保安室挑灯译《解释视觉审美欣赏的尝试》辑㈠

*大家好ヾ(´･ᴗ･`)。我是大楼的车库保安小黄。我很热爱自己的工作。经由不断地与在会员制餐厅工作的田所老师讨论有关 Art的话题，发现这个东西甚至比雪还要雪（悲）。——那么我们便发现雪这个东西其实很厉害，它来源于生物体，终又化作春泥更护花。我一个小小保安便想，比起向天再借五百年，不如栖居在保安亭的躺椅上，咀嚼生物性意义上为人的奥秘，励志像研究宇宙万法的源头如如一样去探究它的秘密。

接下来本保安可能会陆陆续续翻译一些此方向相关的文章，该文章为此想法开始第一篇，属于是开局来力个大的，锲而不舍翻了快一个月(⇀‸↼‶)，总之，随缘。如有不妥请随时给我上出打击乐。

*因译者个人水平问题故将译文与原文对照释出，

便于各位更好地理解作者原意。

*欢迎各种讨论交流，请在评论区留言，我会好好工作，

抬杆出车（非抬杠）。

解释视觉审美欣赏的尝试 Ⅰ

An Attempt to Explain Visual Aesthetic Appreciation

目录（译者自添，便于对照阅读）

（一）辑：摘要 / 绪论 / 审美行为

（二）辑：大脑的情绪模块（奖惩机制 / 超常刺激）

（三）辑：动物和早期智人的审美行为

（四）辑：审美元素Ⅰ（颜色 / 复杂度和流畅度 / 对称与平衡 ）

（五）辑：审美元素Ⅱ（功能性 / 景深与动感 / 人为因素） / 讨论

摘要 （Abstract）

我们通过探究（生物）进化的角度来解释为何视觉摄入作为人类审美机制的一方面如此重要。简单来说，人类在进化过程中，会经历诸如满足感和受制裁云云的生活状态，情绪也会随之在积极与消极间变化。逐渐地，人们也会去主动追求能够诱发满足感的情景，即便有的感觉不足以被称作是“满足感”。当一个人受到某种类型的视觉刺激时，大脑会产生满足感。例如：暖色调会让人联想到可口的水果，因而通常让人愉悦；复杂的图式会激发好奇心。在某一时刻，人类开始了如何能激发大脑满足感的探索，对物品进行有意识地美化，创造“艺术”。物品的实用性和（基于物品本身的）设计联想的会影响物品的最终样貌呈现，而艺术家们更倾向添加审美元素。这些元素在体现了视觉方面在实用性上不强，也不能唤起什么记忆或者让人就图像中易于辨识的形象产生什么联想。因而，我们需要去讨论审美元素究竟能提供什么满足感及相应的溯源，这理论上能在解释人类的审美机制上起些作用。

We suggest an evolutionary based explanation for why humans are preoccupied with aesthetic aspects of visual input.Briefly, humans evolved to be swayed by positive and negative feelings in the form of rewards and punishments, and to pursue situations that induce rewards, even when the feeling is not sufficiently strong to be recognized as a reward. The brain is designed to offer rewards when a person focuses on certain types of visual stimuli. For example, warm colors are typically pleasant because they are associated with edible fruits, and complex images appeal to curiosity. At some point people began exploiting these types of brain rewards by beautifying objects and creating art. The utility of objects, and the associative (or communicative) aspects of art, may dominate the design, but the artist tends to add aesthetic elements.These elements imply visual aspects that do not add to the functional value or evoke memories or associations based on easily recognized features in the picture. The adaptive rationale for the rewards offered by the aesthetic elements should help explain human aesthetic appreciation.

绪论 （Introduction）

古人类逐渐进化为直立行走的形态，因而他们能解放双手使用工具。毫无疑问，使用工具的能力是人类走向未来相当重要的一环。但尚不明晰的是，为何就算无法提升功用，但（至少当前被广泛认为是）为了增添情趣，我们的祖先开始愿意装饰自己的工具。并且到最后，人类将这种对审美的兴趣发展到了更远大的地步：创造出并没有明显使用价值，而能够被称之为“艺术”的东西。或许艺术家们会宣称艺术作品是一种交流的方式——但问题在于，对于这个目的增添的审美属性似乎也并非是必须的。在本文中我们需要关注的是审美属性，而非所谓的艺术在促进交流和链接沟通上的作用。

Hominins gradually evolved to walk in an upright position, thereby freeing their hands for the manipulation of tools. There is no doubt that the ability to use tools was of great importance for the success of humankind. It is less obvious why our forebears started to add beauty to their tools in ways that did not enhance utility but were widely recognized as pleasing.Eventually, humans moved one step further in that we create objects of art with no obvious practical value. The artist may claim that the work is meant as a way of communicating, but the point remains that aesthetic qualities are added that do not appear to be required for this purpose.Here we focus on these aesthetic qualities rather than the function of art in facilitating communication and creating associations.

