Photography & The Feelings

Of OthersPresented ByBhuneshwariKumudShreeyaSusmita

PhotographyA great photo has ability to convey

emotion.

Emotion in a photograph helps a viewer connect with a piece if that emotion is prevalent in the viewer.

Happiness & joy, sorrow & despair, these are some of the easier emotions as they are universally felt.

IntroductionPhotography is powerful because we can place ourselves into the perspective of those we see in an image.

Whether it’s street photography, photojournalism or portraiture.

We use photography to understand ourselves in relation to people around us.

Continues…….Our ability to identify with and imagine someone else’s point of view is deeply ingrained into the architecture of our brain.

Photography plays a unique role in triggering the network of brain regions that underlie empathy.

To understand how photographs activate the aforementioned brain network, it’s first necessary to deconstruct emotional processing into simpler components.

one of the most fundamental social skills that humans have: that of imitation.

The Human Neuron System- From Vision

To EmotionImitation is automatic and a basic requirement for developing practical social skills, like empathy.

When we see the expression of other peoples faces there is an unconscious activation of the same muscles.

For example, when someone is sad and frowns you too will active frown muscles and feel similarly to the person you’re looking at, granted to a lesser extent.

Continues…. Imitation is a result of visual information combining with muscle activation, which in turn facilitates empathy.

Our capacity to imitate is thought to rely upon a specialized network of brain regions called the human mirror neuron system.

1Mirror neurons are that they become active in a person when that person is observing another person’s motor action, their intention, when viewing faces that depict emotion.

It begins with a brain region called the superior temporal sulcus (STS), which processes body movement, where someone’s attention is directed toward, and emotion.

This data rich visual information is transmitted from the STS to the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), which is where mirror neurons are first activated.

The STS-PPC connection is thought to support our ability to imitate the movements of those we watch.

The combined visual-motor information from the PPC is then transmitted to the frontal cortex and some of this information is sent to the language-processing region called Broca’s area.

With a simple photograph our brain will unconsciously processes biological motion, attend to where emotions are being directed, activate muscles of those we are observing.

And transmits this information to language processing centers where we can consciously express our own emotional reaction.

Theory of mindImitation is a basic social skill that often occurs unconsciously.

However, as we age we become much more aware of someone’s emotions not by direct observation by rather by judging their intent.

Intent requires us to place ourselves into someone else’s perspective and to hold the belief that other people have minds that are distinct from our own.

The Theory of Mind is a subfield of cognitive neuroscience that studies how humans understand the mental states of other people.

It’s quite the step in cognition to go from imitation to understanding someone’s intention.

Indeed, understanding the mental state of others is a developmental milestone & it does not happen until about the age of four.

Children younger than four are often unable to identify the point of view of another person and do not understand that people have a mind that differs from theirs.

It is likely that the human brain further evolved to develop a theory of mind, which in has allowed us to deeply examine the beliefs, emotions, and desires of others.

Embodying The PhotoPhotography is important because it can influence our capacity to empathize, it effects our motivation to help others, and help us connect with people through imitation.

The very survival of our species has & still relies on understanding how other feel, attending to the needs of those around us, and working with one another to construct a better society.

Conclusion

Photography is more important than ever because we need visual imagery

that reflects our connectedness, especially in a world that can be as

inhumane as ours.

Thank

You