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Rachel Zavala-Salazar

Professer Bustamamante

English1301-104

11 November 2023

Discovering the Persuasion of Scientific Journal “Neuroscience of Aesthetics.”

As more and more information is found within neuroscience, researchers must find ways

to successfully communicate their arguments or claims supporting past, current, and new

research. By analyzing “Neuroscience of Aesthetics.” by M.Ds Anjan Chatterjee and Oshin

Vartanian, we discover that. The article focuses on the neuroscience of aesthetics. It intends to

communicate this to other neuroscientists looking for a deeper understanding of the connection

between neurological functions and aesthetic experiences or how the brain processes visually

aesthetic experiences. Here, ​The authors successfully argue the existing claim that visually

aesthetic experiences stem from the brain and its structures. They do this by using graphs to

allow the reader to visualize better what functions they are discussing, knowledgeable language

to assume that their audience is educated in the subject, reinforcing who this article was made

for, and establishing their credibility by using past peer-reviewed research.

To begin with, The author uses graphs to visualize better where in the brain aesthetics is

processed. The article focuses on attempting to demonstrate that aesthetics and how we feel

towards them come directly from processing parts of the brain and goes on to prove this by

providing graphs, precisely one indicating the different parts of the brain and their functions and

another showing specific areas actively processing aesthetic information. Further, In this article,
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we are presented with a brain graph with different parts color-coded in blue, pink, yellow, green,

purple, red, and orange. These colors represent the other areas of the brain, which are, according

to the article, “mental representations of emotion.”(Chatterjee Anjan and Oshin Vartanian. pg

174.) The report also expands on these structures and their function in the caption, “The more

sensory system involves the lateral sector of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and includes the

lateral portions of BA 11 and 13, BA 47/12 (A and C, purple)...anterior insula (D, yellow)..

basolateral (BL) ..amygdala” (Chatterjee Anjan and Oshin Vartanian. pg 175). The other graph

consists of the two sides of the brain color-coded in orange, yellow, and blue. This figure

contains a caption stating, “The DMN is represented in orange, whereas the external attention

network is represented in blue. These two networks are anticorrelated..”(Chatterjee Anjan and

Oshin Vartanian. pg 179). indicating that the activity is displayed by color. This strategy is

effective for the author’s argument since it visualizes the claim the authors are making those

aesthetics are processed from “interaction between emotion–valuation, sensory–motor, and

meaning–knowledge neural systems.” (Chatterjee Anjan and Oshin Vartanian. pg 179). By

providing a visual display of their argument, they give the audience evidence and reasoning for

their opinion. This allows the authors to essentially put their arguments into a visual that not only

shows their audience context to their claim but also to understand where all the function they are

discussing is happening.

In addition, The author uses language that can allow the audience to assume the authors

are knowledgeable. Since the article’s argument pertains to neuroscientific functions in terms of

aesthetics, it is expected that the authors would know the subject to a certain degree. Therefore,

the authors use terms and language niche to neuroscience, allowing the audience to assume the

authors know the subject they’re arguing about, and the authors themselves presume their
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audience is educated on the topic as well. The language that pertains to neuroscience can be

found throughout the article, but specifically found when the authors describe the technology

used within neuroscience to analyze the brain, “​​in particular functional magnetic resonance

imaging (fMRI)—it is important to highlight some of the basic limitations of this approach. First

and foremost, by and large, neuroimaging techniques generate correlational data.”(Chatterjee

Anjan and Oshin Vartanian. Pg 173) When describing the part of the brain that processes details

in human faces, “Specifically, Biederman and colleagues observed that cortical 􏰀-opioid

receptor density is greatest in those parts of the ventral visual pathway that

process…”(Chatterjee Anjan and Oshin Vartanian. Pg.175).By using language that pertains to

professionals or people who are educated in the world of neuroscience, the author is using a

rhetorical technique that is an example of ethos since it displays the knowledge and, therefore,

the credibility of the subject. Using this language, the authors make a convincing argument by

allowing the audience to trust that they know what they are arguing, making it more believable

and likely to persuade readers. The authors’ usage of this rhetorical strategy appeals to other

neuroscientists/neurologists by allowing them to read more information without taking the time

to explore and divulge the meanings, structures, and functions of each technology and part of the

brain mentioned. By using knowledgeable language, they reinforce the idea that they are credible

writers, making their argument more convincing by using ethos to present their credibility and

pathos by assuming their audience.

Moreover, The authors use past research on this topic to reinforce their argument and

provide a credible source demonstrating the usage of ethos. To make themselves and their

argument more credible to their audience, the authors use past research on the neuroscience of

aesthetics to fortify their argument and signify that their evidence comes from a believable place.
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The authors show previous research when they begin to divulge the history of their topic,

showing that it has been investigated before by a credible source, “The publication of Gustav

Theodor Fechner’s Vorschule der Aesthetik in 1876 marks the beginning of psychological

aesthetics.14,15 As a psychophysi, Fechner worked under the assumption that a correspondence

exists between the physical properties of stimuli and the sensations that they cause.” (Chatterjee

& Vartanian pg. 173). This statement proves to the audience that there have been previous

studies on the neuroscience of aesthetics. This usage of past research exemplifies ethos because

the preceding analysis has been done successfully, demonstrating that they have reason to justify

this argument in their article. Using these past scholarships, they can show that they’re

dependable research for future studies since they are certified to discuss the neuroscience of

aesthetics and use past studies like the one mentioned to support their argument better. By using

ethos through past research and claims on the author’s topic, they reinforce the idea that this is

worth developing future investigation for and current analysis, therefore aiding in making a

convincing argument by providing credibility. By proving their credibility when using past

research, which demonstrates that their argument is accurate and worth doing the research for,

they appeal to other neuroscientists by presenting themselves as a credible source to be used in

future research done on neuroaesthetics. The authors use this rhetorical appeal to establish their

credibility by using past research to argue their claims.

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