionary roots of aesthetics proposed in Part An additional contributor to the reinforcing effect of audience involvement is the creative aspect. While an analysis of the nature of the reinforcement that accrues to the creators of aesthetic effects is beyond the scope of this article, it is likely that audience participation, with its attendant contribution to the synergetic brew, generates some of the reinforcement effects of creative acts.Monkeys have neurons in their cortex that fire when the monkey performs a certain action, and also when it observes another monkey performing that same action, without the observing monkey actually making the movements  follows with automaticity and immediacy. If each member of the group made separate decisions in such situations, the benefits of prompt joint action would be lost. This “follow-the-leader” imitative pattern can have survival value for humans too, as in military or emergency situations.Imitative behavior can also serve as elements of synergetic brews that have aesthetic impact, for example, accurate mimicry, acts executed in unison, ballets, marching parades, and aquatic displays by cetaceans. Imitation also occurs in situations that are not necessarily beneficial to the larger society, even repugnant, as in certain types of mob behavior.Covert mirroring of emotions is believed to be at play in empathy, identification, and emotional contagion, as when we resonate with the emotions of others  conditioning, with the operant component functioning as the conditioned stimulus.Emotional mirroring may cause us to resonate with the emotions of a character in a movie or novel, or in a Verdi opera or a Rembrandt portrait. This may also be the reason why live performances are more impactful emotionally than recorded ones that lack the visual element.The output of a synergetic interaction can flow back to the input to function as an additional ingredient of the synergetic brew. Such autocatalytic feedback loops are common in biological processes. Familiar examples are metabolic, digestive, sexual, emotional, and other behavioral processes whose outputs augment their own momentum.Sections In general, synergetic brews are more impactful when one of their ingredients is an emotionalizing one, or when the audience is already somewhat emotionalized. Thus, when the synergetic interaction’s response output is fed back to the synergetic brew, it can help potentiate the response autocatalytically.Familiar examples of the potentiating effects of emotion are displays of anger or passion by orators. By shouting or gesticulating, they may induce an emotional state in their audience via emotional mirroring, thereby adding an emotional component to the synergetic brews that include their messages. Such emotional enrichment makes the synergetic brew as a whole more effective. For more on that, see Section Emotional mirroring is also involved in the emotional contagion that occurs in rallies and mob-action situations. But emotional mirroring is by no means the only way emotional states are induced in audiences. Other examples are emotion-inducing background music in the soundtracks of films; the use of emotionalizing subjects in paintings; patriotic background music for nationalist propaganda; and lullabies to relax children. In general, when the emotional component of the response to a synergetic brew feeds back an emotionalizing ingredient, it may augment the response.To understand the biological utility and evolutionary origins of emotional mirroring, one must look to its benefits to the group, not just to the individual. For instance, emotional mirroring is an important ingredient of the cohesive glue that binds the members of human societies.Another important type of utility to the group is an increase in the long-term memorability and recognizability of certain events that have survival implications for the group. These include emotionally charged and biologically significant events like courtship, sex, or danger. When these types of events become tagged with emotion-linked markers like odors, tastes, voices, songs, or images, their recognizability, communicability, and memorability is enhanced.The societal benefits take the form of family and group cohesion, transmission of the group’s culture, sexual bonding, food preferences, and collective security. Tastes and odors can signal food quality; the mother’s voice can have a soothing effect on a child; erotic effects of images and odors can stimulate procreation; and the rousing effects of martial music can promote solidarity and common purpose.These benefits may explain the evolutionary origins of the emotion-tagging powers of odors, melodies, and so forth. Levitin  explaineMost biological systems, ranging from individual neurons to societies and nations, respond to a synergetic stimulus complex only when they have received some preparatory priming. When a neuron’s state of excitation has reached a certain threshold, it is primed to fire in response to a triggering event; sexual orgasms occur only when a state of arousal has been primed; and nations go to war only when tensions have been primed.Aesthetic responses, similarly, require priming. For synergetic interactions to occur, the synergetic stimulus must be in place and the audience’s state of readiness must have been primed. In general, the biological utility of priming is that it enables rapid responses when speed is advantageous. It reduces the time and energy that the real-time response will require by using off-peak time for preparation. The resulting savings can make the difference between effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the stimulus and thus the occurrence or nonoccurrence of the response.Many aesthetic effects in the arts rely on the neurally hard-wired noncognitive perceptual elements of the visual and auditory systems—priming via genetics. The human visual system decodes visual stimuli through multiple stages of processing, proceeding from the retina to the lateral geniculate nucleus to a succession of relays in the primary visual cortex and beyond, where such perceptual elements as lines, edges, corners, contours, borders, orientation, color, motion, brightness, contrast, outline, movement, flicker, shape, spatial positioning, and duration are identified , as in Picasso’s bicycle bull.The length of the chain of relations that connects them. The strength of the concepts that make up the chain  of the potential connection.In general, four factors determine how readily a potential connection between distantly related concepts will form:As explained in Part Once potentiated, some aesthetic reactions are virtually instantaneous, like those to faces, certain sounds, or certain tastes. Others, like responses to the synergetic brews of poems, literature, paintings, or humor, have much longer latencies, and some works require multiple exposures before an aesthetic response is evoked. The reason for these differences resides in the time it takes the audience to respond to the elements of the stimulus. Elements that involve cognitive processes like recollection, recognition, or other types of processing have longer latencies. Some elements must actually be learned before they can function as part of the synergetic brew.Though aesthetic responses are essentially emotional and covert, they are always potentiated by operant behavior that sets the occasion for their occurrence Section . SociocuIn human societies, the arts function as a medium for sharing perceptions, information, and beliefs. Even the earliest human art forms  are likely to have served as media for defining the cultural identity and promoting the internal cohesion of the social group . Shared aesthetic responses play a prominent role in the self-definition and cohesive glue of human societies in general—families, communities, organizations, and entire nations . The less an individual is primed in the elements of the pertinent art form or discipline, the greater the relative contribution of the sociocultural factors.Examples of such alien-to-us art forms are the ancient Aztec culture’s cannibalistic rituals and cuisines, and the head-shrinking arts of certain ancient tribes of New Guinea and South America. Foods that are considered delicacies in one culture may be considered revolting in another. Similar culture-based divergences of aesthetic tastes pervade music, the visual arts, dance, literature, and other disciplines. Rare is the aesthetic taste that is untainted by the priming effects of sociocultural factors. In fact, the influence of such factors can be so great as to overwhelm the contributions of the stimulus itself , and the greater the potential for contribution to a synergetic brew.A stock artistic device is to create minor deviations from the regularities and predictabilities of symmetry. The resulting disconfirmations of expectations can contribute to the surprise effects.A invite comparison with the first; in visual art, regularities and repetitive patterns of color, texture, and shape create expectations as the eye moves across a painting; dance performances create expectations via repeating body movements. Ceramics, weaving, and beading, all use repetition and symmetry effects. All of these examples illustrate how symmetrical transformations can set the occasion for discrimination and generalization, with resulting opportunities for non-confirmation of expectations and surprise via the manipulation of concepts. The resulting learning effects can be reinforcing.Examples of symmetrical transformations in the arts: The meter and melody of one stanza of a song or poem, or the rhythm or tonality of one measure of a piece of music, is conserved in the next stanza or measure; in the A-B-A musical form, slight variations in the second Another reason symmetry is a common ingredient of synergetic brews in the creation of aesthetic effects is that symmetry tends to be associated with desirable attributes: in animals, with fitness and health; in abstract domains, with correctness, as when two sides of an equation balance; in logic, with equivalence; in psychology, with mutuality, reciprocity, dialog, and tit for tat; and in architectural structures, with stability. If the Taj Mahal were shown as left side only or the Eiffel Tower as one of its quarters only, with symmetry thus removed but all geometric information conserved, their aesthetic impact would be questionable.Combining concepts to create surprising new concepts and form new relations among them, or to expand the classes that define them. This device, one of most widely used, can involve placing a concept in a new context; arranging its temporal or sequential placement, as in music or literature; or its spatial placement as in visual arts.