"Anything which elevates the mind is sublime " (John Ruskin).

Our mind is constantly shaped by the experiences we face, the places we experience them, and the people we meet. A special encounter is one that takes place in the presence of the "sublime", which has been described for centuries in the philosophical and artistic fields, but to a lesser extent in the psychological one.

First, whatsoever that is beautiful, great, remarkable, attracts attention and elicits excitement, curiosity, and awe can be considered sublime. Not only art, but also landscapes, biographies, stories, scientific discoveries, inventions, fantasies. What happens to the mind when faced with the sublime? How the sublime shapes our thoughts, language, and memory? Numerous studies have already highlighted the importance of the "sublime," not only to promote physical and mental well-being, but also to open our minds and emotions, to foster human relationships and socialization, to enhance learning, perceptual skills, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence.

The "sublime" thus becomes a fundamental field of investigation for the cognitive sciences, which, thanks to its distinctive interdisciplinary approach, allows for a wide-ranging study, starting from neuro-functional correlates, crossing the territories of cognition and emotion, and finally reaching the wide spaces offered by the encounter with life and health sciences. In fact, the encounter with the sublime increasingly promises to offer new contributions to the study of cognition and emotional processes, as well as the unfolding of human potential in all its complexity.

The present research topic therefore aims to collect a series of contributions on the fundamental encounter between humans and the sublime without any limitations of methods, setting, or theoretical framework. The idea is to gather a variety of approaches, so that the points of convergence and divergence could be integrated and discussed for future developments.

The Research Topic will include theoretical and empirical work with clinical, applied, laboratory, and real-life contributions, broadening the investigation overview as much as possible. Scholars from different fields – including psychology, cognitive science, neurobiology, but also arts and philosophy – are encouraged to contribute.

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Frontiers in Psychology

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