Brain, Beauty, and Art: Essays Bringing

Neuroaesthetics into Focus Anjan

Chatterjee (Editor)
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/brain-beauty-and-art-essays-bringing-neuroaesthetics
-into-focus-anjan-chatterjee-editor/
Brain, Beauty, & Art
 Brain, Beauty, & Art
Essays Bringing Neuroaesthetics into Focus
Edited by
A N JA N C HAT T E R J E E A N D E I L E E N R . C A R D I L L O

1
 3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chatterjee, Anjan, editor. | Cardillo, Eileen R., editor.
Title: Brain, beauty, & art : essays bringing neuroaesthetics into focus /
Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo (editors).
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021032376 (print) | LCCN 2021032377 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197513620 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197513644 (epub) |
ISBN 9780197513651 (digital online)
Subjects: LCSH: Aesthetics—Psychological aspects. |
Arts—Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC BH301.P 78 B73 2022 (print) |
LCC BH301.P 78 (ebook) | DDC 111/.85—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032376
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032377

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197513620.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
 Contents

Prologue: Where Have We Been, and Where Are We Now?  xi

Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo
Contributors  xvii

SE C T IO N I F R A M EWO R K S
1. An Early Framework for a Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual
Aesthetics  3
Anjan Chatterjee
2. Bringing It All Together: Neurological and Neuroimaging
Evidence of the Neural Underpinnings of Visual Aesthetics  8
Marcos Nadal and Camilo J. Cela-​Conde
3. But, What Actually Happens When We Engage with “Art”?  13
Matthew Pelowski and Helmut Leder
4. Naturalizing Aesthetics  18
Steven Brown
5. Moving Toward Emotions in the Aesthetic Experience  22
Cinzia Di Dio and Vittorio Gallese
6. The Aesthetic Triad  27
Oshin Vartanian and Anjan Chatterjee
7. How Neuroimaging Is Transforming Our Understanding of
Aesthetic Taste  31
Martin Skov
8. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience  36
Marcos Nadal and Marcus Pearce

SE C T IO N I I B E AU T Y
9. Facial Beauty and the Medial Orbitofrontal Cortex  43
John P. O’Doherty and Raymond J. Dolan
vi Contents

10. Beautiful People in the Brain of the Beholder  48

Anjan Chatterjee
11. The Mark of Villainy: The Connection Between Appearance
and Perceived Morality  52
Franziska Hartung
12. A Quest for Beauty  56
Thomas Jacobsen
13. Scene Preferences, Aesthetic Appeal, and Curiosity: Revisiting
the Neurobiology of the Infovore  61
Edward A. Vessel, Xiaomin Yue, and Irving Biederman
14. Kinds of Beauty and the Prefrontal Cortex  66
Teresa Pegors
15. Expertise and Aesthetic Liking  70
Martin Skov and Ulrich Kirk
16. Social Meaning Brings Beauty: Neural Response to the
Beauty of Abstract Chinese Characters  75
Xianyou He and Wei Zhang

SE C T IO N I I I A RT
17. The Contributions of Emotion and Reward to Aesthetic
Judgment of Visual Art  83
Oshin Vartanian
18. Embodiment and the Aesthetic Experience of Images  88
Vittorio Gallese, David Freedberg, and Maria Alessandra Umiltà
19. The Role of Left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortices in Aesthetic
Valuation  93
Enric Munar and Camilo J. Cela-​Conde
20. Noninvasive Brain Stimulation of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal
Cortex During Aesthetic Appreciation  97
Marcos Nadal, Zaira Cattaneo, and Camilo J. Cela-​Conde
21. Is Artistic Composition in Abstract Art
Detected Automatically?  102
Claudia Menzel, Gyula Kovács, Gregor U. Hayn-​Leichsenring, and
Christoph Redies
 Contents vii

