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Neuroesthetics ( or neuroaesthetics) is a relatively recent sub-discipline of empirical
aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
. Empirical aesthetics takes a
scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
approach to the study of
aesthetic Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
s of art,
music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
, or any object that can give rise to aesthetic judgments. Neuroesthetics is a term coined by Semir Zeki in 1999 and received its formal definition in 2002 as the scientific study of the
neural In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes ...
bases for the contemplation and creation of a work of art. Neuroesthetics uses
neuroscience Neuroscience is the science, scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a Multidisciplinary approach, multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, an ...
to explain and understand the aesthetic experiences at the
neurological Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...
level. The topic attracts scholars from many disciplines including
neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial ...
s,
art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...
s,
artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
s, art therapists and
psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the pre ...
s.


Overview

Neuroaesthetics is a field of experimental science that aims to combine (neuro-)psychological research with aesthetics by investigating the "perception, production, and response to art, as well as interactions with objects and scenes that evoke an intense feeling, often of pleasure.". The recently developed field seeks among other things the
neural correlate The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) refer to the relationships between mental states and neural states and constitute the minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious percept. Neuroscientists use emp ...
s of aesthetic judgment and creativity. It is argued that visual aesthetics, namely the capacity of assigning different degrees of beauty to certain forms, colors, or movements, is a human trait acquired after the divergence of human and other ape lineages, rendering the experience of beauty a defining characteristic of humankind. One core question for the field is whether art or aesthetic preferences are guided by a set of scientific laws or principles. Additionally, the evolutionary rationale for the formation and characteristics of these principles are sought. It is believed that identification of the brain circuitry involved in aesthetic judgments (e.g., by using through the use of
brain imaging Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Incre ...
) can help pinpoint the origin of these responses.


Approaches of study

Researchers who have been prominent in the field combine principles from
perceptual psychology Perceptual psychology is a subfield of cognitive psychology that concerns the conscious and unconscious innate aspects of the human cognitive system: perception. A pioneer of the field was James J. Gibson. One major study was that of affordances, ...
,
evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life ...
, neurological deficits, and functional brain anatomy in order to address the evolutionary meaning of beauty that may be the essence of art. It is felt that neuroscience is a very promising path for the search for the quantified evaluation of art. With the aim of discovering general rules about aesthetics, one approach is the observation of subjects viewing art and the exploration of the mechanics of
vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...
. It is proposed that pleasing sensations are derived from the repeated activation of neurons due to primitive visual stimuli such as horizontal and vertical lines. In addition to the generation of theories to explain this, such as Ramachandran's set of laws, it is important to use neuroscience to determine and understand the neurological mechanisms involved. Neuroaesthetics approaches can be either descriptive or
experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...
. Descriptive neuroaesthetics refers to the practice of mapping properties of the brain onto aesthetic experiences. For example, if color is important to the experience of Fauvist art, then it is likely that areas of the brain that process color will be engaged when looking at such art. The claims of descriptive neuroaesthetics are regarded as hypothesis-generating and are typically qualitative in nature. Experimental neuroaesthetics, like any experimental science, produces data that are
quantitative Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...
and vetted statistically. Experimental neuroaesthetics tests
hypotheses A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obse ...
, predicts results, and invites replication or falsification. The typical experimental methods used are those of
cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental process ...
:
fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area ...
, ERP, TMS, TDCS, and
neuropsychology Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of t ...
. Critics of neuroaesthetics typically target descriptive and not experimental neuroaesthetics. The link between specific brain areas and artistic activity is of great importance to the field of neuroesthetics. This can be applied both to the ability to create and interpret art. A common approach to uncover the neural mechanisms is through the study of individuals, specifically artists, with neural disorders such as
savant syndrome Savant syndrome () is a rare condition in which someone with significant mental disabilities demonstrates certain abilities far in excess of average. The skills that savants excel at are generally related to memory. This may include rapid calcu ...
or some form of traumatic injury. The analysis of art created by these patients provides valuable insights to the brain areas responsible for capturing the essence of art. The aesthetic enjoyment of individuals can be investigated using brain imaging experiments. When subjects are confronted with images of a particular level of aesthetics, the specific brain areas that are activated can be identified. It is argued that the sense of beauty and aesthetic judgment presupposes a change in the activation of the brain's reward system. In 2004, Helmut Leder, has developed a broad research program on the psychology of aesthetics and the
arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
. This program was introduced as a cognitive model of the appreciation of art in a paper published in the
British Journal of Psychology The ''British Journal of Psychology'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed psychology journal. It was established in 1904 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the British Psychological Society. The editor-in-chief is Stefan R. Schweinberger ( ...
. This model has served to frame many studies on the cognitive foundations of art,
neuroaesthetics Neuroesthetics ( or neuroaesthetics) is a relatively recent sub-discipline of empirical aesthetics. Empirical aesthetics takes a scientific approach to the study of aesthetic perceptions of art, music, or any object that can give rise to aesthet ...
,
product design Product design as a verb is to create a new product to be sold by a business to its customers. A very broad coefficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products. Thus, it is a major aspect of ...
, and
web design Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...
, among other fields. A crucial aspect of research lies in whether aesthetic judgment can be thought of as a bottom-up process driven by neural primitives or as a top-down process with high level cognition. Neurologists have had success researching primitives. However, there is a need to define higher level abstract philosophical concepts objectively with neural correlates. It is suggested that aesthetic experience is a function of the interaction between top-down, intentional orientation of attention and the bottom-up perceptual facilitation of image construction. In other words, because untrained persons automatically apply the object-identification habit to viewing artworks, top-down control to reduce this habit may be necessary to engage aesthetic perception. This suggests that artists would show different levels of activation than non-artists. Aesthetic responses to different types of art and techniques has recently been explored. Cubism is the most radical departure from Western forms of art, with the proposed purpose of forcing the viewer to discover less unstable elements of the object to be represented. It eliminates interferences such as lighting and perspective angle to capture objects as they really are. This may be compared to how the brain maintains an object's identity despite varying conditions.
Modern Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...
, representational, and impressionistic art has also been studied for the purpose of explaining visual processing systems. Yet aesthetic judgments exists in all domains, not just art.