{a} Nonrealization of an expectation—This device, also one of the most widely used, involves the priming of an expectation of a certain continuation, outcome, or relationship (or taking advantage of a learning history that does) and then presenting a different continuation, outcome, or relationship, thereby creating surprise.{b} Reclassification—Identifying non-obvious and unrecognized commonalities among existing concepts ; or simplifying assumptions in science.{e} Provoking induction—Inducing generalization and expansion of a class that defines a concept; and identifying additional instances of the concept, or additional applications of a relation among concepts. Where used: parables; similes; poetry; scientific theories and mathematical theorems; pantomime and mime performance.{f} Linking distantly related concepts by priming the required connecting links within the audience’s concept repertoire  they are given in Section main makes the point that other devices from the list are usually also at play, though their role in creating the observed effect may be less significant. Only the main devices are referenced for each of the aesthetic effects discussed. Note also that the “aesthetic” responses analyzed may be so subtle as to escape notice, like other subaesthetic reactions.The purpose of this Part Readers may choose to scan Parts Poetry provides some relatively pure examples of the creation of aesthetic effects created by use of the devices described in Section Rhyme and meter have these effects because they involve repetition and the formation of new relations {a}{b}{k}{p}. Repetition is confirmatory Section  and a coMusic can add yet another dimension to a poem’s meanings , as can prosody when the words are recited. Additional devices are analogies, similes, and metaphors, all of which work by class expansion of concepts, often in synergetic interaction with phonological, rhythmic, or musical stimuli {a}{f}{p}. A unique attribute of poetry is its relation to speech and performance art, as in poetry recitation and rap. The ability to speak in rhyme or rhythmic cadence projects articulateness and verbal fluency Dutton, . It has In music, literature, poetry, and film, a common priming device is the presentation of a series of specific instances of a concept prior to its summary statement. The instances prime the audience to expect one type of summary or conclusion, while the one that actually follows is not the expected one {b}.The Second Coming, Yeats implies that things are bad: “The falcon cannot hear the falconer; /Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; /Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” {l}. But the conclusion that the audience is now primed to expect is not the monstrous one with which Yeats surprises the audience {b}.For example, in his poem Faust. Faust enumerates the disciplines he has mastered . The reader might now expect Faust’s summary statement to refer to his erudition, but gets a surprise when Faust continues, “Here I now stand, poor fool, and am no wiser than before.” Some further instances of Faust’s misery prime the final surprise—the appearance of Mephisto {b}{l}{p}.Another example is found in the opening scene of Goethe’s Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky develops the two facets of Raskolnikov’s personality through a series of incidents that involve him and Svidrigailov, his antithesis. By this concept formation method—contrasting instances and noninstances—Dostoyevsky primes the surprise of Raskolikov’s eventual transformation {b}{f}{p}. Murder mysteries and thriller movies provide other instances of the “final surprise” device {b}.In Poetics on tragedy, discusses how tragedians prime the final surprise, or Katharsis. The emotional impact, he explains relies on events that prime the audience’s emotions of pity and fear, events the audience must find realistic and credible, that is, they must mesh with its existing concept repertoires. This process primes the synergetic interaction and climax—for instance, that the man Oedipus had slain was his father and that the woman he had been sleeping with was his mother {b}{f}{j}{p}.Aristotle, in his A parable provokes generalization of its theme or message beyond the work’s specific characters and settings {f}{h}{p}. The effect is often gradual—a growing realization of the message’s generality due to the cumulative effect of successive instances of the concept that is being formed.Little Red Riding Hood or Three Little Pigs. If the characters were ordinary people, behaving in ways that strike too close to home, the reader might take the intended message too personally too quickly, and reject it.Metaphorical devices can help overcome readers’ resistance to transferring the message to themselves or their emotional discomfort, as when the message touches on moral or ethical topics. To bypass such resistance or discomfort, authors sometimes use characters and events that are safely distant from the reader’s personal experience. The fables of Aesop and La Fontaine feature animal characters that talk and interact in human ways, as does the wolf in But the use of the talking animal device is not just a Trojan horse against self-reference. It also invites generalization and concept formation, with a progressive but sufficiently gradual transfer from animal to human as events unfold. The synergetic interaction occurs at the moment of generalization, when the render realizes the generality of the characters’ behavior, {f}{h}{p}.Moor of Venice—characters who, like talking animals, are safely distant from the lives of ordinary theatergoers. Ancient Greek theater achieved a similar result by using masks, as if to say, “This character could be anybody.” When watching Oedipus Rex (note the king device again), the main synergetic impact occurs at the moment of generalization {f} {h}{l}{p}.Shakespeare used the same devices {b}{f}{h} in most of his plays. Rather than talking animals, he used kings, princes, royalty, or a Gulliver’s Travels, Don Quixote, Moby Dick, Animal Farm, and Lord of the Flies. The same devices {d}{f}{h}{l}{p} are used in science fiction, space fantasy films like Star Trek, Star Wars, and other fantasy media that seek to convey messages via induction {f}. Their unrealistic, unnatural, and/or artificial settings provoke generalization and conceptualization.Some classical novels, too, are parables that provoke generalization through settings and characters whose metaphorical roles often become evident only gradually. Well-known ones from the classics are Folk sayings and aphorisms use the same induction-provoking principle {f} but in a different context. “A stitch in time saves nine” obviously does not apply only to seamstresses, and “The early bird catches the worm,” or “Birds of a feather flock together” are clearly meant to apply beyond ornithology. The persuasiveness and aesthetic effects of aphorisms are also enhanced by the synergetic truth-imbuing effects of rhyme discussed earlier {f}{h}{p}.The examples cited below illustrate how the devices described in Section Great C Major Symphony, Franz Schubert primes a surprise by repeating the C major key’s root note C, alone and without harmony, several times in a row. Since any note played alone can serve as a bridge to any one of many other keys, the key actually chosen comes as a surprise {b}. The final C is the bridge to the new key of A flat major, thereby revealing the C’s double meaning. The simultaneous change to horns and slowing of the tempo is spine-tingling {a}{b}{p}. Beethoven employs this same modulation in the Choral movement of his 9th Symphony, where the final A major chord provides the major third of a rousing F major chord, thereby modulating into F major for the march that follows. Verdi used this same modulation to introduce the Anvil Chorus in Il Trovatore. In all three of these examples, the synergetic interaction effect is created by combining the surprise of the modulation with a simultaneous change of instrumentation, timber, and rhythm {a}{b}{p}.In listening to music, aesthetic responses generally occur at points where something unexpected and surprising happens, like