22. The Contribution of Visual Area V5 to the Perception

of Implied Motion in Art and Its Appreciation  107
Marcos Nadal and Zaira Cattaneo
23. Art Is Its Own Reward  112
Simon Lacey and K. Sathian
24. Imaging the Subjective  117
Edward A. Vessel and G. Gabrielle Starr
25. Cultural Neuroaesthetics of Delicate Sadness Induced
by Noh Masks  122
Naoyuki Osaka
26. Toward a Computational Understanding of Neuroaesthetics  127
Kiyohito Iigaya and John P. O’Doherty
27. Artists, Artworks, Aesthetics, Cognition  132
William P. Seeley
28. Aesthetic Liking Is Not Only Driven by Object Properties,
but Also by Your Expectations  137
Martin Skov and Ulrich Kirk
29. Finding Mutual Interest Between Neuroscience and
Aesthetics: A Brush with Reality?  142
Andrew J. Parker
30. What Can We Learn About Art from People with
Neurological Disease?  147
Anjan Chatterjee

SE C T IO N I V M U SIC
31. Chills, Bets, and Dopamine: A Journey into Music Reward  155
Laura Ferreri, Jordi Riba, Robert Zatorre, and
Antoni Rodriguez-​Fornells
32. Why Does Music Evoke Strong Emotions? Testing the
Endogenous Opioid Hypothesis  161
Daniel J. Levitin and Lindsay A. Fleming
33. Music in All Its Beauty: Adopting the Naturalistic Paradigm
to Uncover Brain Processes During the Aesthetic Musical
Experience  166
Elvira Brattico and Vinoo Alluri
viii Contents

34. Investigating Musical Emotions in People with Unilateral

Brain Damage  170
Amy M. Belfi, Agathe Pralus, Catherine Hirel, Daniel Tranel,
Barbara Tillmann, and Anne Caclin

SE C T IO N V L A N G UAG E A N D L I T E R AT U R E
35. The Neurocognitive Poetics Model of Literary Reading
10 Years After  177
Arthur M. Jacobs
36. The Power of Poetry  182
Eugen Wassiliwizky and Winfried Menninghaus
37. Pictograph Portrays What It Is: Neural Response to
the Beauty of Concrete Chinese Characters  188
Xianyou He and Wei Zhang

SE C T IO N V I DA N C E
38. Movement, Synchronization, and Partnering in Dance  195
Steven Brown
39. Dance, Expertise, and Sensorimotor Aesthetics  199
Beatriz Calvo-​Merino
40. An Eye for the Impossible: Exploring the Attraction
of Physically Impressive Dance Movements  203
Emily S. Cross
41. The Mind, the Brain, and the Moving Body: Dance as a
Topic in Cognitive Neuroscience  208
Bettina Bläsing and Beatriz Calvo-​Merino
42. Training Effects on Affective Perception of Body Movements  213
Louise P. Kirsch and Emily S. Cross

SE C T IO N V I I A R C H I T E C T U R E
43. The Neuroaesthetics of Architecture  221
Oshin Vartanian
44. Architectural Styles as Subordinate Scene Categories  225
Dirk B. Walther
 Contents ix

45. Architectural Affordances: Linking Action, Perception,

and Cognition  230
Zakaria Djebbara and Klaus Gramann
46. Architectural Design and the Mind  235
Alex Coburn

Epilogue: Where Are We Now, and Where Are We Going?  241

Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo
Index  247
 Prologue
Where Have We Been, and Where Are We Now?
Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo

