The School of Art and Design at Northern Illinois University will host a guest lecture by artist and experimental psychologist Dr. Ellen Winner, titled “How Art Works: Five Puzzles.”

In her lecture, “How Arts Works: Five Puzzles,” Winner will discuss puzzles about the arts that have preoccupied philosophers as well as the general public. Can art be defined? Why do we seek out art that elicits negative emotions like sadness and fear? Why do we devalue a revered work once it is outed as a forgery? Is abstract art something “my kid could have done”? Does art enhance empathy?  As a social scientist, she has tried to answer some of these questions through interviews, observations, and experiments. What she and other psychologists have found reveals surprising answers to these artistic mysteries, and helps us understand how art works on us.

Winner is professor of psychology at Boston College and senior research associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. She directs the Arts and Mind Lab, which focuses on cognition in the arts in typical and gifted children as well as adults.