Frameworks


The aesthetic triad

Aesthetic experiences are an emergent property of interactions among a triad of neural systems that involve sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge circuitry. The visual brain segregates visual elements like luminance, color, and motion, as well as higher order objects like faces, bodies, and landscapes. Aesthetic encounters engage these sensory systems. For example, gazing at Van Gogh’s dynamic paintings evokes a subjective sense of movement and activates visual motion areas V5/MT+. Portraits activate the face area in the fusiform gyrus (FFA) and landscape paintings activate the place area in the parahippocampal gyrus (PPA). Beyond classifying visual elements, these sensory areas may also be involved in evaluating them. Beautiful faces activate the fusiform face and adjacent areas. The question of how much and what kind of valuation takes place in sensory cortices is an area of active inquiry. Looking at paintings that depict actions also engages parts of people’s motor systems. This engagement taps into the extended mirror neuron system.
Mirror neurons A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons hav ...
, first discovered in monkeys, are neurons that respond to both the execution and perception of actions. A similar system exists in humans. This system resonates when people infer the intent of artistic gestures or observe the consequences of actions such as in Lucio Fontana’s cut canvases. This subtle motor engagement may represent an embodied element of our empathetic responses to visual art. The pleasure that people derive from looking at beautiful objects automatically engages general reward circuitry. For example, attractive faces activate the FFA and parts of the ventral
striatum The striatum, or corpus striatum (also called the striate nucleus), is a nucleus (a cluster of neurons) in the subcortical basal ganglia of the forebrain. The striatum is a critical component of the motor and reward systems; receives gluta ...
even when people are not thinking explicitly about the attractiveness of these faces. The orbito- and medial-frontal cortex, the ventral striatum,
anterior cingulate In the human brain, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex that resembles a "collar" surrounding the frontal part of the corpus callosum. It consists of Brodmann areas 24, 32, and 33. It is involved i ...
and insula respond to beautiful visual images and the medial orbitofrontal cortex and adjacent
cingulate cortex The cingulate cortex is a part of the brain situated in the medial aspect of the cerebral cortex. The cingulate cortex includes the entire cingulate gyrus, which lies immediately above the corpus callosum, and the continuation of this in the c ...
respond to different sources of pleasures including music and even architectural spaces. Kirk and colleagues investigated the effects of expectations on neural responses. People rated abstract “art-like” images as more attractive if labeled as being from a museum than labeled as generated by a computer. This preference was accompanied by greater neural activity in the medial orbitofrontal and
ventromedial prefrontal cortex The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a part of the prefrontal cortex in the mammalian brain. The ventral medial prefrontal is located in the frontal lobe at the bottom of the cerebral hemispheres and is implicated in the processing of r ...
. Thinking an image was a museum piece also produced activity in the
entorhinal cortex The entorhinal cortex (EC) is an area of the brain's allocortex, located in the medial temporal lobe, whose functions include being a widespread network hub for memory, navigation, and the perception of time.Integrating time from experience in th ...
, suggesting that people’s expectations draw on memories that enhance (or probably also diminish) visual pleasure. Similarly, Lacey and colleagues found that people’s ventral striatum and parts of the orbitofrontal cortex were more responsive to the “art status” than to the actual content of visual images. Huang and colleagues found that people have different neural responses when told that they are looking at an authentic or copied
Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally cons ...
portrait. Authentic portraits evoked orbitofrontal activity, whereas copies evoked neural responses in the
frontopolar cortex Brodmann area 10 (BA10, frontopolar prefrontal cortex, rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, or anterior prefrontal cortex) is the anterior-most portion of the prefrontal cortex in the human brain. BA10 was originally defined broadly in terms of its ...
and the right precuneus. The implication of these studies is that context and knowledge beyond the sensory qualities of visual images demonstrably affects people’s neural activity in aesthetic experiences.