Seated on a wrought iron chair, enveloped in the sweet scent of magnolias and
surrounded by decaying architectural remnants, I (AC) resolved to study the
biology of aesthetic experiences. It was early in the spring of 1999. The set-
ting was the courtyard at Garages, my favorite bar in Birmingham, Alabama.
I was with two close friends; we often met there on Friday afternoons
to talk about life and work. I had just been recruited by the University of
Pennsylvania to join the newly forming Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.
Several drinks in, as the end to our cozy collaborations sunk in, Britt posed
the following question to Mark and me. Imagine yourself 10 years into the
future. Look back at your professional life. What would you regret not doing?
Professionally, my work had focused on attention, spatial representations,
and language. Personally, I had always been preoccupied by beauty, and I was
obsessed with photography. With alcohol-​infused clarity, I realized that my
regret would be not making aesthetics an object of scientific inquiry. I was
changing institutions, and it seemed an opportune time to tackle new ideas.
At the time, neuroaesthetics did not exist. I didn’t know anybody who studied
it or had written about it. After arriving at Penn, still a time before internet
searches, I explored the old-​fashioned way—​musty meanderings through
the library looking for relevant journals and books that could tether me to
the topic. I found the Empirical Studies of the Arts, the flagship journal of the
International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA). In 2002, I traveled
to the next biennial meeting of IAEA held in Takarazuka, Japan, and met a
small congenial group of people committed to scientific aesthetics. A path
forward, although still obscure, seemed possible.
At the same time Anjan was contemplating a future pivot in the trajectory
of his academic pursuits, I (EC) was finishing my final semester of college
and charting the first steps of my own. I was preoccupied with the question
of human uniqueness—​what aspects of our biology and minds explained our
particular way of being in the world. I’d first taken a comparative biology
xii Prologue

approach to this mystery, assisting behavioral research on the symbolic

capacities of one of our closest relatives, orangutans. Working so closely
with such intelligent beings remains one of the defining, most humbling
experiences I’ve had. But I found the pace of rigorous cognitive research with
non-​human apes to be too slow. By March of 1999, I was peering down a
microscope, quantifying properties of hippocampal cells in migratory and
nonmigratory juncos and recognizing my own ill-​suitedness for bench neu-
roscience. On perhaps the same glorious spring day that Anjan resolved to
investigate aesthetics, I dropped my senior thesis and determined human
cognitive neuroscience was the middle way I sought. The extent of my aes-
thetic investigations at the time consisted of sporting conventionally ugly
clothes and hair on purpose (it was the ’90s, after all) and defiantly feeling
beautiful. It seems fitting, however, that two decades later my quest has led
me to exploring aesthetic experience, one of the most human things we do.
The scientific study of aesthetics traces back to 1876, with Gustav Fechner’s
Vorschule der Ästhetik (Preliminaries to Aesthetics). Trained in medicine
and physics, and a pioneer of experimental psychology, Fechner proposed
the radical idea that aesthetics could be studied “from below.” He meant that
it could be an experimental science, which contrasted with the approach
“from above”—​arguments derived from first principles. His book built on
his own earlier work in psychophysics that systematically related proper-
ties of the outside world to properties of the mind. He recognized that for
this outer psychophysics to be true, there had to be an inner psychophysics.
Judgments about the world are, by necessity, mediated by properties of the
brain. However, the ability to investigate this inner psychophysics was lim-
ited in the 19th century.
Neuroaesthetics is the realization of Fechner’s vision that one could
study aesthetics empirically and link the brain to behavior. A subdiscipline
of cognitive neuroscience, neuroaesthetics is concerned with the neural
basis of aesthetic experiences. We regard aesthetics broadly to encompass
interactions with entities or events that evoke intense feelings and emotions,
typically linked to pleasure, including but not limited to engagement with
art. Twenty years ago, neuroscience joined the long history of discussions
about aesthetics in psychology, philosophy, art history, and the creative arts.
Scholarship in neuroaesthetics accelerated in earnest about a decade ago (see
Figure P.1). To state the obvious, this is a very young field. These early days
make the field ideal for researchers at the start of their careers or for sea-
soned researchers looking to make a switch in the focus of their inquiry. Big
 Prologue xiii

500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
1965
1967
1969
1971
1973
1975
1977
1979
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
2007
2009
2011
2013
2015
2017
2019
Figure P.1 Neuroaesthetic publications from 1965 to 2019. PubMed
search using the following terms: (neuroaesthetics) OR (neuroscience/​
neuropsychology AND art) OR (neuroscience/​neuropsychology AND beauty)
OR (neuroscience AND aesthetics).

