Dr. Eugen Wassiliwizky

Research Interests:

  • Aesthetic emotions
  • Physiological correlates of emotional processes
  • Science Communication
  • Facial research
  • Neural correlates of self representation
  • Attention regulation and consciousness

Current Research Projects:

Evolutionary Aesthetics

In this project, we examine—both theoretically and experimentally—how long-standing evolutionary principles have shaped our aesthetic perception, social interactions, engagement with the arts, appreciation of nature, and experience of our everyday environment today.

Empirical Aesthetics as a Discipline

Empirical Aesthetics is a relatively new field within the cognitive sciences.

Emotional Goosebumps

Emotional goosebumps, or piloerection, are a well-known response to moments of being deeply moved, yet their connection to other emotions remains largely unexplored. 

Here is the movie about the study

 

 

Vita

Academic Education

11/2017PhD in Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany ("Physiological correlates and neural circuitry of Being Moved")
11/2010Diploma in Psychology
2009–2010Diploma thesis at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany ("Orienting response to emotional  environmental sounds")
2005–2010Studies of Psychology, Classics and Musicology, Philipps Universität, Marburg, Germany
 

Professional Experience

Since 2023Research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Department of Cognitive Neuropsychology, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Since 2014Trainer for rhetoric, presentation techniques and scientific communication
2022 Research residence at Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo, Norway
2013–2022Research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Department of Language and Literature, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2011–2013Research fellow at the Cluster of Excellence „Languages of Emotion“, Freie Universität Berlin
2010Research internship as research trainee at the McGill University, Montréal/School of Communication Sciences & Disorders (Neuroprogmatics and Emotion Lab, Marc Pell, PhD)
2008Internship at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), Montréal

Publications

Articles (in peer-reviewed journals)

Wassiliwizky, E., Wontorra, P. & Ullén, F. (2023) How being perceived to be an artist boosts feelings of attraction in others. Scientific Reports 13, 18747. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-45952-0

Wassiliwizky, E. (2023). Book review: The Routledge International Handbook of Neuroaesthetics by Martin Skov and Marcos Nadal. Perception, 1–2. doi.org/10.1177/03010066231196840

Wassiliwizky, E., & Menninghaus, W. (2021). Why and How Should Cognitive Science Care about Aesthetics? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(6), 437–449. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2021.03.008

Menninghaus, W., Schindler, I., Wagner, V., Wassiliwizky, E., Hanich, J., Jacobsen, T., et al. (2020). Aesthetic Emotions Are a Key Factor in Aesthetic Evaluation: Reply to Skov and Nadal (2020).Psychological Review, 127(4), 650–654.  doi:10.1037/rev0000213.

Menninghaus, W., Wagner, V., Wassiliwizky, E., Schindler, I., Hanich, J., Jacobsen, T., & Koelsch, S. (2019). What are aesthetic emotions? Psychological Review, 126(2), 171–195.  doi:10.1037/rev0000135

Wassiliwizky, E. (2018). At the root of the paradox: Comment on “An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music” by Tuomas Eerola et al. Physics of Life Reviews, 25, 136–138.  doi:10.1016/j.plrev.2017.12.008

Menninghaus, W., Wagner, V., Hanich, J., Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T., & Koelsch, S. (2017). Authors’ Response: Negative emotions in art reception: Refining theoretical assumptions and adding variables to the Distancing-Embracing model. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40, 44–51, Article e380. doi:   doi:10.1017/S0140525X17001947

Menninghaus, W., Wagner, V., Hanich, J., Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T., & Koelsch, S. (2017). The Distancing-embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40, Article e347.  doi:10.1017/S0140525X17000309

Wassiliwizky, E., Koelsch, S., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T., & Menninghaus, W. (2017). The emotional power of poetry: Neural circuitry, psychophysiology and compositional principles. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(8), 1229–1240. doi:10.1093/scan/nsx069

Menninghaus, W., Wagner, V., Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T., & Knoop, C. A. (2017). The emotional and aesthetic powers of parallelistic diction. Poetics, 63, 47–59.  doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2016.12.001

Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T., Heinrich, J., Schneiderbauer, M., & Menninghaus, W. (2017). Tears falling on goosebumps: Co-occurrence of emotional lacrimation and emotional piloerection indicates a psychophysiological climax in emotional arousal. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, Article 41. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00041

Menninghaus, W., Wagner, V., Hanich, J., Wassiliwizky, E., Kuehnast, M., & Jacobsen, T. (2015). Towards a psychological construct of Being Moved. Plos One,10(6), Article e0128451. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128451

Wassiliwizky, E., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T., & Menninghaus, W. (2015). Art-elicited chills indicate states of being moved. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 9(4), 405416. doi:10.1037/aca0000023

Kuehnast, M., Wagner, V., Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T., & Menninghaus, W. (2014). Being Moved: Linguistic representation and conceptual structure. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 1242.   doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01242        PDF  

Rigoulot, S., Wassiliwizky, E., & Pell, M. D. (2013). Feeling backwards? How temporal order in speech affects the time course of vocal emotion recognition. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 367. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00367

Monographs

Wassiliwizky, E. (2017). Physiological correlates and neural circuitry of Being Moved (Dissertation). Retrieved from  https://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/receive/FUDISS_thesis_000000105818 

Wassiliwizky, E. (2010). Relativer Einfluss affektiver Stimuluseigenschaften und der Vertrautheit auf die Aufmerksamkeitsorientierung: Ereigniskorrelierte Potenziale auf aufgabenirrelevante Umweltgeräusche (Diplomarbeit). Max-Planck-Institut für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften, Leipzig.

Book Chapter

Wassiliwizky, E., & Menninghaus, W. (2022). The Power of Poetry. In A. Chatterjee, & E. R. Cardillo (Eds.), Brain, Beauty, and Art: Essays Bringing Neuroaesthetics into Focus (pp. 182-187). New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0036. 

Awards and Grants

2019Member of the Young Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz
2019Visiting Scholarschip at the Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo
2012–2014Graduate-Scholarship of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation
2006–2010Scholarship for gifted students of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation
2003  Award of the city of Trier for best achievements in a Contest for Ancient Languages "Certamen-Rheno-Palatinum

Press and Media

Komplett Gänsehaut

Süddeutsche Zeitung

Weshalb berührt uns Kunst?

Bayerischer Rundfunk

Intensiver leben

Psychologie Heute

Der wohlige Sinn

Frankfurter Rundschau

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