Semir Zeki's laws of the visual brain

Semir Zeki Semir Zeki FMedSci FRS is a British and French neurobiologist who has specialised in studying the primate visual brain and more recently the neural correlates of affective states, such as the experience of love, desire and beauty that are gen ...
, professor of neuroesthetics at the
University College of London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...
, views art as an example of the variability of the brain.Zeki, Semir. (2008). Splendours and Miseries of the Brain, Wiley Blackwell Thus a neurological approach to the source of this variability may explain particular subjective experiences as well as the ranges of abilities to create and experience art. Zeki theorizes that artists
unconsciously The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the processes in the mind which occur automatically and are not available to introspection and include thought processes, memories, interests, and motivations. Even though these processes exist ...
use techniques to create visual art to study the brain. Zeki suggests that
"...the artist is in a sense, a neuroscientist, exploring the potentials and capacities of the brain, though with different tools. How such creations can arouse aesthetic experiences can only be fully understood in neural terms. Such an understanding is now well within our reach."
He proposes two supreme laws of the visual brain:


Constancy

Despite the changes that occur when processing visual stimuli (
distance Distance is a numerical or occasionally qualitative measurement of how far apart objects or points are. In physics or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). ...
, viewing angle, illumination, etc.), the brain has the unique ability to retain knowledge of constant and essential properties of an object and discard irrelevant dynamic properties. This applies not only to the ability to, for example, always see a
banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", disting ...
as the color yellow but also the recognition of faces at varying angles. Comparatively, a work of art captures the essence of an object. The creation of art itself may be modeled off of this primitive neural function. The process of painting for example involves distilling an object down to represent it as it really is, which differs from the way the eyes see it. Zeki also tried to represent the
Platonic Ideal The theory of Forms or theory of Ideas is a philosophical theory, fuzzy concept, or world-view, attributed to Plato, that the physical world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas. According to this theory, ideas in th ...
and the Hegelian Concept through the statement: forms do not have an existence without a brain and the ability for stored memory, referring to how artists such as Monet could paint without knowing what the objects are in order to capture their true form.


Abstraction

This process refers to the hierarchical coordination where a general representation can be applied to many particulars, allowing the brain to efficiently process visual stimuli. The ability to abstract may have evolved as a necessity due to the limitations of memory. In a way, art externalizes the functions of
abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abst ...
in the brain. The process of abstraction is unknown to cognitive
neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...
. However, Zeki proposes an interesting question of whether there is a significant difference in the pattern of brain activity when viewing abstract art as opposed to representational art.