questions remain to be tackled. We are still establishing neuroaesthetics’ con-

ceptual underpinnings, the relevant scientific agenda, the optimal methods
for inquiry, and how best to engage with allied disciplines.
One goal of this book is to communicate the growing pains and the
burgeoning excitement of this new field. People are often fascinated by
the brain and by beauty and art. For many, the idea that the brain and aes-
thetics could be connected and studied scientifically comes as a surprise.
When thinking of this connection between the brain and aesthetics, it is
worth distinguishing between descriptive and experimental neuroaesthetics.
Descriptive neuroaesthetics maps known properties of the brain onto aesthetic
constructs. Experimental neuroaesthetics actually conducts experiments to
test hypotheses. For example, one could appreciate that our visual system
carves the world into people, places, and things and find an interesting
parallel that representational visual art has been preoccupied by portraits,
landscapes, and still lifes. One might further postulate that visual artists op-
erate with implicit knowledge of the visual brain. This observation is descrip-
tive, and the postulate is speculative. No hypothesis has been tested, and no
experiment has been conducted. By contrast, one could hypothesize that our
visual system engages valuation of paintings in a way that respects functional
xiv Prologue

anatomic segregations. An experimenter might present portrait and land-

scape paintings to people in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner
and predict that the parts of the visual cortex that process faces would
show greater neural activity to portraits of beautiful than average-​looking
people, but be mute with respect to beauty in landscapes. They would fur-
ther predict the converse pattern of neural activity in response to beauty in
landscape paintings. In general, descriptive neuroaesthetics invites broad,
sweeping claims. Experimental neuroaesthetics, like any experimental sci-
ence, offers incremental and provisional claims. We believe that while de-
scriptive neuroaesthetics can drive broad interest in the field and generate
big hypotheses, a mature neuroaesthetics needs to be grounded in a robust,
experimental program.
This volume surveys important work in experimental neuroaesthetics.
What principles guided the choice of essays in this book? We wanted each
essay to be anchored to a specific peer-​reviewed publication and for authors
to contextualize and comment on their work. We picked papers that we re-
gard as important in the short history and ongoing development of the field.
We also asked several other scientists for a list of papers they, too, regarded as
influential. As may seem obvious for a volume on neuroaesthetics, the papers
had to address aesthetics and make an explicit link to the brain. Psychology
papers with implications for the brain, but without an explicit link, were not
considered. Our initial list included 60 papers. The first and senior authors
were invited to contribute their essays and add any other authors they saw
fit. We asked authors to address three questions and write in the style of a
popular science essay: (1) What motivated the original paper? (2) What
were the main findings or theoretical claims made?, and (3) How do those
findings or claims fit with the current state and anticipated near future of
neuroaesthetics? Each essay was to be short and limited to five references.
We further requested they be stand-​alone contributions designed to be read
without need for the original paper (although academics can certainly access
them if this collection is used for teaching or to guide future research). Most
people we invited accepted graciously and were intrigued by the prospect of
writing a popular science essay placing their work in a broader context. A few
authors declined, and some were stymied by the pandemic. Our final tally is
the 46 essays presented here, designed to bring the history of neuroaesthetics
into contemporary focus.
The book is organized into seven sections. Section I addresses conceptual
frameworks. These essays represent the field’s ongoing attempts to establish
 Prologue xv