a modulation (transition from one key to another) {b}. The composer may create synergetic brews by combining the modulation with a simultaneous unanticipated rhythmic twist, change of instrumentation, or other deviation from the listener’s expectations regarding melody, harmony, or timbre {a}{b}{p}. For example, in the third movement of his The evolution of European music over the centuries, from medieval liturgical music to today’s genres, has seen an increasing complexity of harmonic progressions, modulations, scales, and rhythms. It is possible that this evolution is due to composers’ need for new musical effects that can still achieve surprise in the face of the increasing familiarity of traditional ones. The aesthetic impact that a particular genre achieves depends entirely on the audience’s state of priming Section .Why is rhythm the indispensable ingredient of so many synergetic brews? Because it can prime short-term expectations and surprises through syncopation, acceleration, deceleration, pattern repetition, and so forth. The temporal patterns of rhythm provide an infinite range of opportunities for the violation of expectations via systematic deviations from regularity {b}{k}{l}.Rites of Spring and the syncopations of much Latin dance music.Rhythm also identifies and demarcates musical units. The regularities of a rhythmic scaffolding can create expectations that the composer can then manipulate and violate for the achievement of surprise {b}{k}{l}{p}. Synergetic brews that use rhythm as an important ingredient include Stravinsky’s In the classical genres, the theme on which the variations are based is stated at the outset. The variations share some combination of the theme’s identifying features—its harmonies, rhythms, and melodic elements, and present them for recognition in new contexts {a}{d}{h}{b}{p}.The canon is a form where two or three identical renditions of a musical passage play simultaneously but with staggered starting times. When different segments then overlap, surprising new harmonies are created {a}{k}{b}{p}. A similar device is used in fugues, but there, the original theme keeps changing. It is expanded, inverted, transposed, modulated, and embedded in surprising new contexts. The listener’s “Aha!” Is triggered by recognition of the theme in its altered forms, interacting synergetically with other elements {a}{d}{h}{p}.Much of traditional African music is based on refrains in which a basic musical concept is repeated in ever-varying contexts—rhythmic, vocal , and/or accompanying dance routines. When a musical unit keeps repeating in ever-changing contexts, its class expands {a}{h}{k}{l}{p}.basso ostinato in classical music achieves its effect by the same devices. A given bass figure is heard in ever-varying contexts, in each of which the repeating unit takes on different and sometimes surprising meanings {a}{l}. Same for the repeating chorus of a chorale. New contexts can be musical or textual, as in the stanzas and refrains of songs. Each new meaning thus generated serves as an additional ingredient of a synergetic brew.The In the classical sonata form, the development section combines identifying features of the first and second themes to synthesize new musical concepts. The listener experiences mini-surprises on hearing and recognizing the themes’ features in their altered forms, combinations, and contexts {a}{d}{h}.5th Symphony, where the first theme, “ta, ta, ta, taah,” (twice repeated) {k} {l} reappears in inverted form as the bass figure of the second theme. The relations between the two themes are then developed throughout the first movement and then more in the third, always in surprising ways {a}{d}{h}{p}.A familiar example occurs in the first movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, he summarizes the movement’s main themes with a terse, eight-note synopsis {e}.Theme-and-variations, fugues, and development sections all use devices {a} class expansion, but codas often do the opposite: they summarize the musical concepts heard earlier. The impact is based on how the essence of the musical concepts is distilled and exaggerated with nonessential features omitted, as in a caricature {d}{e}{f}{p}. For example, in the coda of the first movement of his Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Beethoven offers three levels of summarization, each one terser than the previous one, and the final one just five notes long; in the final measures of the first movement of his A leitmotif is a musical theme associated with a person, object, action, or concept like fate, love, or death. In operatic works, it is often used as a musical narrative, essentially a priming device that signals relations between concepts—a commentary on the meaning of events as they occur—what a character may be fearing, recalling, planning, or anticipating. An example of the synergetic effect this device can achieve is the unexpected joining of the “fate” and “contract” themes in Richard Wagner’s “Twilight of the Gods”The concepts that generate effects in the graphic visual arts fall into two broad categories: (A) purely visual concepts, based on colors and color schemes, compositions, shapes, forms, patterns, repetition, and symmetry, whose aesthetic impact is largely independent of things that may be depicted (as in abstract art), and (B) concepts based on depictions of the world and the audience’s knowledge of it. The impressionist and post-impressionist genres of painting often achieve synergetic interactions of type (A) and (B) effects in the same work {a}. Portraits and landscapes may use wonderful color schemes (type (A)), and at the same time play on viewer’s history with respect to people and nature (type (B)) {b}.For both categories (A) and (B), the main visual arts employ most of the devices described in Section Example: The aesthetic impact of the swirls in many of Van Gogh's paintings are due in part to the contexts in which they are placed {a}—cypress trees, a starry sky, or rolling hills—things that are static in the real world. Since swirls imply movement, their presence in static structures is surprising, incongruous, and emotionalizing—a synergetic interaction effect {a}{b}{d}{h}{j}{k}{p}.A device much used in visual arts is to repeat a shape, pattern, or color scheme while systematically varying a featured dimension, thereby focusing attention on that dimension and then expanding its class {d}{k}. Cezanne often used this device by means of side-by-side parallel brush strokes, each having a slightly different shape, texture, and color, in a progression that draws attention to the changing dimension. Calling attention to a dimension by juxtaposing exemplars that vary in that dimension progressively is analogous to the ways repetitive and rhythmic effects can direct attention in music and poetry {h}{k}{p}.This category of effect relies on viewers’ priming histories: their knowledge of the world—what things look like, societal phenomena, beliefs, things that happen, and emotional connotations of these {b}{h}{j}{p}. Familiar examples of art genres that rely on such priming are portraiture, religious art, still lifes, political and social commentary, realism, surrealism, and caricature. Dutton  explainsIsenheim Altar painting—the colors of their garbs, their personal attributes, and the subtle symbolic interrelationships and meanings of these  {k}{m}{p}.The evolution of European art over the centuries—from medieval religious painting to the multiple genres of modern art—has seen a proliferation of media, genres, and their hybrids. As in music, this evolution appears to be driven in part by the search for new ways to achieve synergetic effects and surprise in the face of viewers’ increasing familiarity with past genres.Many of Walt Disney’s creations are exemplars of synergetic brews that have emotional impact. Mickey Mouse’s main synergetically interacting elements are (1) neotenic features ; (2) infantile clothing; (3) happy facial expression; (4) mischievous aplomb; and (5) good intelligence for a mouse, especially a young one {a}{d}{j}{p}. In Mickey Mouse movies, the synergetic brew is enhanced when motion, music, visual effects, and story lines, are added {p}.Mickey Mouse’s nonhuman embodiment increases its potential for the types of induction effects {f} discussed in Section Performers use emotionally expressive behavior to evoke emotional reactions from their audience, via mirroring Part  {i}. TheOrchestra conductors often seek to convey the music’s emotional meaning by expressive gesticulation, {i} as much for the audience’s as for the orchestra’s benefit. Rock and jazz performers may engage in vigorous and emotion-evoking antics; singers may act out the emotions they are trying to express; and instrumental performers use not just their fingers but also their heads, arms, and faces to convey emotion. In all of these cases, the audience responds to the performance emotionally in part through covert mirroring , and many of the other devices described in Section Magicians use oral patter in combination with slights of hand and visual illusion to prime expectations that are then violated, thereby creating surprise {b}{c}{p}. Though the surprises thus generated are not validly instructive or informative from the reality standpoint, their pseudolearning effects are nonetheless reinforcing due to the surprise element.In architecture, scale often interacts synergetically with design {a}. Table top models