Ramachandran's eight laws of artistic experience

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and his fellow researchers including William Hirstein, developed a highly speculative theory of human artistic experience and the neural mechanisms that mediate it. These "laws" combine to develop underlying high order concepts of the human artistic experience. Although not all encompassing as there are undoubtedly many other principles of artistic experience, the theorists claim that they provide a framework for understanding aspects of
visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...
,
aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
and
design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...
. Although testing of these principles quantitatively may provide future evidence for specific areas of the brain responsible for one kind of aesthetic appeal, the theory faces substantial
philosophical Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and historical objections.


Peak shift principle

This psychological phenomenon is typically known for its application in animal discrimination learning. In the peak shift effect, animals sometimes respond more strongly to exaggerated versions of the training stimuli. For instance, a rat is trained to discriminate a square from a rectangle by being rewarded for recognizing the rectangle. The rat will respond more frequently to the object for which it is being rewarded to the point that a rat will respond to a rectangle that is longer and more narrow with a higher frequency than the original with which it was trained. This is called a
supernormal stimulus A supernormal stimulus or superstimulus is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which it evolved. For example, it is p ...
. The fact that the rat is responding more to a 'super' rectangle implies that it is learning a rule. This effect can be applied to human
pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data. It has applications in statistical data analysis, signal processing, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphics ...
and aesthetic preference. Some artists attempt to capture the very essence of something in order to evoke a direct
emotional response Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...
. In other words, they try to make a 'super' rectangle to get the viewer to have an enhanced response. To capture the essence of something, an artist amplifies the differences of that object, or what makes it unique, to highlight the essential features and reduce redundant information. This process mimics what the visual areas of the brain have evolved to do and more powerfully activates the same neural mechanisms that were originally activated by the original object. Some artists deliberately exaggerate creative components such as
shading Shading refers to the depiction of depth perception in 3D models (within the field of 3D computer graphics) or illustrations (in visual art) by varying the level of darkness. Shading tries to approximate local behavior of light on the object ...
, highlights, and illumination to an extent that would never occur in a real image to produce a
caricature A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...
. These artists may be unconsciously producing heightened activity in the specific areas of the brain in a manner that is not obvious to the conscious mind. A significant portion of the experience of art is not self-consciously reflected upon by audiences, so it is not clear whether the peak-shift thesis has any special explanatory power in understanding the creation and reception of art.


Isolation

Isolating a single visual cue helps the organism allocate attention to the output of a single module, thereby allowing it to more effectively enjoy the peak shift along the dimensions represented in that module. In other words, there is a need to isolate the desired visual form before that aspect is amplified. This is why an outline
drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayo ...
or sketch is sometimes more effective as art than an original color photograph. For example, a
cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and g ...
may exaggerate certain
facial features A facial is a family of skin care treatments for the face, including steam, exfoliation (physical and chemical), extraction, creams, lotions, facial masks, peels, and massage. They are normally performed in beauty salons, but are also a ...
which are unique to the character and remove other forms which it shares such as
skin tones Human skin color ranges from the darkest brown to the lightest hues. Differences in skin color among individuals is caused by variation in pigmentation, which is the result of genetics (inherited from one's biological parents and or individu ...
. This efficiency prevents non-unique features from detracting from the image. This is why one can predict that an outline drawing would be more aesthetically pleasing than a color photograph. The viewers attention is drawn towards this single area allowing one's attention to be focused on this source of information. Enhancements introduced by the artist more carefully noted resulting in the amplification of
limbic system The limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the forebrain.Schacter, Daniel L. 2012. ''P ...
activation and reinforcement.


Grouping

Perceptual grouping to delineate a figure from the background may be enjoyable. The source of the pleasure may have come about because of the evolutionary necessity to give organisms an incentive to uncover objects, such as predators, from noisy environments. For example, when viewing ink blots, the visual system segments the scene to defeat
camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...
and link a subset of splotches together. This may be accomplished most effectively if limbic reinforcement is fed back to early vision at every stage of visual processing leading up to the discovery of the object. The key idea is that due to the limited attentional resources, constant feedback facilitates processing of features at earlier stages due to the discovery of a clue which produces limbic activation to draw one's attention to important features. Though not spontaneous, this reinforcement is the source of the pleasant sensation. The discovery of the object itself results in a pleasant 'aha' revelation causing the organism to hold onto the image. An artist can make use of this phenomenon by teasing the system. This allows for temporary binding to be communicated by a signal to the limbic system for reinforcement which is a source of the aesthetic experience.


