Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0017
Oshin Vartanian
It has long been assumed that emotions play an important role in our interactions with artworks. Similarly, how rewarding we find an artwork could also be an important driver of our aesthetic preference for it. Vartanian and Goel (2004) tested this idea by presenting participants with images of paintings in the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, recording brain activation as they viewed and rated them on aesthetic preference. Their results demonstrated that activation in brain regions that encode reward and emotions—including the caudate nucleus, cingulate sulcus, and the visual cortex—covaried with preference ratings assigned to the paintings. This study represented an early example of how brain imaging could be used to test theoretically derived predictions from empirical aesthetics. Indeed, data from that study and several others since have accumulated to demonstrate that emotions and rewards are a cornerstone of our aesthetic experiences in relation to artworks and other classes of stimuli.
{"title":"The Contributions of Emotion and Reward to Aesthetic Judgment of Visual Art","authors":"Oshin Vartanian","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0017","url":null,"abstract":"It has long been assumed that emotions play an important role in our interactions with artworks. Similarly, how rewarding we find an artwork could also be an important driver of our aesthetic preference for it. Vartanian and Goel (2004) tested this idea by presenting participants with images of paintings in the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, recording brain activation as they viewed and rated them on aesthetic preference. Their results demonstrated that activation in brain regions that encode reward and emotions—including the caudate nucleus, cingulate sulcus, and the visual cortex—covaried with preference ratings assigned to the paintings. This study represented an early example of how brain imaging could be used to test theoretically derived predictions from empirical aesthetics. Indeed, data from that study and several others since have accumulated to demonstrate that emotions and rewards are a cornerstone of our aesthetic experiences in relation to artworks and other classes of stimuli.","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133052818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0008
M. Nadal, M. Pearce
In the paper discussed in this chapter, the authors aimed to develop a consensus conceptual framework for neuroaesthetics. They wanted to present a joint vision of what they believed neuroaesthetics was about. The authors aspired to outline the fields’ aims and scope in a way that would accommodate most researchers, to answer some of the criticisms that had been leveled at the field, and to show how much the field could contribute to scientific disciplines, like psychology and neuroscience, and to humanist disciplines, like philosophy, the arts, and anthropology. One of the main points made was the importance of distinguishing between a cognitive neuroscience of aesthetics concerned with the biological mechanisms involved in aesthetic experience of all sorts of domains (not just art) and a cognitive neuroscience of art, which investigates the biological mechanisms involved in creating and appreciating art (not just aesthetically).
{"title":"The Cognitive Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience","authors":"M. Nadal, M. Pearce","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"In the paper discussed in this chapter, the authors aimed to develop a consensus conceptual framework for neuroaesthetics. They wanted to present a joint vision of what they believed neuroaesthetics was about. The authors aspired to outline the fields’ aims and scope in a way that would accommodate most researchers, to answer some of the criticisms that had been leveled at the field, and to show how much the field could contribute to scientific disciplines, like psychology and neuroscience, and to humanist disciplines, like philosophy, the arts, and anthropology. One of the main points made was the importance of distinguishing between a cognitive neuroscience of aesthetics concerned with the biological mechanisms involved in aesthetic experience of all sorts of domains (not just art) and a cognitive neuroscience of art, which investigates the biological mechanisms involved in creating and appreciating art (not just aesthetically).","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124222021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0029
Andrew J. Parker
In the article under review in this chapter, a discussion between an art historian and neuroscientists led to a collaborative project to study the influence of authenticity on the reception of artwork. Brain-scanning with functional magnetic resonance imaging led to the identification of a number of distinct areas of the cortex that might be implicated in complex aesthetic judgments. This article provides an informal account of some of the background that led to this study.
{"title":"Finding Mutual Interest Between Neuroscience and Aesthetics","authors":"Andrew J. Parker","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0029","url":null,"abstract":"In the article under review in this chapter, a discussion between an art historian and neuroscientists led to a collaborative project to study the influence of authenticity on the reception of artwork. Brain-scanning with functional magnetic resonance imaging led to the identification of a number of distinct areas of the cortex that might be implicated in complex aesthetic judgments. This article provides an informal account of some of the background that led to this study.","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"415 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132413756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0016
Xianyou He, Wei Zhang
In the study discussed in this chapter, the authors found that concrete pictographs elicited variable aesthetic appraisals related to the aesthetic qualities of the reference objects. In addition, Chinese characters are also produced in the form of metaphorical writing symbols that convey social concepts (ideographic symbols of oracle bone script). The study investigated whether the reference social meanings altered neural responses in the aesthetic appraisal of oracle bone scripts. Similar to the findings of pictographs, the beauty judgment of positive oracle bone scripts activated the occipital lobe for perceptual processing, frontal lobe for cognitive judgment, and right putamen for rewarding experience. However, only perceptual processing regions were found in the ugly judgment of negative oracle bone scripts. Results indicated that aesthetic appraisal of oracle bone scripts mainly depended on the valence of the reference social meanings and was in accordance with the stereotype of “what is good is beautiful, and bad is ugly.”