of the Eiffel tower, the vault of a cathedral, the Taj Mahal, or the Sydney opera house, would rarely elicit the gasps of wonder that the full-scale outdoor versions do. The conjunction of design elegance, scale, and surroundings interact synergistically and synergetically to create aesthetic impact {a}.Other synergetically interacting elements sometimes used in architecture are gravity-defying devices like cantilevering or unexpected ways in which light enters indoor spaces {b}. Some architectural styles achieve synergetic effects by juxtaposing natural features like water, rocks, or vegetation with man-made structures to form the new concept of dwelling amid nature {a}{b}{c}. Surrounding structures, too, may contribute ingredients to a synergetic brew.Chefs can achieve aesthetic effects by creating synergetic brews of flavors, textures, and visual appearance {a}. New combinations need to be primed by the audience’s food history, and yet be unexpected and surprising, like crunchiness of a normally smooth food or sweetness in the case of meats {a}{b}{c}{p}. Flavors and textures can also contribute to the synergetic brew merely by refreshing memories, as in the way refreshment occurs in other arts Sections  and 4.6.device despite its connotation of a human agency.In the instances where the aesthetic brew is not man-made but natural, subsets of the same 16 devices are at play. I will continue to use the term Type A effects, consisting of the brightly lit portion of sky, the juxtaposition of complementary colors due to the decomposition of the light spectrum by diffraction, rhythmic progression patterns due to atmospheric phenomena, the scale and three-dimensionality of the stimuli, suggestive patterns created by cloud formations, and color saturation gradients as a function of visual distance from the sun {a}{j}{p}{k}{l}.Type A effects consisting of three-dimensional designs that feature symmetry, geometric rhythmic regularity, simplicity, repetition, highly saturated colors in the part of the color spectrum often opposite and complementary to the green of the surrounding vegetation, and fragrances whose reinforcing properties are largely nonlearned {a}{j}{k}{l}{m}{p}.Type A effects, including symmetry, elaborate color schemes, sophisticated designs, movement routines that create expectations, and in some butterfly species, Type B effects that evoke or mimic eyes of predators, bird feathers, or vegetation {a}{j}{k}{l}{m}{p}.beautiful is commonly applied are landscapes, mammals, human bodies, crystals, marine life, and exoskeletons of marine animals.Other natural synergetic brews to which the term aesthetic are stretched, as are those of the adjective beautiful. In Western cultures, the semantic ground zero for these terms have tended to be the visual arts, music, and poetry, with literature not far removed. Those arts are discussed in Part funny becomes prominent. For horror movies and thrillers, scary is common. For mathematical theorems or scientific theories, such terms as elegant make their entry. Terms sometimes applied to architectural structures are awesome or grandiose; to culinary works, delicious; to human bodies, graceful or sexy; to actions of people, admirable.The quotation marks around the term “aesthetic” are intended to convey that in the disciplines discussed below, the semantics of the terms But in addition to these familiar aesthetic domains of Western cultures, consider just those of Japan: In addition to a rich trove of musical and visual art genres, there is bonsai, many genres of martial arts, ceramics, calligraphy, landscaping, flower arrangement, the tea ceremony, costumes, architecture, Noh plays, Kabuki theater, and puppetry. To bring into perspective the vast range of the world’s arts and disciplines, multiply just those of Japan by the world’s thousands of other cultures, each with its own nested sets of aesthetic domains within domains.Like Part Again, readers may choose to scan this Part Section 21st Piano Concerto acquires new meanings as it interacts synergetically with the story in the movie Elvira Madigan {a}{h}{j}. Another is the 1941 Disney movie Fantasia,The Sorcerer’s Apprentice interacts synergetically with visually impactful cartoon scenes, the music of Paul Dukas, and Mickey Mouse’s performance {a}{f}{h}{i}{j}{p}. Other stunning synergetic brews in Fantasia are amalgamations of musical masterpieces with visual art and emotionalizing dramas like “Night on Bald Mountain,” extinction of the dinosaurs, and scenes from Greek mythology, all achieved by devices {a}{b}{f}{i}{h}{j}{m}{p}.Here are some examples. The film medium can create synergetic brews that impart new meanings and emotional impact even to some of the greatest works of classical music. One instance is the way the second movement of Mozart’s The history of film since 1900 demonstrates the effect of adding one synergetic ingredient at a time, one every few years, to the synergetic brews of film—a unique natural experiment: motion was introduced first; then sound; then drama and plot; then sophisticated acting; then color; then enhanced visual detail; then cinematographic technology; then screen size; then stereo sound; and then 3-D. The history of the film industry attests to the incrementally cumulative transformative, reinforcing, and emotionalizing impact of each of these additions.The sheer number of distinct elements that comprise the brews of the film medium suggests that this large number may be responsible for the medium’s great control over its audiences. Motion pictures are created by teams that usually include screenplay writers, directors, actors, cinematographers, music directors, and many others. Video game development similarly requires the efforts of a team, with every team member contributing a vital element to the brew. The fact that these media require the efforts of large teams to create the brew attests to the unusually large number of interacting elements. In any given scene, as many as eight of the devices described in Section This observation suggests the testable hypothesis that the magnitude of a synergetic brew’s impact is a function of the number of its interacting elements. But the completeness with which the film medium is able to capture and control an audience’s behavior and emotional involvement, to the point where it is rendered oblivious to its surroundings, suggests the possibility of a second, supertransformative effect—a cusp that may occur when the number of synergetic devices at play or elements in the brew reach a certain critical point. Again, fMRI technology may be a useful tool for exploring such a possible effect in terms of its neural correlates.Though usually not as rich in media resources as motion pictures, the active and interactive aspect of video game play adds the powerful reinforcing and instructional effects of learning via interaction with a responsive environment, immediate feedback, and control of consequences. Since video game play usually requires the development of a game-specific skill, the development of such skills, like all learning, is one of the player’s sources of reinforcement, regardless of the transferability of these skills to nongame settings. Another source of reinforcement is created by schedules that sprinkle small successes amid more numerous non-but-near successes {a}{b}{c}{d}{f}{h}{j}{k}{l}{m}{p}.A Marquis at the court of Louis XIV who, on entering his wife’s boudoir and finding her in the arms of a Bishop, walked calmly to the window and went through the motions of blessing the people in the street. “What are you doing?” cried the anguished wife. “Monseigneur is performing my functions,” replied the Marquis, “so I am performing his.” (p. 96)There are evidently many types of humor  {c}. When Joe says to Jane, “Let’s talk in rhyme today,” and she responds, “Oh no, I hate to talk that way!” the synergetic interaction occurs when the reader perceives the contradiction between her use of rhyme and the meaning of her answer. The whimsical humor of Picasso’s bicycle bull, too, resides in its double meaning, as in a pun, often augmented by parsimony {b}{c}{m}.Priming of certain audience expectations {b}.Juxtaposition of concepts that are incongruous or contradictory {c}.Presenting these simultaneously so that they may interact synergistically or synergetically {p}.All of these examples illustrate the three devices present in most humor:Some of these humor devices have also been described by others , E = IR (Voltage = Current × Resistance), or E = mc2, is based on their power to describe and predict an infinite range of events that hold true throughout the universe—extreme instances of power amplification and parsimony {m}  is reflected in the empirical observation that parsimony suggests truth, and truth tends to be parsimonious Section .a2 + b2 = c2, resides in the surprising economy of means by which it predicts the length of any right triangle’s hypotenuse based on the lengths of the triangle’s legs, in spite of the infinite range of their possible lengths. And there are, of course, untold numbers of far more sophisticated instances of aesthetically pleasing theorems.The parsimony of the Pythagorean theorem, In mathematics, surprise is often occasioned by linkages between concepts that may at first seem unrelated {a}{c}{g}. A simple example is the cumulative summation of consecutive odd integers 1, 3, 5, 7, and so forth. The first two add up to 4, the first 3 add up to 