Contrast

Extracting contrast involves eliminating redundant information and focusing attention. Cells in the
retina The retina (from la, rete "net") is the innermost, light-sensitive layer of tissue of the eye of most vertebrates and some molluscs. The optics of the eye create a focused two-dimensional image of the visual world on the retina, which the ...
, the
lateral geniculate body In neuroanatomy, the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN; also called the lateral geniculate body or lateral geniculate complex) is a structure in the thalamus and a key component of the mammalian visual pathway. It is a small, ovoid, ventral projec ...
or relay station in the brain, and in the
visual cortex The visual cortex of the brain is the area of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe. Sensory input originating from the eyes travels through the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus ...
respond predominantly to step changes in luminance rather than homogeneous surface colors. Smooth
gradients In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the grad ...
are much harder for the visual system to detect rather than segmented divisions of shades resulting in easily detectable edges. Contrasts due to the formation of edges may be pleasing to the eye. The importance of the visual neuron's varying responses to the orientation and presence of edges has previously been proven by David H. Hubel and
Torsten Wiesel Torsten Nils Wiesel (born 3 June 1924) is a Swedish neurophysiologist. With David H. Hubel, he received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system; the prize was ...
. This may hold evolutionary significance since regions of contrast are information rich requiring reinforcement and the allocation of attention. In contrast to the principle of grouping, contrasting features are typically in close proximity eliminating the need to link distant, but similar features.


Perceptual problem solving

Tied to the detection of contrast and grouping is the concept that discovery of an object after a struggle is more pleasing than one which is instantaneously obvious. The mechanism ensures that the struggle is reinforcing so that the viewer continues to look until the discovery. From a survival point of view, this may be important for the continued search for predators. Ramachandran suggests for the same reason that a model whose
hips In vertebrate anatomy, hip (or "coxa"Latin ''coxa'' was used by Celsus in the sense "hip", but by Pliny the Elder in the sense "hip bone" (Diab, p 77) in medical terminology) refers to either an anatomical region or a joint. The hip region ...
and
breasts The breast is one of two prominences located on the upper ventral region of a primate's torso. Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues. In females, it serves as the mammary gland, which produces and se ...
are about to be revealed is more provocative than one who is already completely naked. A meaning that is implied is more alluring than one that is explicit.


The generic viewpoint

The visual system dislikes interpretations which rely on a unique vantage point. Rather it accepts the visual interpretation for which there is an infinite set of viewpoints that could produce the class of retinal images. For example, in a
landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
image, it will interpret an object in the foreground as obscuring an object in the background, rather than assuming that the background figure has a piece missing. In theory, if an artist is trying to please the eye, they should avoid such coincidences. However, in certain applications, the violation of this principle can also produce a pleasing effect.


Visual metaphors

Ramachandran defines a metaphor as a mental tunnel between two concepts that appear grossly dissimilar on the surface, but instead share a deeper connection. Similar to the effects of perceptual problem solving, grasping an
analogy Analogy (from Greek ''analogia'', "proportion", from ''ana-'' "upon, according to" lso "against", "anew"+ ''logos'' "ratio" lso "word, speech, reckoning" is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject ...
is rewarding. It enables the viewer to highlight crucial aspects that the two objects share. Although it is uncertain whether the reason for this mechanism is for effective communication or purely cognitive, the discovery of similarities between superficially dissimilar events leads to activation of the limbic system to create a rewarding process. Support for this view is highlighted by the symptoms of
Capgras delusion Capgras delusion or Capgras syndrome is a psychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member (or pet) has been replaced by an identical impostor. It is named after Joseph Capgras (1 ...
, where sufferers experience reduced facial recognition due to impairments in the connections from the inferotemporal cortex to the
amygdala The amygdala (; plural: amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum in complex ver ...
, which is responsible for emotions. The result is that a person no longer experiences the warm fuzzy feeling when presented with a familiar face. A person's 'glow' is lost through what is suggested as due to the lack of limbic activation.


