Describes fresh approaches to aesthetics, creativity and psychology of the arts, approaching these topics from a point of view that is biological or related to biology. This book begins with a consideration of ten theories on the evolutionary function of specific arts such as music and literature.

PrefaceColin MartindaleChapter 1 What Art is and What Art Does: An Overview of Contemporary Evolutionary Hypotheses Ellen DissanayakeChapter 2An Evolutionary Model of Artistic and Musical Creativity Gregory J. FeistChapter 3 The Adaptive Function of Literature Joseph CarrollChapter 4Does Reading Literature Make People Happy? Willie van Peer, Alexandra Menties and Jan AuracherChapter 5Cognitive Poetics and Poetry Recital Reuven TsurChapter 6The Alphabet and Creativity: Implications for East Asia William C. HannasChapter 7Creativity, Gender, History, and Authors of Fantasy for Children Ravenna HelsonChapter 8Trends in the Creative Content of Scientific Journals: Good, but Not as Good! Robert HogenraadChapter 9The Information Approach to Human Sciences, Especially Aesthetics Vladimir M. Petrov Chapter 10Art and Cognition: Cognitive Processes in Art Appreciation Helmut Leder and Benno BelkeChapter 11Literary Creativity: A Neuro-Psychoanalytic View Norman N. HollandChapter 12A Neural-Network Theory of Beauty Colin MartindaleChapter 13Neural Correlates of Creative Cognition Oshin Vartanian and Vinod GoelChapter 14Creativity, DNA, and Cerebral Blood Flow Rosa Aurora Chávez-EakleChapter 15Artistic Creativity and Affective Disorders: Are They Connected? Dennis K. Kinney and Ruth L. Richards