{"title":"Social Meaning Brings Beauty","authors":"Xianyou He, Wei Zhang","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0016","url":null,"abstract":"In the study discussed in this chapter, the authors found that concrete pictographs elicited variable aesthetic appraisals related to the aesthetic qualities of the reference objects. In addition, Chinese characters are also produced in the form of metaphorical writing symbols that convey social concepts (ideographic symbols of oracle bone script). The study investigated whether the reference social meanings altered neural responses in the aesthetic appraisal of oracle bone scripts. Similar to the findings of pictographs, the beauty judgment of positive oracle bone scripts activated the occipital lobe for perceptual processing, frontal lobe for cognitive judgment, and right putamen for rewarding experience. However, only perceptual processing regions were found in the ugly judgment of negative oracle bone scripts. Results indicated that aesthetic appraisal of oracle bone scripts mainly depended on the valence of the reference social meanings and was in accordance with the stereotype of “what is good is beautiful, and bad is ugly.”","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"517 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116237420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0018
V. Gallese, D. Freedberg, M. Alessandra Umiltà
In this chapter, the authors summarize their research in the experimental aesthetics of visual art and cinema, motivated by the following assumptions: (1) vision is more complex than the mere activation of the “visual brain”; (2) our visual experience of the world is the outcome of multimodal integration processes, with the motor system as key player; (3) aesthetic experience must be framed within the broader notion of intersubjectivity, as artworks are mediators of the relationship between the subjectivities of artists/creators and beholders; and (4) empathy is an important ingredient of our response to works of art. Capitalizing on the results of their research, one privileging embodiment and the performative quality of perception and cognition, preliminary suggestions for a future research agenda are outlined. Embodied simulation, a model of perception and cognition, can provide a new take on these issues, fostering a newly based dialogue between neuroscience and the humanities.
{"title":"Embodiment and the Aesthetic Experience of Images","authors":"V. Gallese, D. Freedberg, M. Alessandra Umiltà","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0018","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, the authors summarize their research in the experimental aesthetics of visual art and cinema, motivated by the following assumptions: (1) vision is more complex than the mere activation of the “visual brain”; (2) our visual experience of the world is the outcome of multimodal integration processes, with the motor system as key player; (3) aesthetic experience must be framed within the broader notion of intersubjectivity, as artworks are mediators of the relationship between the subjectivities of artists/creators and beholders; and (4) empathy is an important ingredient of our response to works of art. Capitalizing on the results of their research, one privileging embodiment and the performative quality of perception and cognition, preliminary suggestions for a future research agenda are outlined. Embodied simulation, a model of perception and cognition, can provide a new take on these issues, fostering a newly based dialogue between neuroscience and the humanities.","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"100 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122602386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0002
M. Nadal, C. Cela-Conde
The main goal of the article “The Neural Foundations of Aesthetic Appreciation” was to bring together the available evidence on the neural underpinnings of aesthetics from neuroimaging and neurology and offer an integral interpretative model. The authors relate how they wanted to explain how aesthetic appreciation was related to brain activity and why some studies had found that activity in some regions and other studies had found it in other regions. The authors proposed that there might be at least two stages of appreciation. The first stage is the formation of an initial impression. It involves perceptual processes interacting with attentional control signals and is mediated by a fronto-parieto-occipital network. The second stage is a deeper evaluation of the image and involves affective processes, searching for meaning, recalling personal experiences, and activating knowledge stored in memory.
{"title":"Bringing It All Together","authors":"M. Nadal, C. Cela-Conde","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"The main goal of the article “The Neural Foundations of Aesthetic Appreciation” was to bring together the available evidence on the neural underpinnings of aesthetics from neuroimaging and neurology and offer an integral interpretative model. The authors relate how they wanted to explain how aesthetic appreciation was related to brain activity and why some studies had found that activity in some regions and other studies had found it in other regions. The authors proposed that there might be at least two stages of appreciation. The first stage is the formation of an initial impression. It involves perceptual processes interacting with attentional control signals and is mediated by a fronto-parieto-occipital network. The second stage is a deeper evaluation of the image and involves affective processes, searching for meaning, recalling personal experiences, and activating knowledge stored in memory.","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131420512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0030
A. Chatterjee
Investigation of people with neurological illnesses has been a central approach to understanding the neurobiology of cognitive systems like language, attention, emotions, and decision-making. Yet such lesion studies had not been applied to neuroaesthetics. In the article under discussion, the author reviewed the extant literature and found that artists were not spared the kind of visual-spatial deficits that others experience from brain damage. Rather, in their artwork, they gave eloquent expression of the nature of their deficits. The author was particularly interested in the paradoxical enhancement of some artists whose work seemed to get better following brain injury, and developed a scale, the Assessment of Art Attributes, by which to assess change in artistic style and content. Neuropsychological studies remain a relatively untapped source of information in probing the biology of aesthetic experiences and artistic production.