its identity. How does one organize an empirical program? These attempts at
framing vary quite a bit; perhaps not surprising as the field finds its footing.
Section II focuses on beauty; the experience of beauty is most commonly as-
sociated with the term “aesthetics.” These essays capture different approaches
to the biological underpinning of beauty in faces and in landscapes. Section
III is about art. We sequester the best of such works in high temples of culture
and are preoccupied with adorning our homes and walls with others. How
do we think about these desired objects when they lack an obvious link to
primary rewards, like food and sex?
The subsequent four sections are shorter—​covering music (Section IV),
literature (Section V), dance (Section VI), and architecture (Section VII)—​
and reflect the uneven growth of the field. The cognitive neuroscience of
music is itself a well-​developed domain of inquiry. A section in a book such
as this one could not possibly do music scholarship justice. Rather, it aims
to highlight work that showcases possible methodological or program-
matic paths forward for other, less explored areas. Curiously, some of the
music researchers we invited declined because they did not see themselves
as conducting neuroaesthetics research. Nonetheless, the essays included
capture themes important to music researchers and relevant to the field as a
whole. The neuroscience of literature, dance, and architecture are even earlier
in their evolution than the study of visual beauty and art. Sections V through
VII convey emerging topics that are central to these nascent subfields of
neuroasethetics.
What is not covered by this collection is as important to note as what is. As
the most rapidly developing subfield of neuroaesthetics, and our own area of
expertise, this collection focuses on the study of visual aesthetics. However,
to our thinking, eating a delicious meal, inhaling a delicate fragrance, being
swathed in diaphanous silk, and immersing oneself in a horror film are as rel-
evant experiences to neuroaesthetic investigations as beholding the frescoes
of the Sistine Chapel. We regard these gaps as invitations not diminishments,
and we hope to inspire enterprising readers.
The collection represents a curated set of essays inviting the reader to
journey along with researchers actively shaping neuroaesthetics today. We
were relatively activist editors navigating between trying to make each essay
readable to a general public while not simplifying its content and, most im-
portantly, not altering the voices of the authors. The diversity in style of ex-
pression and opinion has been retained to convey the splendid messiness of a
new field in which the received wisdom is yet to be received.
 Contributors

Vinoo Alluri, PhD Steven Brown, PhD

Assistant Professor Associate Professor
Cognitive Science Lab Department of Psychology,
International Institute of Information Neuroscience & Behaviour
Technology McMaster University
Hyderabad, India Canada
Amy M. Belfi, PhD Anne Caclin, PhD
Assistant Professor Researcher
Department of Psychological Science Lyon Neuroscience Research Center
Missouri University of Science and INSERM, CNRS, Claude Bernard Lyon
Technology 1 University
USA France
Irving Biederman, PhD Beatriz Calvo-​Merino, PhD
Harold W. Dornsife Professor of Associate Professor in Cognitive
Neuroscience Neuroscience
Deptartments of Psychology and Department of Psychology
Computer Science, Program in City, University of London
Neuroscience UK
University of Southern California
Eileen R. Cardillo, DPhil
USA
Associate Director
Dr. habil. Bettina Bläsing Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics
Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences University of Pennsylvania
Technical University Dortmund USA
Germany
Zaira Cattaneo, PhD
Elvira Brattico, PhD Associate Professor
Professor, Center for Music in the Brain Department of Psychology
Department of Clinical Medicine University of Milano-​Bicocca; IRCCS
Aarhus University and Royal Academy Mondino Foundation,
of Music Aarhus/​Aalborg Italy
Denmark
Camilo J. Cela-​Conde, PhD
Department of Education, Psychology,
Full Professor
Communication
Department of Philosophy, Human
University of Bari Aldo Moro
Evolution and Cognition Group
Italy
University of the Balearic Islands
Spain
xviii Contributors

Anjan Chatterjee, MD Laura Ferreri, PhD

Professor of Neurology, Psychology, and Laboratoire d’Etude des Mécanismes
Architecture Cognitifs
Director, Penn Center for Université Lumière Lyon 2
Neuroaesthetics France
University of Pennsylvania
Lindsay A. Fleming, MA
USA
Research Assistant and Project
Alex Coburn, PhD Coordinator
Medical Student Department of Psychology
Department of Medicine McGill University
University of California San Francisco Canada
USA
David Freedberg, PhD
Emily S. Cross, PhD Pierre Matisse Professor of the
Professor of Human Neuroscience History of Art
Department of Cognitive Science Department of Art History and Italian
Macquarie University Academy for Advanced Studies
Australia Columbia University
Professor of Social Robotics USA
Institute of Neuroscience and
Vittorio Gallese, MD
Psychology
Professor of Psychobiology
University of Glasgow
Department of Medicine and Surgery,
UK
Unit of Neuroscience
Cinzia Di Dio, PhD University of Parma
Faculty of Educational Science Italy
Department of Psychology, Research
Klaus Gramann, PhD
Unit on Theory of Mind
Professor
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Biological Psychology and
Italy
Neuroergonomics
Zakaria Djebbara, PhD Technische Universitaet Berlin
Postdoc Germany
Department of Architecture, Design,
Franziska Hartung, PhD
Media and Technology
Lecturer
Aalborg University
School of Psychology
Denmark
Newcastle University
Raymond J. Dolan, MD UK
Max Planck UCL Center for
Dr. med. dent. habil. Gregor U. Hayn-​
Computational Psychiatry and Ageing
Leichsenring, BA
Research, Wellcome Centre for Human
Experimental Aesthetics Group,
Neuroimaging
Institute of Anatomy I
University College London
Jena University Hospital, University of
UK
Jena School of Medicine
Germany
 Contributors xix

