Research

Philosophical Aesthetics

I work on a range of foundational issues in aesthetics, including the scope of aesthetic experience, the cognitive value of art, aesthetic normativity, aesthetic disinterestedness, the role of epistemic emotions in aesthetic experience, and the relationship between the aesthetic and the ethical.

A central strand of my recent work develops a theory of aesthetics grounded in predictive processing and related Bayesian models of the mind. I am particularly interested in the potential of this theory to integrate core intuitions and findings from both philosophical and empirical aesthetics, to explain and model key features of our engagement with different art forms, and to position aesthetics as a crucial contributor to the broader effort to understand our mental life.

Recent publications:

Van de Cruys, S., Frascaroli, J., & Friston, K. (2024). Order and change in art: towards an active inference account of aesthetic experience. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 379(1895), 20220411 [available here].
Frascaroli, J., Leder, H., Brattico, E., & Van de Cruys, S. (2024). Aesthetics and predictive processing: Grounds and prospects of a fruitful encounter. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 379(1895), 20220410. [available here].
Frascaroli, J. (2024). Predictive Processing. International Lexicon of Aesthetics, Vol. 7, Milan: Mimesis [available here].

Forthcoming / submitted / in preparation:

Frascaroli, J., Sarasso, P., Barbieri, P., Ronga, I. (submitted). Three theories of aesthetic appreciation: Fluency, Learning, or both?
Frascaroli, J., Piovesan, F., (in preparation). Bayesian poetics: A new framework for understanding the aestheitcs of language.

Empirical Aesthetics

Together with my colleagues in the BIP research group, I conduct empirical studies in aesthetics. We are particularly interested in understanding how experiences of beauty and art affect core mental capacities and processes such as learning, attention, memory, emotion, and motor control. Our research involves a wide range of visual and auditory stimuli and draws on a variety of behavioural, neuroimaging, and computational methods. We pursue both fundamental questions and applied perspectives, with a focus on how aesthetic experiences can support well-being and enhance learning in educational settings.

Forthcoming / submitted / in preparation:

Barbieri, P., Berto, M., Sarasso, P., Frascaroli, J., Handjaras, G., Piovesan, F.,... & Ronga, I. (forthcoming). Unveiling the relation between aesthetic experiences and attention through
a cross-experiment validation of their processing biomarkers. PNAS Nexus.
Barbieri, P., Sarasso, P., Rossi Sebastiano, A., Frascaroli, J., Poles, K., Peila, C., ... & Ronga, I. (submitted). Electrophysiological responses reveal a dedicated learning mechanism to process salient consonant sounds in human newborns.
Barbieri, P., Frascaroli, J., Sarasso, P., Varesio, G., Piovesan, F., Bechis, L., Sarasso, P., Ronga, I. (submitted).The gentle grip of beauty: An electrophysiological investigation of how aesthetic experiences induce motor inhibition while prioritizing perception.

Philosophy of Mind, Language and Perception

My work also addresses fundamental questions about mental functioning. I am particularly interested in the nature of perceptual experience, the distinction between perception and cognition, the dynamics of conscious and unconscious experience, imagination and creativity, and language comprehension. In all these areas, I aim to bridge the gap between the intuitive insights of artists and aestheticians and the acquisitions of cognitive science.

Recent publications:

Currie, G., Ferguson, H., Frascaroli, J., Friend, S., Green, K., Wimmer, L. (2024). Learning from fiction. In A. James, A. Kubo, and F. Lavocat (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief (pp. 126-138), New York & Abingdon: Routledge [available here].
Currie, G., Frascaroli, J. (2021). Poetry and the possibility of paraphrase. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 79(4), 428-439 [available here].

Forthcoming / submitted / in preparation:

Frascaroli, J., (in preparation). Language as experience.