9, the first 4 to 16, the first 5 to 25, and so forth. How come they always add up to a perfect square {b}?Even more surprising is the geometric explanation. Draw one dot. Then add 1 dot next to it and 2 dots under those 2 to make a 2 × 2 square. Then add 2 dots to one side of that square and 3 dots under it to make a 3 × 3 square. Then add 3 dots to one side of that one and 4 dots under it, to make a 4 × 4 square. To create those squares, the number of dots you add is always the sum of the next two consecutive numbers—1 and 2, 2 and 3, 3 and 4, 4 and 5, and so forth. Their sums  are always the next odd number. That is why cumulating consecutive odd numbers preserves the perfect square {b}{f}.geometric one that reveals the reason they do. The synergetic brew formed by these concepts may create a type of aesthetic impact that an appropriately primed audience may call elegant or parsimonious {c}{f}{g}{m}.This physical demonstration creates a surprising connection between seemingly disparate concepts—a numerical one—odd numbers adding up to perfect squares—and a Go must include the highly reinforcing immediacy and emotionalizing effects of these games’ battles of ideas, the continuously generated succession of synergetic interactions and move-upon-move surprises. But what are the attributes that cause certain moves to be called “beautiful”? One is the move’s achievement of a desired result by violating generally applicable strategic principles  {a}{b}{m}{p}, only audiences that have the priming history required for access to that achievement are likely to experience an aesthetic impact. Such audiences may have aesthetic reactions to the moon landing, the internet, gene splicing, fMRI, the GPS, or integrated circuit technology. All of these and countless other achievements of science and technology were the result of synergetic interactions among efforts of multiple individuals.Performers like dancers, figure skaters, acrobats, and sports virtuosos often create surprise by violating expectations as to what is physically possible {b}. Mirroring physically astounding performances can put the audience in touch with the gap between the performer’s abilities and their own {j}, especially when the performance seems effortless {m}{p}.In the interpersonal domain, we may call a person’s act “beautiful” or “magnificent” when it is surprisingly selfless and yet costly or painful to its agent; or where the act is kind or forgiving when we might have expected it to be vengeful or retaliatory {a}{b}{c}{i}{p}. In such cases the elements that interact synergetically are concepts relating to social behavior rather than to sensory ones as in music or art.These types of social synergetic interactions are often featured in literature, film, and opera. The audience may experience the emotional impact generated by violated expectations when mirroring the displayed emotions {b}{c}{i}{p}.aesthetic or something else, what matters is the behavioral structure of the phenomenon and the devices that create it. The descriptive or adjectival term used depends on the speaker’s idiosyncratic semantic history and culture. Aesthetics, by whatever name, must therefore be considered a distinctive pan-cultural behavioral phenomenon deserving of study by the methods of science.The examples presented in this Part One goal of the naturalistic examination of aesthetic phenomena in Parts The observation that the component elements of synergetic brews always include a blend of exteroceptive and internal (covert) stimuli Sections  raises tInstances of aesthetic effects generated by synergetic brews in which covertly generated stimuli predominate are: the chess player who finds a beautiful move upon having  assembled several concepts regarding the position, and Archimedes who makes the 12-link connection after some pondering, culminating in his “Eureka!” Section . CreativThe challenge posed by the proposed research strategy is to devise laboratory models in which the effects of relevant variables can be measured and interpreted. The issue would always be what a particular laboratory model can tell us about things outside the laboratory. In the context of aesthetics, this issue takes the form of whether study of the model will increase our understanding of some of the phenomena we refer to as aesthetic—how they are generated, how we can categorize them, measure them objectively, and how we can predict and control them.The value of verbal reports by members of any semantic community regarding aesthetic responses is always limited by the wide diversity of priming histories and cultural factors among the group’s members. For instance, it is rare that any group’s “standards of beauty”  will evoke similar aesthetic responses from all or most of its members.for themselves in the past, and then using those stimuli in the experiments. This method ensures that the participant has or had the required priming history for responding to that stimulus aesthetically. Since the stimulus may have lost some of its former aesthetic impact for the participant over time, refreshment techniques may be required to restore and maintain its effectiveness for the experiment.One way to address this research challenge is to go to single-subject designs where individual participants are used as their own controls: by asking participants to identify stimuli that evoked genuine aesthetic responses FMRI technology promises to become a source of measures that correlate, potentially at a detailed level, with different types of aesthetic responses, as for instance, in different art forms, disciplines, or types of synergetic brews. FMRI activity patterns, in conjunction with verbal reports and behavioral data, may lead to categorizations of such patterns according to independently established functions of the neural structures involved.Responses we tend to describe as aesthetic have an emotional component, and this component is usually surprise tinged.The stimuli that evoke aesthetic responses involve synergetic interactions among elements.Aesthetic phenomena have their evolutionary roots in events that once had biological significance, like alarms or opportunities.Stimuli that evoke aesthetic responses tend to be positively reinforcing, in ways that relate to behavioral and biological factors.A limited number of concept-manipulation devices is sufficient for the creation of the synergetic brews that generate aesthetic and related emotional effects in the more than 200 examples drawn from 17 arts, disciplines, and natural phenomena.Aesthetic phenomena may be special cases of a far more widespread universe of behavior—our continuous stream of subaesthetic reactions.As a pervasive and prominent aspect of human behavior, aesthetic responses and synergetic behavioral effects in general, are beckoning targets of scientific inquiry. I believe that the inevitable long-term consequence of such research will be a transformation of the concept of aesthetics itself. Many concepts and constructs, especially the fuzzy ones, start to disintegrate when you shine a bright light on them. That is how science advances. Just as the fuzzy concept of fire has given way, in scientific discourse, to concepts like ignition, combustion, fuel, and oxidation, so must fuzzy concepts like aesthetics and beauty be expected eventually to give way to ones that are more useful in a scientific analysis. The goal should be to bring aesthetic and synergetic phenomena into mainstream biological and behavioral science where they belong.On a personal note, my interest in aesthetics awoke during my teenage years as an outgrowth of my immersion in the arts. When my Columbia University professors led me to see that behavioral science held the keys to a fuller understanding of aesthetics, I knew that behavioral science would be my life’s work.The Psychological Record will help me strengthen the theory to the point where it induces some intrepid pioneers to undertake experimental research forays into the relatively untrodden terrain of the scientific study of aesthetics.Some of the additional things I learned during the 60-year detour I took prior to my current return to those roots helped me write this article. I am hopeful that the forthcoming commentaries in