{"title":"What Can We Learn About Art from People with Neurological Disease?","authors":"A. Chatterjee","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0030","url":null,"abstract":"Investigation of people with neurological illnesses has been a central approach to understanding the neurobiology of cognitive systems like language, attention, emotions, and decision-making. Yet such lesion studies had not been applied to neuroaesthetics. In the article under discussion, the author reviewed the extant literature and found that artists were not spared the kind of visual-spatial deficits that others experience from brain damage. Rather, in their artwork, they gave eloquent expression of the nature of their deficits. The author was particularly interested in the paradoxical enhancement of some artists whose work seemed to get better following brain injury, and developed a scale, the Assessment of Art Attributes, by which to assess change in artistic style and content. Neuropsychological studies remain a relatively untapped source of information in probing the biology of aesthetic experiences and artistic production.","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126309390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0046
Alexander Coburn
Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in the neuroscience of architecture. This burgeoning area of research explores how the design of the built environment shapes human behavior, health, and wellness. In this chapter, the author reviews key historical developments in architectural design that motivated current research on the psychology and neuroscience of architectural experience. He argues that these evidence-based design movements of today emerged in response to a narrow aesthetic dogma that was widely adopted in the mid-20th century and contributed to the mass standardization of architectural form. Within this historical context, he reviews key findings from recent publications on the neuroscience of architecture and discusses the implications of this research for architectural design and human experience.
{"title":"Architectural Design and the Mind","authors":"Alexander Coburn","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0046","url":null,"abstract":"Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in the neuroscience of architecture. This burgeoning area of research explores how the design of the built environment shapes human behavior, health, and wellness. In this chapter, the author reviews key historical developments in architectural design that motivated current research on the psychology and neuroscience of architectural experience. He argues that these evidence-based design movements of today emerged in response to a narrow aesthetic dogma that was widely adopted in the mid-20th century and contributed to the mass standardization of architectural form. Within this historical context, he reviews key findings from recent publications on the neuroscience of architecture and discusses the implications of this research for architectural design and human experience.","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128908501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0026
K. Iigaya, J. O’Doherty
Among the most challenging questions in the field of neuroaesthetics concerns how a piece of art comes to be liked in the first place. That is, how can the brain rapidly process a stimulus to form an aesthetic judgment even for stimuli never before encountered? In the article under discussion in this chapter, by leveraging computational methods in combination with behavioral and neuroimaging experiments the authors show that the brain does this by breaking a visual stimulus down into underlying features or attributes. These features are shared across objects, and weights over these features are integrated over to produce aesthetic judgments. This process is structured hierarchically in which elementary statistical properties of an image are combined to generate higher level features which in turn yield aesthetic value. Neuroimaging supports the implementation of this hierarchical integration along a gradient from early to higher order visual cortex extending into association cortex and ultimately converging in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex.
{"title":"Toward a Computational Understanding of Neuroaesthetics","authors":"K. Iigaya, J. O’Doherty","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0026","url":null,"abstract":"Among the most challenging questions in the field of neuroaesthetics concerns how a piece of art comes to be liked in the first place. That is, how can the brain rapidly process a stimulus to form an aesthetic judgment even for stimuli never before encountered? In the article under discussion in this chapter, by leveraging computational methods in combination with behavioral and neuroimaging experiments the authors show that the brain does this by breaking a visual stimulus down into underlying features or attributes. These features are shared across objects, and weights over these features are integrated over to produce aesthetic judgments. This process is structured hierarchically in which elementary statistical properties of an image are combined to generate higher level features which in turn yield aesthetic value. Neuroimaging supports the implementation of this hierarchical integration along a gradient from early to higher order visual cortex extending into association cortex and ultimately converging in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex.","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131650830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-18DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0015
Martin Skov, Ulrich Kirk
It has long been observed that experience influences aesthetic evaluations. Psychological research has found multiple examples of experts and nonexperts forming different liking responses to similar stimuli. It remains unclear, though, precisely why experts evaluate objects they are experts on differently from people who are not experts. In the article under discussion, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the authors demonstrated that, compared to non-architects, architects exhibited higher levels of neural activity in the reward systems when tasked with evaluating their liking of buildings but not when tasked with evaluating the attractiveness of faces.
{"title":"Expertise and Aesthetic Liking","authors":"Martin Skov, Ulrich Kirk","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197513620.003.0015","url":null,"abstract":"It has long been observed that experience influences aesthetic evaluations. Psychological research has found multiple examples of experts and nonexperts forming different liking responses to similar stimuli. It remains unclear, though, precisely why experts evaluate objects they are experts on differently from people who are not experts. In the article under discussion, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the authors demonstrated that, compared to non-architects, architects exhibited higher levels of neural activity in the reward systems when tasked with evaluating their liking of buildings but not when tasked with evaluating the attractiveness of faces.","PeriodicalId":335128,"journal":{"name":"Brain, Beauty, and Art","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114805898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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