Abstract

Abstract : Photography mediates our experience of the world and our understanding of socio-political events. Beyond our cognitive judgments about the images we consume in the mdeia, we respond and relate to (visual) politics in visceral, embodied ways. We will present a series of psychological and psychophysiological studies that investigate how visceral responses influence our judgments about photojournalistic images. Taken together our findings highlight the role of embodiment in determining our beliefs about realness in a political culture powered by images.

Bio: Manos Tsakiris is Professor of Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, where he leads the Lab of Action & Body (LAB). His research is highly interdisciplinary and uses a wide range of methods to investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms that shape the experience of embodiment, self and social relatedness. He is the recipient of the Young Mind and Brain Prize in 2014, of the 22nd Experimental Psychology Society Prize in 2015, and the NOMIS Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award in 2016. Since 2016, he is leading the interdisciplinary Body & Image in Arts & Science (BIAS) project at the Warburg Institute where he investigates the performative and political power of visual culture, and since 2017 the INtheSELF ERC Consolidator project at Royal Holloway that investigates the role of interoception for self- and social-awareness