Cross-validation tools are used increasingly to validate and compare genetic evaluation methods but analytical properties of cross-validation methods are rarely described. There is also a lack of cross-validation tools for complex problems such as prediction of indirect effects  or for breeding schemes with small progeny group sizes.We derive the expected value of several quadratic forms by comparing genetic evaluations including “partial” and “whole” data. We propose statistics that compare genetic evaluations including “partial” and “whole” data based on differences in means, covariance, and correlation, and term the use of these statistics “method LR” (from linear regression). Contrary to common belief, the regression of true on estimated breeding values is (on expectation) lower than 1 for small or related validation sets, due to family structures. For validation sets that are sufficiently large, we show that these statistics yield estimators of bias, slope or dispersion, and population accuracy for estimated breeding values. Similar results hold for prediction of future phenotypes although we show that estimates of bias, slope or dispersion using prediction of future phenotypes are sensitive to incorrect heritabilities or precorrection for fixed effects. We present an example for a set of 2111 Brahman beef cattle for which, in repeated partitioning of the data into training and validation sets, there is very good agreement of statistics of method LR with prediction of future phenotypes.Analytical properties of cross-validation measures are presented. We present a new method named LR for cross-validation that is automatic, easy to use, and which yields the quantities of interest. The method compares predictions based on partial and whole data, which results in estimates of accuracy and biases. Prediction of observed records may yield biased results due to precorrection or use of incorrect heritabilities.The online version of this article (10.1186/s12711-018-0426-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Models for genetic evaluation are an oversimplification of reality that usually holds only in the short run and in closely-related populations. Their properties are rarely well known, which can lead to unexpected results. For instance, initial applications of genomic predictions of breeding values (GEBV) in dairy cattle led to biases, with young “genomic” selected bulls with high GEBV being overpredicted, as verified by posterior progeny testing –3. As a The introduction of new methods for genetic or genomic evaluation raises the question of model choice (comparing across models) and model quality (features of a particular model). Thus, we need tools to rank, understand and quantify the behavior of prediction models in an “animal breeding” context. The need for these tools has dramatically increased with the implementation of genomic selection, given its built-in encouragement to take riskier decisions such as selection of unproven young candidates, in particular in dairy cattle. The method that is most commonly used to check genomic predictions is some form of cross-validation, a test that was rarely used in pedigree-based genetic evaluation studies, which relied primarily on progeny testing . In Cross-validation tests rely on either one of two approaches: (1) comparing (G)EBV or predicted phenotypes to (pre-corrected) observed phenotypes, deregressed proofs, or yield deviations ; or (2) Cross-validation is a good tool but has some limitations as discussed above. Thus, there is an increasing need for a simple general tool that can be used in several complex scenarios, including for traits with a low heritability (e.g. reproductive and fitness traits), for indirectly observed traits , and with limited size of progeny test groups . Here, we propose to complement cross-validation approaches with semiparametric procedures based on the classical theory of genetic evaluation.Semiparametric procedures based on the mixed model equations are appealing because they combine theory, which we know is approximately and/or asymptotically correct, with model-free evidence from data. In the 1990’s, there was some effort to develop such procedures . ReverteIn this work, we draw on analytical results from  and presnot propose methods to estimate individual accuracies, which are a measure of the risk when choosing a particular animal for breeding [This work proposes estimates of the “population” accuracy, which is the correlation between true (TBV) and estimated breeding values (EBV) across individuals in a population. Population accuracy is relevant to compare the predictive ability of models and to maximize genetic progress. This work does breeding .We propose to test the quality of evaluation methods using cross-validation tests based on successive EBV of a set of “focal” individuals . These “focal” individuals can be the whole population , 19 or an is the size of We will use the convention that Let sampling , which isampling , 21, 22.sampling  is “the Accordingly, bias is defined as the difference of means  account , 24, as  account , 25.scalars, i.e.Note that the three quantities accuracy, bias, and dispersion are defined as We also use indicators of (self-)relationships and of genetic variances within the sample. If the relationship matrix across focal individuals is  used by  to descr used by , 27, andderson’s  results ings) by .Consider successive evaluations with “partial” and “whole” data  of the partial EBV, The slope of the regression of EBV based on partial on EBV based on whole data, In general, assumptions are: enderson  proved tsults in  yields \r et al.  referredIn the following, we prove that the statistics described above are related to bias, slope and accuracies. We make repeated use of the following results for biquadratic forms : consideg matrix .before  and after (“whole”) progeny testing) have different means:Considering our problem, we make the hypothesis that the two genetic evaluations  that, because of selection, Note that the meaning of the “expected mean of EBV derson’s  descriptnt}σu,∞2 , 25, 27.Following classical notation: ribed as , 28.\docelection  in whichIt is straightforward to show that For the method R of covariance estimation, it is recommended that the dispersion (relationship) matrix election :\documenHowever, these weighted quadratic forms lead to estimators that are difficult to understand. Hence, in the following, we will use “unweighted” quadratic forms.The quadratic form using not-centered i1+Fiσu2 . Thus, tTo remove dependence of the quadratic form above on means, it makes sense to use centered g matrix . By its variance , 34, 35.ilities” ), showinThe remaining quadratic forms needed for our developments are:In the remainder of this paper, we assume that the expectation of a ratio of quadratic forms is equal to the ratio of the expectations. The “Here, we give an alternative definition of the population accuracy, i.e. the expected correlation of EBV and TBV in a sample, as a ratio of quadratic forms:UsingThe denominator The regression Note that this expectation involves PEV and off-diagonal PEC. Importantly, it must hold that This statistic is composed of three quadratic forms and assuming that the square root of the expectation is equal to the expectation of the root, it gives:Therefore, We can get a direct estimator of accuracy (and not of ratios of accuracies) from Thus, n scheme  or be exn scheme .Statistics used to compute slopes and accuracies deal well with regular bias , such that:The covariance of EBV with Because by orthogonality, p,Xβ^=0  using the method that is deemed to be optimal; we will assume that this is GBLUP.Choose a cutoff date and create a partial dataset by setting phenotypes after cutoff date to missing;Compute GEBV based on the partial data using GBLUP;For “focal” individuals : compute statistics Compute PEBV based on “partial data” and using PBLUP;Compute statistics The statistic The statistic The procedure above uses the same phenotypes for the evaluations with either The statistics described above were tested in a real-life dataset. We used genetic and phenotypic resources  and, therefore, there are no issues related to selection.A simple breeding value mixed-model was used for the analysis of YWT with the fixed effects of contemporary group , age of dam at birth in year classes, and age at measurement as a covariate, and the random additive polygenic effects and residuals as random effects. Variance components estimates and BLUPs of breeding values were obtained using the Qxpak5 software . All datTable Table Figure One metric of interest is the correlation of EBV with precorrected phenotype  between the estimate of heritability and Striking is the novel finding of the strong negative correlation of ly Table . Howeverentclass1pt{minimar = − 0.838) between r = − 0.548) between Finally, we explored the changes in ‘consecutive predictions’, which are represented here by the move from partial (old) to whole (new) data. We used the absolute difference between predictions , we need In selection, the expected genetic gain at the stage of selection is nditions , 33. In nditions , 32 provnditions  proved tnditions  is biasenditions .It may be argued that for the results in  to hold checking of the model in order to have a model that empirically has the “best” properties (estimation of bias); and then, estimation of its accuracy. We propose the following two-step praxis approach. First, to ascertain as best as possible that models are empirically unbiased using the statistics Thus, we see the process of estimation of accuracy and bias of EBV by our proposed method LR as a double process. First, r et al. ). Secondtrue value of the regression of TBV on EBV, i.e. the “true” because for the “true” Still, there is a problem in method LR, and in all methods that rely on linear regression of “predictands”  on “predictors” . As shown in the “Fixing the models to observe constraints on estimated bias should be based on rigorous genetic or statistical arguments (i.e. re-estimating variance components and heritabilities), rather than quick fixing procedures such as multiplying by constants, manipulating relationships or changing hyper-parameters of prior distributions. For instance,  found empulation , 55.In the analysis of genetic trend for litter size in pigs, Sorensen et al.  also empWe have shown that precorrection of phenotypes using whole data may bias the result of predictivity. This is particularly relevant for small contemporary groups such as in dairy or beef cattle as opposed to, say, sheep or aquaculture species. Some measure of error in precorrection due to estimation of contemporary groups should be reported in cross-validation results. Although the ranking of methods should be similar, estimates of population accuracies may be biased. Comparing One final consideration involves discussing the difference between population and individual accuracy. Quoting : “For reIn this paper, we present properties of cross-validation measures obtained from successive genetic evaluations. These measures allow estimation of population accuracies and biases, which are of interest to quantitative geneticists in general, and animal and plant breeders in particular. We hope that with these tools, researchers can report and compare competing prediction models, in particular for complex cases such as for lowly heritable traits or for indirect genetic values such as maternal effects.Additional file 1: Tables S1 and S2. Correlation among the 16 statistics employed in the cross-validation study of the beef cattle dataset using the pedigree-based NRM or the SNP-based GRM (NB: These are the values used to generate the left and right panels of Fig. 2