美学被称作“研究感官刺激如何以及为何能获取享乐价值的学说” (Skov & Nadal, 2020)）——这意味着需要对视觉刺激的特征进行考证，这也包含审美元素通过某种方式激活大脑中的奖励回路的刺激。因而，进行审美行为意味着：为了获得满足感，人类会调配自己的时间和精力，进入到（具有审美效力的）工艺品生产中，或者欣赏此类工艺品的活动。在人类学研究中，有一些审美行为几乎在所有的文化中都不约而同地出现，并且，据当下有相当说服力的研究表明，它们属于根植于人类天性的倾向(Benton & DiYanni, 2012)。既然这能够将该问题引向人类的普遍属性，那么，满足机制或许也能被看作是由人类天生的刺激机制进化而来的；那么，我们也需要直接关切这些在我们进化史中极具适应更新性的感官输入形式。

Aesthetics has been described as “the study of how and why sensory stimuli acquire hedonic value” (Skov & Nadal, 2020) – which means it is a question of features of visual stimuli, here referred to as aesthetic elements, that for some reason activate reward circuits in the brain. Aesthetic behavior is then allotting time and energy to the production of aesthetic artifacts, or viewing such artifacts, for the sake of the rewards offered. Some form of aesthetic behavior seems to be present in practically all cultures examined by anthropologists (Benton & DiYanni, 2012), strongly suggesting that the behavior is rooted in innate tendencies.  As it appears to reflect a universal human attribute, the reward mechanisms presumably evolved in accordance with stimuli coming from nature; that is, directing attention to these types of sensory input was adaptive in our evolutionary past.

在今天，并非每一个人都能攫取到由审美行为带来的什么适应成果，不过一种进化论的视角是能够帮助为这种确乎出现的现象做出解释的。当下，已经有些文章用进化论的观点来剖析美学了(Davies, 2012; Grinde, 1996; Kozbelt, 2017; Rolls, 2017; Westphal-Fitch & Fitch, 2018),我们觉得这种方法可以提供新颖的见解。这种研究思路和享乐主义美学流派相契；具体来说，对审美价值的研究关心的是如何让观者获得愉悦的问题。(Matthen, 2017)我们也了解到了对这一流派的批评。(Van der Berg, 2020)然而，我想，可以通过以下两个概念的进一步限定来回应对享乐主义流派的主要质疑：

一、就大脑回路中产生满足感和愧疚感的情绪模块如何运作的问题，我们采用了新的解释，那么“愉悦”（pleasure）一词似乎也被赋予了更广泛的含义。(Grinde, 2016)

二、我们需要重新限定“审美行为”（aesthetic behavior）一词的内涵——这也是我们接下来即将讨论的东西。

Today the individual does not necessarily obtain any adaptive benefit from aes- thetic behavior, yet an evolutionary perspective can help explain the phenomenon. Several texts have used an evolutionary perspective to explain aesthetics (Davies, 2012; Grinde, 1996; Kozbelt, 2017; Rolls, 2017; Westphal-Fitch & Fitch, 2018), we believe the present approach offers novel insight. The approach is in line with what has been described as the hedonic school of aesthetics; specifically, the aesthetic value is a question of pleasing the viewer (Matthen, 2017). We are aware of critics of this school (Van der Berg, 2020), but believe the main objections to the hedonic approach are considered by the following two constraints. For one, we take advantage of a novel understanding of how the mood modules, the brain circuits that form rewards and punishments, function; in other words, the term pleasure is given a somewhat broader meaning (Grinde, 2016). Two, we restrict what is included in the term ‘aesthetic behavior’ – as will be discussed below.

审美行为 （Aesthetic Behavior）

观赏类审美活动的满足感可以从自然中获得，因而就像花上一小会欣赏成熟的草莓，或是品味日落之美，这都可以被构建为一种审美行为。但在本文中，我们将研究范围限制在“人造物”中。

The rewards of viewing aesthetic elements can be obtained from nature, thus spending time staring at a ripe strawberry or a sunset can be construed as aesthetic behavior. However, we shall limit the scope of this text to manmade objects.

