Neuroaesthetics

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.03.003

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Volume 18, Issue 7, July 2014, Pages 370-375

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2014.03.003 Get rights and content

Highlights

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The aesthetic triad comprises sensory–motor, emotional–valuation, and meaning–knowledge systems.
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Liking without wanting in the ventral striatum instantiates disinterested interest.
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The default-mode network may represent an internal orientation in aesthetic states.
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Brain damage can paradoxically facilitate art production.
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Neuroaesthetics is poised to enter the scientific mainstream.

Neuroaesthetics is an emerging discipline within cognitive neuroscience that is concerned with understanding the biological bases of aesthetic experiences. These experiences involve appraisals of natural objects, artifacts, and environments. Because aesthetic encounters are common in everyday life, exploration of their biological bases can deepen our understanding of human behavior in important domains such as mate selection, consumer behavior, communication, and art. We review recent evidence showing that aesthetic experiences emerge from the interaction between sensory–motor, emotion–valuation, and meaning–knowledge neural systems. Neuroaesthetics draws from and informs traditional areas of cognitive neuroscience including perception, emotion, semantics, attention, and decision-making. The discipline is at a historical inflection point and is poised to enter the mainstream of scientific inquiry.

Introduction

Neuroaesthetics is an emerging discipline that investigates the biological underpinnings of aesthetic experiences 1, 2, 3. Such experiences occur when we appraise objects [4]. Aesthetic experiences include emotions, valuation, and actions engendered by these objects, as well as processes that underlie their interpretation and production. Investigators typically ask how aesthetic experiences are instantiated in the brain and how knowledge of brain mechanisms informs our understanding of these experiences? The discipline merges empirical aesthetics with cognitive and affective neuroscience.

Neuroaesthetics can take a descriptive or experimental form. Descriptive neuroaesthetics relies on observations that relate facts of the brain to aesthetic experiences (Box 1). The claims are typically qualitative. Experimental neuroaesthetics, like any experimental science, produces data that are quantitative and vetted statistically. The approach tests hypotheses, predicts results, and invites replication or falsification. Humanist critics 5, 6 of neuroaesthetics typically target descriptive and not experimental neuroaesthetics [7], although experimental neuroaesthetics has been criticized when concentrated too narrowly on aesthetic responses to artworks [8].

Section snippets

The aesthetic triad

Experiments in neuroaesthetics focus on the properties of and interactions between a triad of neural systems: sensory–motor, emotion–valuation, and meaning–knowledge circuitry (Figure 1) 9, 10.

The visual brain segregates visual elements such as luminance, color, and motion, as well as higher-order objects such as 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

Beyond beauty and simple preference

Expressionist theories of art 35, 36 emphasize the ability of art to communicate subtle emotions that are difficult to convey with words. Neuroaesthetic investigations of nuanced emotions beyond simple preference are beginning to surface 4, 24. For example, the ‘delicate sadness’ evoked by Noh masks engages the right amygdala [37]. Negative aesthetic emotions engage the lateral orbitofrontal cortex [38]. Empathetic responses to paintings engage our emotional circuitry of joy or fear or anger,

The paradoxical facilitation of art

Patient observations are an important source of data in neuroaesthetics 51, 52, 53, 54 especially with regard to artistic production, processes that are not easily studied using imaging (Box 3). Paradoxically, neurological disease sometimes improves artistic production.

Frontotemporal dementias (FTD) are a group of degenerative neurological diseases that can profoundly change the personality of affected individuals. Such people often become disinhibited and disorganized, and have problems with

Limitations

Are there principled limits to neuroscientific contributions to aesthetics? The role of meaning in aesthetic experiences might be such a limit. Current neuroscientific methods are adept at investigating stable and relatively universal properties of the mind (Box 3). We apprehend the general meaning of a scene quickly. In the same way that we easily interpret objects seen through the frame of a window, we easily interpret objects seen in the frame of representational artwork. The ability to

Concluding remarks

These are early days in neuroaesthetics 1, 2. The contours of the field and its methods and research agenda are evolving. The domain cuts across traditional areas of cognitive neuroscience such as perception, emotion, semantics, attention, and decision-making. Scientists who typically work in these traditional areas could easily add neuroaesthetics to their catalog of concerns. The biggest challenge for neuroaestheticians is to get past the inference of psychological mechanisms based solely on

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