The Fourth International Conference on Beauty and Change “Aesthetic Experience and the Drive for Knowledge” will be held in Turin, Italy, 15-18 October 2025.
Deadline for submissions: 1 June 2025
The BraIn Plasticity and Behavior Changes (BIP) research group at the Department of Psychology, University of Turin and the Giorgio Amendola Foundation are delighted to invite contributions for the Fourth International Conference on Beauty and Change, an international and interdisciplinary conference that will be held in Turin, Italy on 15-18 October 2025.
Established in 2022, the International Conference on Beauty and Change is a highly successful interdisciplinary forum for discussing recent advancements in philosophical and empirical aesthetics. This year’s conference will be devoted to the theme “Aesthetic Experience and the Drive for Knowledge” and will gather leading scholars from the fields of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to reflect on how our engagement with the arts and our aesthetic experiences influence, interact with, or emerge from our drive to explore and understand the world.
Confirmed invited speakers:
Jérôme Dokic (Institut Jean Nicod)
Jan R. Landwehr (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Winfried Menninghaus (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main)
Diana Omigie (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Francesco Poli (University of Cambridge)
Elisabeth Schellekens (Uppsala University)
Martin Skov (Copenhagen Business School; Copenhagen University Hospital, Hvidovre)
Edward Vessel (City College of New York)
The Theme The intrinsic human tendency to seek knowledge and explore new information has attracted growing interest across the sciences and humanities in recent years. A broadening range of philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific theories are being developed to explain the origins of this “drive for knowledge” and capture its effects on crucial psychological phenomena such as learning, memory, attention, and motivation. At the same time, an expanding body of research is examining the “epistemic emotions” that accompany our behaviour as information-seekers (curiosity, interest, insight, wonder, surprise, confusion, boredom, etc.), shedding light on their phenomenology, their role in motivating behaviour, and their neural underpinnings. Together, these efforts are painting an increasingly rich picture of our lives as epistemic agents.
In parallel, a growing body of scholarship in philosophy, psychology and neuroscience is pointing to the idea that there might be a fundamental connection between aesthetic experiences and the drive to explore the environment and seek new information. According to many recent theories, in fact, aesthetic experiences are pleasurable precisely because they tap into and satisfy our needs as creatures animated by a drive for knowledge, and the arts are particularly effective means to meet that need. This perspective is opening new avenues of inquiry across disciplines. Philosophers are re-examining historical and contemporary debates on the relationship between the aesthetic and the epistemic, and on what art contributes to knowledge and understanding. Psychologists are refining models of how art and aesthetic experiences interact with and mobilize epistemic emotions and informationseeking behaviour. Neuroscientists, in turn, are uncovering how information-seeking activates reward circuitry in the brain, raising new questions about the nature of aesthetic pleasure and its relationship to other kinds of pleasure. These research efforts hold rich potential for advancing our understanding of both aesthetic experiences and epistemic practices.
The Fourth International Conference on Beauty and Change aims to explore these new lines of research systematically and in a thoroughly interdisciplinary way. It will gather philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and artists interested in both theoretical and empirical research to get a clearer picture of the many connections between our aesthetic experiences and our behaviour as epistemic agents. We therefore welcome well-informed theoretical or empirical contributions that might be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience.
Topics include (but are not limited to):
- Philosophical, psychological and neuroscientific perspectives on the relationships between aesthetic experiences and epistemic behaviour;
- Philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific debates about the epistemic benefits of engaging with the arts and how art may serve as a medium for knowledge or understanding;
- Insights into how the study of epistemic emotions (such as curiosity, interest, insight, fluency, surprise, confusion, and boredom) can shed light on our aesthetic experiences and vice versa;
- Strengths and limitations of existing theories and models linking aesthetic pleasure and knowledge acquisition (e.g. appraisal theories, processing fluency theories, learning theories, predictive processing theories, etc.);
- Theoretical and empirical contributions on the neural mechanisms connecting information-seeking with reward systems in the brain;
- Philosophical, psychological and neuroscientific perspectives on the role of epistemic emotions and exploratory behaviour in creativity and artistic production; • Cross-cultural perspectives on the relationships between aesthetic or creative experiences and epistemic behaviour;
- The influence of aesthetic considerations in epistemic practices and vice versa;
- Prospects and pitfalls of potential applications of the relationships between the aesthetic and the epistemic in education, communication, psychotherapy, and rehabilitation.
Submission Guidelines: The organisers accept two types of submissions: talks (20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion) and posters. For both types of submission, please send an abstract of no more than 300 words in WORD or PDF format to beautyandchange@fondazioneamendola.it by 1 June 2025.
Abstracts must be written in English and prepared for blind review. In the body of your email, please indicate the names and affiliations of all the authors (specifying the presenting author), and your preferred presentation type (talk or poster). Each author may submit only one abstract as a presenting author but can be a co-author in any number of submissions.
The organisers especially encourage submissions from women, early career researchers and members of underrepresented groups, and will take diversity into account when making decisions for inclusion in the programme.
Important Dates Deadline for submissions:
1 June 2025 Notification of acceptance
15 June 2025 Conference dates
15 October 2025 (Satellite Workshop)
16-18 October 2025 (Conference)
Conference Costs
Conference fee for students (BA and MA): free Conference fee for untenured researchers (PhD students and postdocs): €100 Conference fee for tenured researchers: €200 Conference dinner (optional): €45
Student Prizes
Two small monetary prizes of €100 will be offered for the two best contributions by students (BA, MA, PhD). One of the two prizes will be awarded for a talk, the other for a poster. The prizes will be assigned by the conference scientific committee based on the quality and relevance of the submitted abstract. The two winners will be announced during the conference. If you would like to be considered for one of these prizes, please indicate so in the body of your submission email.
Satellite Workshop
This year, the conference will be preceded by a one-day satellite workshop on “The Repeated Experience of Beauty”. The workshop aims to explore the phenomenon of repeated aesthetic experiences, focusing on the paradoxical interplay between novelty and familiarity in aesthetic appreciation. It will feature talks by Jérôme Dokic, Jan R. Landwehr, and Winfried Menninghaus among others. The workshop will take place on 15 October 2025 and will be open to all registered conference participants at no additional cost.
Scientific Committee Carola Barbero (University of Turin)
Alessandro Bertinetto (University of Turin)
Elvira Brattico (Aarhus University & University of Bari Aldo Moro)
Fabrizio Calzavarini (University of Turin)
Maura Crepaldi (University of Bergamo)
Alice Cancer (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan)
Filippo Contesi (University of Cagliari)
Jacopo Frascaroli (University of Turin)
Irene Ronga (University of Turin)
Maria Luisa Rusconi (University of Bergamo)
Pietro Sarasso (University of Turin)
Sander Van de Cruys (University of Antwerp)
Other Information Information about venue, travel and accommodation is available on the conference website.
The organisers aim to make the conference as accessible as possible. Please do not hesitate to contact the conference organisers to discuss accessibility requirements.
All questions and correspondence should be addressed to the Organising Committee at: beautyandchange@fondazioneamendola.it