Symmetry

The aesthetic appeal of
symmetry Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definiti ...
is easily understandable. Biologically it is important during the detection of a predator, location of
prey Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...
, and the choosing of a mate as all of these tend to display symmetry in nature. It complements other principles relating to the discovering of information rich objects. Additionally, evolutionary biologists suggest that the predisposition towards symmetry is because biologically,
asymmetry Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry (the property of an object being invariant to a transformation, such as reflection). Symmetry is an important property of both physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in pre ...
is associated with
infection An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable di ...
and
disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
, which can lead to poor mate selection. However, departures from symmetry in visual art are also widely considered beautiful, suggesting that while symmetry may explain the judgment that a particular individual's face is beautiful, it cannot explain the judgment that a work of art is beautiful.


Areas of the brain linked to the processing of visual aesthetics

Aesthetic perception relies heavily on the processing by the visual centers in the brain such as the V1 cortex. Signals from V1 are distributed to various specialized areas of the brain. There is no single area where all specialized visual circuitry connect, reducing the chances of determining a single neural center responsible for aesthetics, rather a neural network is more likely. Therefore, the visual brain consists of several parallel multistage processing systems, each specialized in a given task such as color or motion. Functional specializations of the visual brain are already known. Physiological phenomenon can explain several aspects of art appreciation. Different extrastriate areas of the visual cortex may have evolved to extract correlations of different visual features. The discovery and linking of various visual stimuli is facilitated and reinforced by direct connections from these areas to limbic structures. Additionally, art may be most appealing if it produces heightened activity in a single dimension rather than redundant activation of multiple modules, restricted by the allocation of attentional resources. In experimentation to determine specific areas, many researchers allow the viewer to decide the aesthetic appeal prior to the use of imaging techniques to account for the varying perceptions of beauty. When individuals contemplate the aesthetic appeal, different neural processes are engaged than when pragmatically viewing an image. However, processes of object identification and aesthetic judgment are involved simultaneously in the overall perception of aesthetics.


Prefrontal cortex

The
prefrontal cortex In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14, BA24, BA25, BA32, BA44, BA45, BA ...
is previously known for its roles in the perception of colored objects, decision making, and memory. Recent studies have also linked it to the conscious aesthetic experience because it is activated during aesthetic tasks such as determining the appeal of a visual stimuli. This may be because a judgment is needed, requiring visiospatial memory. In a study performed by Zeki and Kawabata, it was found that the medial orbito-frontal cortex (mOFC) is involved in the judgment of whether a painting is beautiful or not. There is high activation in this region when a person views paintings which they consider beautiful. Other evidence shows that this same area is active during the experience of beauty derived from different sources, including musical beauty and moral beauty, and even mathematical beauty. Interestingly, experience of the sublime, as opposed to the beautiful, results in a different pattern of brain activity; moreover, where it comes to judgment, although aesthetic and perceptual judgments leads t activity in the same brain areas, the pattern of activity is also different between the two, one of the most marked differences being the involvement of mOFC in aesthetic, but not in perceptual, judgments. Surprisingly, when a person views a painting which they consider ugly, no separate structures are activated. Therefore, it is proposed that changes in the intensity of activation in the orbito-frontal cortex correlate with the determination of beauty (higher activation) or ugliness (lower activation). Additionally, the medial OFC has been found to respond aesthetics in terms of the context of which it is presented, such as text or other descriptions about the artwork. The current evidence linking the OFC to attributed hedonistic values across gustatory, olfactory, and visual modalities, suggests that the OFC is a common center for the assessment of a stimulus's value. The perception of aesthetics for these areas must be due to the activation of the brain's reward system with a certain intensity. Additionally, the prefrontal dorsalateral cortex (PDC) is selectively activated only by stimuli considered beautiful whereas prefrontal activity as a whole is activated during the judgment of both pleasing and unpleasing stimuli. The prefrontal cortex may be generally activated for directing the attention of the cognitive and perceptual mechanisms towards aesthetic perception in viewers untrained in visual arts. In other words, related directly to a person viewing art from an aesthetic perception due to the top-down control of their cognition. The lateral prefrontal cortex is shown to be linked to higher order self-referential procession and the evaluation of internally generated information. The left lateral PFC,
Brodmann area 10 Brodmann area 10 (BA10, frontopolar prefrontal cortex, rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, or anterior prefrontal cortex) is the anterior-most portion of the prefrontal cortex in the human brain. BA10 was originally defined broadly in terms of its cy ...
, may be involved in maintaining attention on the execution of internally generated goals associated with approaching art from an aesthetic orientation. As previously mentioned, directing of attention towards aesthetics may have evolutionary significance.


