How Neuroimaging Is Transforming Our Understanding of Aesthetic Taste

The concept of aesthetic appreciation is a historical construction with a history that traces back to the beginning of the 18th century. It proposes the idea that humans can experience a specific kind of nonutilitarian pleasure when exposed to a distinct set of aesthetic qualities. This chapter surveys findings from recent neuroimaging studies that have cast doubt on this idea. It explains how studies of neural activity associated with aesthetic appreciation have found “aesthetic” liking to engage similar neural structures as utilitarian liking, suggesting that aesthetic appreciation is rooted in computational principles that are common to hedonic evaluation broadly.