This “top-down” principle is biologically driven and contraindicative to spontaneity, which is non-linear, condensed, and initially incomprehensible. My first argument is that spontaneity entails “bottom up” information processing, as articulated in the hierarchical neurocognitive model of perception. My second argument is that changing the balance between these two processes is important and feasible. Insights from psychodynamic transference and savant syndrome are presented to support these ideas. Uniting these contemporary notions with some essentials of J. L. Moreno’s philosophy is my third goal. By violating predictions and expectations, psychodrama interferes with top-down “conserved” processing and cultivates here and now, stimulus-dependent spontaneous acts. Further evidence is presented in support of the claim that adult spontaneity leads to enhanced cognition and creativity through imitating the child’s brain, as Moreno envisioned. Because spontaneity is formed before having the evidence for its truth or adequacy, it entails, in adults, overcoming apprehensions about acting without a theory in mind. This is what  This definition emphasizes being in agreement and harmony with oneself, without external influence or constraint. Freedom is a central issue. Adjectives such as “automatic,” “impulsive,” or “instinctive” that sometimes accompany the term seem to underline a routine, mechanized and fixed patterned response, which, as elaborated below, seem to miss the point.Indeed, the origin of “spontaneous” is in Old Latin:  includes not only declarative memories, but also the procedural knowledge stored in the functional architecture of sensorimotor networks. Network architecture could constitute an “implicit” source of top-down influences as, for instance, the topology of lateral connections within cortical areas is known to embody stored predictions that have been acquired both during evolution and through experience-dependent learning, and have proven to be of adaptive value , p. 714.It appears, then, that the human mental apparatus has evolved to promote biological advantage by relying on existing knowledge more than on novel, unhabitual or unforeseen encounters , 2000. TThe perceptually guided action of the system must simply facilitate the continuing integrity of the system (ontogeny) and/or its lineage (phylogeny)…any action undertaken by the system is permitted as long as it is does not violate the constraint of having to maintain the integrity of the system and/or its lineage , p. 205.Therefore, the influence of ongoing top-down activity on the processing of incoming sensory signals is not confined to a feedback, but rather plays a decisive role in the (re)action production. Subjective information related to previous experience is superior in interpreting current perceptual stimuli, relative to the actual (bottom-up) input. Incoming signals may therefore convey different meanings about the same scene, in accord with a preexistent mental/behavioral context.vide infra). I also claim that this is exactly what psychodrama does, by cultivating spontaneity through role play and other creative acts. Before turning to the latter claim, I will substantiate the former using two clinical examples: psychological transference and autistic conditions. These examples demonstrate top-down and bottom-up dynamics in low-level sensory systems as well as in higher-order mental computations.I suggest that intentionally changing the proportion of top-down/bottom-up dynamic processes, so that bottom-up input is more dominant at the expense of top-down influences, would enhance spontaneity as well as therapeutic change  would require a completely different course of action by the patient. Neurobiologically, this would be mediated through a ventral frontoparietal network that interrupts with a dorsal frontoparietal network that mediates top-down processing.To illustrate, Brockman introduces a 48-year-old patient, who had been in numerous therapies since the age of 17. He accepted the referral from a colleague, who described the patient as “…chronically depressed, hopeless, suicidal” (p. 695). Among other reflections regarding this background, Brockman underlines: “I was partly aware that when I accepted this patient, it would be imperative that I find a treatment and a plan different from those she had undergone. I would need to find something new” (p. 695). After having reached a relatively solid therapeutic alliance, Brockman refers to a specific oddball intervention, in a moment when the patient complained about having a recursive failure in producing her work:. . .Therapist: Then maybe you should work here.Patient: What?Therapist: Here in my office. I’m not here many afternoons.Patient: You’d let me work here?(Therapist’s reflection): … I think we were both a little unsettled by the “oddball” quality of whatI had just offered. After a beat, she asked,What makes you think there’s something so special about this office?It’s not about the office. It’s about me, and your connection to me (p.708).Instead of providing a “conventionally” therapeutic intervention, Brockman spontaneously said what could be considered the wrong sort of thing for a therapist to say. “What is spontaneity? It is the character of not resulting by law from something antecedent… I don’t know what you can make out of the meaning of spontaneity, but newness, freshness and diversity” . Within 2 and, as such, had to be perceived and processed through the bottom-up network.Brockman clarifies that when transference work and interpretation are overpowered by the affective experience involved , engaging in an unexpected and salient intervention shifts the balance, allowing “the prior focus to be released and a new focus initiated through the ventral system [to be] taken up as the new focus by the dorsal system” , p. 706.People with autism appear significantly less concept-driven than normal individuals . While tsavant syndrome (from French savoir = to know), a specific and rare condition in which persons with autistic disorder or other mental disabilities have extraordinary skills, in stark contrast to their handicap  or can surface unexpectedly following head injury, stroke, dementia, or other central nervous system (CNS) disorders (acquired). The special skills occur most commonly in the areas of music, art, calendar calculating, lightning calculating, or mechanical/spatial abilities , p. 158.While the implications for the study of human cognition and the psychology of expertise are profound , it is eSpontaneity can enter the creatively endowed individual and evoke a response. There were many more Michelangelo’s born than the one who painted the great paintings, and many more Beethoven’s born than the one who wrote the great symphonies, and many more Christ’s born than the one who became Jesus of Nazareth. What they have in common are creativity and the creative ideas. What separates them is the spontaneity which, in the successful cases, enables the carrier to take full command of his resources, whereas the failures are at loss with all their treasures (p. 39).the cornerstone of psychodrama and is imperative in other creative arts therapies3 as well  the person from his/her symbolic creation: visual arts through image, music through sound and rhythm, and poetry/writing through words , the basic method works through nearing to the psychic materials rather than distancing, and is the reason that psychodrama is considered a more direct method. Before further associating this to my argument, I will shortly introduce Moreno and psychodrama4.Indeed, spontaneity (in contrast to impulsivity) is  as well . In somegh words . In psycMoreno (1889–1974), a psychiatrist, who with his wife, Zerka Toeman Moreno, founded Psychodrama, which focuses on group processes and the primacy of action. Also a formidable pioneer of group psychotherapy and sociometry (the study and measurement of society and relationships), Moreno considered the three fields to be interrelated and indispensable to one another . He had the sleeping beauty) needs a catalyzer – spontaneity” (p. 45). It is generally accepted that Moreno’s intention was that spontaneity is a state that induce the creative sequence (process), leading to a final “product.” “Creativity is related to the “act” itself; spontaneity is related to the “readiness” of the act” .The bridge, however, between ontology and science