再作进一步限制：我们关心的是人造物中，那种微妙的，能呈现出交互性和具有代表性的“审美属性”。这样限定尽管还是有些模糊，但至少可以基本排除由简单活动而非审美活动带来的愉悦。当艺术家想传递“快乐”，或许他们会使用能承载善意的的审美元素；具象的内容也对我们的审美能力形成有所影响。同时,我们也相信在没有主旨含义的人造物上，也会有一些带有审美内核的元素在起作用。总之，尽管“艺术”会触发各种机制，导致一系列情绪和感受的发生(Menning- haus et al., 2019; Schindler et al., 2017; Tinio & Gartus, 2018)，我们在此要探讨的是美带来的直观愉悦。如此限制还可以排除对“审美对象”产生兴趣的其他原因，例如：其货币价值、社会地位及其潜力等。

There is one further constraint, we are interested in the subtle aesthetic qualities that are present regardless of the communicative or representative content.This constraint excludes at least some of the pleasure of seeing a nice landscape or a friendly face, but the restriction is somewhat vague. If artists want to communicate joy, they may use bona-fide aesthetic elements; and figurative content has some bearing on how our capacity to enjoy aesthetics was formed.Yet, we believe there are core aesthetic elements that work in the absence of other subject matter. In short, although art can induce a range of emotions and feelings by various mechanisms (Menning- haus et al., 2019; Schindler et al., 2017; Tinio & Gartus, 2018), we are interested in the intuitive pleasures of beauty.The constraint also excludes other reasons for taking an interest in aesthetic objects, such as the potential for obtaining high status in society and the monetary value of the objects.

需要做以上这般细致限定，可以反映出审美行为与人类行为的其他方面必然相生相和，无法孤立。宗教行为也伴随着审美活动：这些行为不仅仅是为求得与超自然实体的联系，以宗教艺术形式进行的交互和审美行为也包含其中。

The above delineation reflects that aesthetic behavior is necessarily mixed in with other aspects of human behavior. There is a parallel in religious activities, they are not solely about connecting with supernatural entities, but includes, for example, socializing as well as aesthetic behavior in the form of religious art.

现已有充分的研究表明艺术可以带来快乐(Lacey et al., 2011; Skov, 2010; Vartanian, 2018)，在此基础上，我们再来假设愉悦中经过上述限制后的美学元素派生出的部分。相比实际的艺术作品（因为形象或联想内容在艺术中更加重要），这些元素或许在“容器”的设计（比如花瓶或房屋）中体现得更加明显，不过这套适用于制陶工人的原则同样也能为画家所用。审美倾向反映在使物体看起来更据视觉吸引力的特质上。以绘画为例，比喻式内容的重要性暗指当前的文本关注到的可能只是审美欣赏中一个非常小的部分：无论身处何方，我们天生的倾向都会去享受一些特定程式倾向的视觉输入。这就好像就算没有任何的审美特特质，欣赏一幅画也能带给我们愉悦的体验；例如，不需要任何艺术创作技巧，也能创作出一张让男人感到快乐的裸女像。

It has been reasonably well documented that art can induce pleasure (Lacey et al., 2011; Skov, 2010; Vartanian, 2018), and we assume that some of the pleasure derives from aesthetic elements that remain after the above restrictions. These elements may be more obvious in the design of utensils, such as vases or houses, compared to in actual works of art (because the figurative or associative content is more important in art), but the principles guiding the potter also apply to the painter. Aesthetic intention is reflected in features included to make an object more visually attractive. In the case of paintings, the importance of the figurative content implies that the present text focuses on what may be a minor aspect of the appreciation of art: Our inborn tendency to enjoy specific types of visual input regardless of the context they are in. It follows that a painting can be pleasurable to look at in the absence of any aesthetic qualities; for example, no artistry is needed to make a rendering of nude women that delights a man.

至此，我们将从勾勒大脑如何以奖惩机制来激励形成行为的模型开始，并基于该模型，考察审美行为是否也在其他物种中出现，（如果没有）那么，这是什么时候开始在古人类身上显现的？随后，我们会提出大体属于美学讨论范畴的感官刺激机制的繁多特征。

We shall start by outlining a model of how the brain uses rewards and punish- ments to motivate behavior. Based on this model, we consider whether aesthetic behavior occurs in other species, and (if not) at what point it emerged in the homi- nins. Subsequently, we suggest various features of visual stimuli that are likely to be involved in aesthetics.

*作者信息：

Bjørn Grinde

奥斯陆大学科学博士（1981）细胞和分子生物学哲学博士（1984），当前为挪威公共卫生研究所精神和身体健康部门的高级科学家。

Tammy‑Ann Husselman

中央兰开夏大学 (UCLAN)神经心理学理学（荣誉）学士，心理学硕士。目前在 UCLAN 担任高级演示员，《启用技术杂志》(JoET) 客座编辑。

*译/校/编：

车库保安亭小黄

（已与原作者取得联系与翻译许可。）

*原文传送门：

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12124-022-09701-8