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FICTION

The aim of the Fiction team is to address a number of philosophical and cognitive issues raised by our ubiquitous engagement with fiction.

One of these issues regards the cognitive resources required to produce and appreciate fiction and to think and talk about fiction. Another one regards whether we can gain real-world knowledge and/or motivation to act in the real world from engaging with fiction and virtual reality. One further issue regards the nature of our emotional responses to characters in novels, films and virtual worlds.

These issues cover topics at the intersection of aesthetics and epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophies of language and mind. Recently, some of these issues have been investigated by psychological studies. The Fiction team will develop a philosophical framework for thinking about these issues and promote collaborative research with experimentalists.

TEAM MEMBERS

Statutory Member

Jérôme Pelletier

PhD students

PROJECTS

NR CAT "Collective Affects in Theatre", by Julie Grèzes (LNC2), and Jérôme Pelletier

PUBLICATIONS

Achour-Benallegue, A., Amarantini, D., Paubel, P.-V., Pelletier, J., & Kaminski, G. (2021, October 7). Facial Reactions to Face Representations in Art : An Electromyography Study. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.
Jérôme Pelletier, Alberto Voltolini ed., The Pleasure of Pictures : Pictorial Experience and Aesthetic Appreciation, 1 [edition]., Routledge research in aesthetics 4 (New York ; London : Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2019).

MEDIAS

ArC_Art in Conversation (University of St Andrews seminar series 19/11/2021 - Jérôme Pelletier discussed fiction - whether cognitive and affective engagement with fiction is different from engagement with real-life with Keith Oatley, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Psychology, University of Toronto.