Mental imagery, emotion, and 'literary task-sets': Clues towards a literary neuroart

Abstract

Aesthetics, as a philosophical discipline concerned with the elucidation of concepts such as beauty, inspiration, artistic value, fiction, and the like, begins with Plato, who in several of his dialogues discussed many of the topics now considered to pertain to aesthetics (Halliwell: 2009). What I think most baffled Plato is one of the most remarkable features of literary works of art, and lies at the heart of literary aesthetics, namely, the power of literary works of art to provoke overwhelming emotional states, hyphenate:none; In few words, my answer to Plato's perplexity is that mental imagery plays a crucial role in literary aesthetics by enhancing the emotional response to the semantic (conceptual) processes, and by enhancing the emotional response bias future cognitive and affective processes and, ultimately, behavior.