Additional areas

Emotions play a large role in aesthetic processing. Experiments designed specifically to force the subjects to view the artwork subjectively (by inquiring of its aesthetic appeal) rather than simply with the visual systems, revealed a higher activation in the brain's emotional circuitry. Results from these experiments revealed high activation in the bilateral insula which can be attributed to the emotional experience of viewing art. This correlates with other known emotional roles of the insula. However, the correlation between the insula's varying states of activation and positive or negative emotions in this context is unknown. The emotional view of art can be contrasted with perception related to object recognition when pragmatically viewing art. The right
fusiform gyrus The fusiform gyrus, also known as the ''lateral occipitotemporal gyrus'','' ''is part of the temporal lobe and occipital lobe in Brodmann area 37. The fusiform gyrus is located between the lingual gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus above, and the inf ...
has been revealed to show activation to visual stimuli such as faces and representational art. This holds importance in the field because as Ramachandran also speculated, object recognition and the search for meaning can evoke a pleasant emotional response. The
motor cortex The motor cortex is the region of the cerebral cortex believed to be involved in the planning, control, and execution of voluntary movements. The motor cortex is an area of the frontal lobe located in the posterior precentral gyrus immediately ...
was also shown to be involved in aesthetic perception. However, it displayed opposite trends of activation from the OFC. It may be a common correlate for the perception of emotionally charged stimuli despite its previously known roles. Several other areas of the brain were shown to be slightly activated during certain studies such as the
anterior cingulate cortex In the human brain, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex that resembles a "collar" surrounding the frontal part of the corpus callosum. It consists of Brodmann areas 24, 32, and 33. It is involve ...
, previously known for its involvement in the feeling of romance, and the left
parietal cortex The parietal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The parietal lobe is positioned above the temporal lobe and behind the frontal lobe and central sulcus. The parietal lobe integrates sensory inform ...
, whose purpose may be to direct spatial attention. Different artistic styles may also be processed differently by the brain. In a study between filtered forms of abstract and representation art, the bilateral occipital
gyri In neuroanatomy, a gyrus (pl. gyri) is a ridge on the cerebral cortex. It is generally surrounded by one or more sulci (depressions or furrows; sg. ''sulcus''). Gyri and sulci create the folded appearance of the brain in humans and other ...
, left
cingulate sulcus The cingulate sulcus is a sulcus (brain fold) on the cingulate cortex in the medial wall of the cerebral cortex. The frontal and parietal lobes are separated from the cingulate gyrus by the cingulate sulcus. It terminates as the marginal sulcus o ...
, and bilateral
fusiform gyrus The fusiform gyrus, also known as the ''lateral occipitotemporal gyrus'','' ''is part of the temporal lobe and occipital lobe in Brodmann area 37. The fusiform gyrus is located between the lingual gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus above, and the inf ...
showed increased activation with increased preference when viewing art. However, activation in the bilateral occipital gyri may be caused by the large processing requirements placed on the visual system when viewing high levels of visual detail in artwork such as representational paintings. Several areas of the brain have been shown to respond particularly to forms representational art perhaps due to the brain's ability to make object associations and other functions relating to attention and memory. This form of stimuli leads to increased activation in the left
frontal lobe The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere (in front of the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe). It is parted from the parietal lobe by a groove be ...
and bilaterally in the parietal and limbic lobes. Also, the left superior parietal lobule, Brodmann's area 7, has been shown to play a role in active image construction during the viewing of art specifically containing indeterminate forms such as soft edge paintings. Bottom up processes such as edge detection and the exploration of visual stimuli are engaged during this type of aesthetic perception. These roles are consistent with previously known parietal lobe responsibilities in spatial cognition and visual imagery.