Xianyou He, PhD Simon Lacey, PhD

Professor of Psychology Assistant Professor
School of Psychology Departments of Neurology and Neural
South China Normal University & Behavioral Sciences
China Pennsylvania State University
USA
Catherine Hirel, MD
Neurologist Helmut Leder, PhD
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Professor of Empirical Aesthetics
INSERM, CNRS, Claude Bernard Lyon Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive
1 University; Hopital Neurologique Sciences Research Hub
Pierre Wertheimer University of Vienna
France Austria
Kiyohito Iigaya, PhD Daniel J. Levitin, PhD
Division of Humanities and Social Founding Dean of Arts and Humanities
Sciences Minerva Schools at KGI
California Institute of Technology USA
USA
Winfried Menninghaus, Dr.
Arthur M. Jacobs Director
Freie Universität Berlin Max Planck Institute for Empirical
Germany Aesthetics
Department of Language and Literature
Thomas Jacobsen, PhD
Germany
Professor of Psychology
Experimental Psychology Unit Dr. Claudia Menzel
Helmut Schmidt University /​University Social, Environmental, and Economic
of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg Psychology
Germany University of Koblenz-​Landau
Germany
Ulrich Kirk, PhD
Associate Professor Enric Munar, PhD
Department of Psychology Full Professor
University of Southern Denmark Human Evolution and Cognition Group
Denmark University of the Balearic Islands
Spain
Louise P. Kirsch, PhD
Research Associate Marcos Nadal, PhD
Institute for Intelligent Systems and Associate Professor
Robotics Department of Psychology
Sorbonne Université University of the Balearic Islands
France Spain
Prof. Dr. Gyula Kovács John P. O’Doherty, DPhil
Biological Psychology and Cognitive Professor
Neurosciences Division of Humanities and Social
Friedrich-​Schiller University Jena Sciences
Germany California Institute of Technology
USA
xx Contributors

Naoyuki Osaka, PhD Christoph Redies, MD, PhD

Professor Emeritus Experimental Aesthetics Group
Kyoto University Institute of Anatomy I
Visiting Professor Jena University Hospital, University of
CiNet Osaka University and Japan Jena School of Medicine
Academy Germany
Japan
Jordi Riba, PhD
Andrew J. Parker, MA, PhD, ScD Department of Neuropsychology and
Professor of Neuroscience Psychopharmacology
Department of Physiology, Anatomy, & Maastricht University
Genetics The Netherlands
University of Oxford
Antoni Rodriguez-​Fornells, PhD
UK
Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit
Marcus Pearce, BA, MSc, PhD Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute
Senior Lecturer in Sound & Music L’Hospitalet de Llobregat
Processing Department of Cognition, Development
School of Electronic Engineering and and Education Psychology
Computer Science University of Barcelona
Queen Mary University of London Spain
UK Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis
Avançats
Teresa Pegors, PhD
Spain
Manassas
Virginia K. Sathian, MBBS, PhD
USA Chair of Neurology
Penn State Health
Dr. Matthew Pelowski
Director, Neuroscience Institute
Assistant Professor of Cognitive and
Professor of Neurology, Neural &
Neuroaesthetics
Behavioral Sciences, and Psychology
Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive
Pennsylvania State University
Sciences Research Hub
USA
University of Vienna
Austria William P. Seeley, MFA (Sculpture),
PhD (Philosophy)
Agathe Pralus, PhD
Adjunct Faculty
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Humanities
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center,
University of New Hampshire at
INSERM, CNRS
Manchester
Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University
USA
France
 Contributors xxi