was not so safe, as Moreno’s definitions of spontaneity and creativity have been criticized for inconsistency see: . Is sponcausal-nexus of the life process of the real person, the spontaneous-creative act makes it appear as if for one moment the causal-nexus has been broken or eliminated”  roles, with the help of an “auxiliary ego,” here and now, as if in their statu nascendi and locus nascendi. In a group context, selected auxiliaries usually enter some presented roles alternately, allowing an actual interaction to occur. Properly guided, such process is aimed at producing “a shift in perception so that one can see the other and oneself in a new and fresh way” .In the psychodramatic situation…the whole world into which the actor enters – the plots, the persons, the objects in it, in all its dimensions, and its time and space – are Pushing it further, conceptually, Moreno envisioned psychodrama as having the potential to become a birth-like situation, with the protagonist becoming a new-born being:The moment of birth is the maximum degree of warming up to the spontaneous act of being born into a new setting, to which he must make a rapid adjustment…the infant is the actor. He has to act in roles without having an ego or personality to act with. Like the impromptu actor, every step he makes in the world is new. He has to act quickly on the spur of the moment… , p. 54.cultural conserve  play, despite its incomprehensibility. It requires overcoming the apprehension and nervousness aroused when working without a clear “theory” in mind. One has to willingly suspend control and become open, somewhat passive, “receptive” to stimuli and associations arising both within and without. This state reduces critique and judgmental (top-down) responses and “goes along” with whatever arises in the moment, even before understood. “The therapist can know whether his or her response is beneficial only by what happens next. The criteria chosen for this judgment are determined by the maturational purposes of the therapeutic endeavor”  are perceived as known and linear, spontaneity  is non-linear, associational, condensed, and at times incomprehensible. In my view, ndeavor” , p. 760.kind of knowledge, associated with bottom-up mechanisms, arise naturally in psychodrama?From a neurophenomenological point of view, spontaneity is a disinhibition that allows a special kind of attention to the “thing in itself,” naked from expectations or preferences, reminiscent of the autistic savant experience. It has a relatively well-characterized brain profile, consistent with reduced frontal activation , 2014a,bSupport of the suggested resemblance is based on the fact that the brain stimulation protocols mentioned above actually simulate the infant brain in which the frontal lobe matures gradually over the first years of life, in contrast to a much earlier maturation of other cortical areas. The New York Times published an interview with him entitled, “Impromptu plan used in education”:Interestingly, the cradle of psychodrama was at children’s impromptu play at the gardens of Vienna around 1908–1911 , p. 3 anChildren, said Dr. Moreno in an interview, are endowed with the gift of spontaneous expression up to the age of 5, while they are still in an unconscious creative state, unhampered by the laws and customs laid down by preceding generations. After that they fall heir to accepted methods of expression; they become imitative, turn into automatons, and in a large measure are deprived of natural outlets of volitional creation .The remarkable association between Moreno’s early premises and recent scientific evidence, reasonably support the hypothesis that spontaneity, as regarded in psychodrama, is associated with hypofrontality and related compensatory-like mechanisms.The dramatic incarnation of a stream of bottom-up experiences aroused in a protagonist is a professional asset of psychodramatists. It induces, in turn, non-habitual, creative, sometimes brave, impromptu actions in the psychodramatic scene. “It is not given like words or colors. It is not conserved or registered. The impromptu artist must warm-up, he must make it climbing up the hill” , p. 36.Yet one has also to concentrate and self-organize in order to communicate – dramatically or otherwise – whatever arises, which may be blurred, even distorted. The two phases continuously interact during the spontaneous-creative act, reminiscent of the double-phased “regression in service of the ego”  which enIn the spontaneous-creative enactment, emotions, thoughts, processes, sentences, pauses, gestures, movements etc., seem first to break formlessly and in anarchistic fashion into an ordered environment and settled consciousness. But in the course of their development it becomes clear that they belong together like the tones of a melody; that they are in relation similar to the cells of a new organism. The disorder is only an outer appearance; inwardly there is a consistent driving force, a plastic ability, the urge to assume a definite form , p. 36.could be understood as a move in dominance of mental processes – from bottom-up to top-down, I do not think that this is the case. This move is a process that creates a new insight, and thus it cannot be identified as a top-down  phenomenon, but rather a rearrangement of current mental representations and therefore continuous in nature with the preceding spontaneous-creative state of mind. This distinction is important in understanding spontaneity the way Moreno conceived it:While the move from the “anarchistic fashion” to “an ordered and settled consciousness” One of the contributions of spontaneity research was to recognize the various phases and degrees of spontaneity as one continuous process, the reduction and loss of spontaneity, impulsive abreaction and the pathological excesses as well as adequate and disciplined spontaneity, productive and creative spontaneity. Another contribution was to recognize that spontaneity does not operate in a vacuum but in relation to already structured phenomena, cultural and social conserves. Spontaneity is a function of organization .Eventually, this process may be consolidated into long-term memory, becoming the new top-down, conserved baseline. This may be best represented in Moreno (1946/1953) original concept – “catharsis of integration.” He considered catharsis as:catharsis of integration .A process which accompanies every type of learning, not only a finding of resolution from conflict, but also a realization of self, not only release and relief but also equilibrium and peace. It is not a catharsis of abreaction but a consequence of role reversal, the actor-patient has an opportunity to find and re-organize him/herself, “to put the elements together which may have been kept apart by insidious forces, to integrate them and to attain a sense of power and of relief, a catharsis of integration (in difference from a catharsis of abreaction)” . It can well be said that through a long chain of role takings and interactions, dialogical sequences and pauses, moments of meditation and decision, psychodrama aims at an integration of the protagonist with his co-actors and the spectators of the drama, into a freer and more spontaneous community, in the group microcosmos and beyond. As a result, psychodrama must be considered as first and foremost a bottom-up method and process. By violating predictions and expectations, psychodrama interferes with top-down processing and cultivates in-the-moment, stimulus-dependent experiences, from beginning to end.Moreno believed that as a freedom from immediacy (freedom or captivity seems beyond experimental considerations and may consist of personal preferences which are beyond the scope of the present paper. Suffice it to mention the central role attention to immediacy is given in the Zen/Buddhist meditation practice and in its modern counterpart, mindfulness meditation. The relationship of the latter to drama-related therapies is innovative and has been recently discussed elsewhere (see: While the present arguments clearly point to a past-dependent constriction of cognition, it is only fair to note that a contrasting view had been previously presented, whereby top-down processing allows the agent mmediacy  by not bmmediacy , p. 120.ere see: .A more objective challenge emerges regarding the lack of empirical consensus about the neuroscience of creativity , raisingopenness to experience was conceptualized as a “tendency to engage in imaginative, creative and abstract cognitive processes” (acts. Using this kind of research tool would make the stemming results more valuable for real life situations and clinical applications (Introducing the bottom-up/top-down conceptualization to psychodramatists is new and important because it may provide them with a different perspective on their actual interventions, thus opening new possibilities for developing psychodramatic theory and practice, and it could recast psychodrama in a more scientific light. On the other hand, introducing spontaneity – from the psychodramatic perspective – to neurocognitive science could prove beneficial, as it could show how the fast, spontaneous, unknown side of our mind can bring about appropriate, competent, and skillful responses “in dealing with a situation, however, small or great the challenge of its novelty” , p. 109.ocesses” , p. 773 ications . Psychodications . The chaThe author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.