Criticism

There are several objections to researchers' attempts to reduce aesthetic experience to a set of physical or neurological laws. It is questionable whether the theories can capture the evocativeness or originality of individual works of art. Experiments performed may not account for these theories directly. Also, current experimentation measures a person's verbal response to how they feel about art which is often selectively filtered. Ramachandran suggests the use of
galvanic skin response Electrodermal activity (EDA) is the property of the human body that causes continuous variation in the electrical characteristics of the skin. Historically, EDA has also been known as skin conductance, galvanic skin response (GSR), electrodermal ...
to quantify the judgment associated viewing aesthetics. Overall, it can be argued that there is lack of proportion between the narrow approach to art taken by researchers versus the grand claims they make for their theories.


Future directions and related fields

Since 2005 the notion of bridging brain science and the visual arts has blossomed into a field of increasing international interest. In his 2008 book, ''Neuroarthistory: from Aristotle and Pliny to Baxandall and Zeki'', Professor
John Onians John B Onians, FSA (born 1942) is Professor Emeritus of World Art at the University of East Anglia, Norwich and specialised in architecture, especially the architectural theory of the Italian Renaissance; painting, sculpture and architecture in ...
of the
University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...
considers himself to be at the forefront of the field of neural scientific biased art historical research, although such a 'history' is much shorter than Onians would have us believe. Many historical figures he deals with as precursors for neuroarthistory (Karl Marx, for example) have very little to do with modern neuroscience as it is understood today. Contemporary artists like Mark Stephen Smith (William Campbell Gallery, USA),
Guillaume Bottazzi Guillaume Bottazzi (born in 1971) is a French visual artist. Biography Guillaume Bottazzi is a French visual artist, born in 1971. At the age of 17, he decided to become an artist as a single activity. He began to study painting in Italy. Bac ...
and others have developed extensive bodies of work mapping the convergence of brain science and painting. Smith's work explores fundamental visual analogies between neural function and self-expression in abstract art. The past decade has also seen a corresponding growth in the aesthetics of music studied from neuroscientific approaches. Psychological and social approaches to art help provide other theories of experience.Lavazza, Andrea(2009). Art as a metaphor of the mind. ''Phenom Cogn Sci'', 8 159-182


See also

*
Aesthetic cognitivism Aesthetic cognitivism is a methodology in the philosophy of art, particularly audience responses to art, that relies on research in cognitive psychology. Although the term is used more in humanistic disciplines than scientific ones, the methodolog ...
* Neuroaesthetics (Neidich)


References


Further reading


Books

*Araguz, Antonio
Campos-Bueno, José Javier
Fernández-Armayor, Victor; de Juan Ayala, Octavio (Eds.) (2010): Neuroestética. Madrid: Saned. (The first book on Neuroesthetics, written in Spanish). * Bressan Yannick, (2013), ''Le théâtral comme lieu d'expérience des neurosciences cognitives. A la recherche du principe d'adhésion'', L'Harmattan (Eds.) (French). *Cappelletto, Chiara (2009): Neuroestetica: L'arte del cervell. Roma: Editori Laterza. (The first book on Neuroesthetics, written in Italian). *Chatterjee, A. (2013)
"The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art"
New York: Oxford University Press. *Elbs, Oliver (2005): ''Neuro-Esthetics: Mapological foundations and applications'' (Map 2003). Munich: m-press. (The first dissertation on Neuroesthetics, written by an art historian). *Francis, N. (2017). ''Bilingual and multicultural perspectives on poetry, music and narrative''
The science of art
Rowman & Littlefield. *Huston, J. P.; Nadal, M.; Mora, F.; Agnati, L. F. & Cela-Conde, C. J. (Eds.) (2015)
"Art, Aesthetics and the Brain"
Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Lauring, J. O. (Ed.) (2014)

Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. *Nadal, Marcos & Vartanian, Oshin (Eds.) (2022)
"The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Aesthetics"
New York NY: Oxford University Press. *Skov, Martin & Vartanian, Oshin (Eds.) (2009): "Neuroaesthetics". Amitiville NY: Baywood. *Skov, Martin & Nadal, Marcos (Eds.) (2022)
"The Routledge International Handbook of Neuroaesthetics"
New York NY: Routledge. *Zeki, Semir (2008)
Splendors and Miseries of the Brain. Love, Creativity, and the Quest for Human Happiness
Oxford: Blackwell.


Special issues of scientific journals

* Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Research Topic Brain and Art
* Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, 2013
Volume 7, Issue 1


External links

* {{Neuroscience Neuropsychology Aesthetics