Martin Skov, PhD Edward A. Vessel, PhD

Senior Researcher Research Scientist
Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Department of Neuroscience
Resonance Max Planck Institute for Empirical
Copenhagen University Hospital Aesthetics
Hvidovre & Center for Decision Germany
Neuroscience, Copenhagen
Dirk B. Walther, PhD
Business School
Associate Professor
Denmark
Department of Psychology
G. Gabrielle Starr, PhD University of Toronto
President Canada
Professor of English and Neuroscience
Eugen Wassiliwizky, Dr.
Pomona College
Senior Researcher
USA
Max Planck Institute for Empirical
Barbara Tillmann, PhD Aesthetics
CNRS Research Director Department of Language and Literature
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Germany
INSERM, CNRS
Xiaomin Yue, PhD
Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University
Research Fellow
France
The Laboratory of Brain and Cognition
Daniel Tranel, PhD National Institute of Mental Health
Professor USA
Departments of Neurology and
Robert Zatorre, PhD
Psychological and Brain Sciences
Montreal Neurological Institute
University of Iowa
McGill University and International
USA
Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound
Maria Alessandra Umiltà, PhD Research
Professor of Physiology Canada
Department of Food and Drug
Wei Zhang, PhD
University of Parma
Assistant Professor
Italy
School of Psychology
Oshin Vartanian, PhD South China Normal University
Associate Professor China
Department of Psychology
University of Toronto
Canada
 SECTION I
F R A MEWOR K S
 1
An Early Framework for a Cognitive
Neuroscience of Visual Aesthetics
Anjan Chatterjee

Comment on: Chatterjee, A. (2003). Prospects for a cognitive neuroscience

of visual aesthetics. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, 4, 55–​59.

When I first started to think about the neural basis of aesthetic experiences
in the late 1990s, little was written on the topic. Unlike other domains of psy-
chology, such as attention, perception, or memory, aesthetics had not gained
purchase in cognitive neuroscience. In fact, aesthetics was barely visible in
psychology itself despite being rooted in Fechner’s writings more than a
hundred years earlier. In 1999, papers by Zeki (1999) and Ramachandran
and Hirstein (1999) were initial forays into scientific aesthetics by estab-
lished neuroscientists. While undeniably important as initial markers for
the field, their papers were but a first step. They were speculative and did
not offer a framework for a systematic research program. Scholars in the
humanities latched on to these initial papers in ways that were detrimental
to the field. For the most part, they ignored subsequent careful experimental
work done by neuroscientists, as if neuroaesthetics began and ended in 1999
(Chatterjee, 2011). Missing in early discussions was a basic question: What
would a framework that could guide experimental progress in the neurosci-
ence of aesthetics entail?
During the 1980s and 1990s, as I came of age as a scientist, approaches
from cognitive psychology were dominant. The basic premise was that
complex phenomena can be broken down into component parts. These
components and their relationships could be studied in relatively controlled
ways. Each component presumably had its own neural signature. Over time
and after considerable experimentation, the psychological and neural bases
for the system would be laid bare. Depicted in “box and arrow” models, their
underlying logic can be traced back to the work of Carl Wernicke and Ludwig
Lichtheim in the late 19th century. In the two decades preceding my paper,

Anjan Chatterjee, An Early Framework for a Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Aesthetics In: Brain, Beauty, & Art.
Edited by: Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197513620.003.0001
4 Frameworks

such models were applied quite successfully to reading and face processing,
among other cognitive processes.
With these earlier models in mind, I proposed the following hier-
archical and interactive framework for visual aesthetic experiences
(Figure 1.1).
The central idea of the framework was that visual aesthetics involved visual
processing and would, at a minimum, have to follow principles of visual neu-
roscience. Visual features known to be processed in different parts of the
brain, such as line orientation, color, movement, and form, would necessarily
also be involved in visual aesthetic experiences. For example, if color was a
critical component of a painting, then regions of the brain that processed
color would be prominently engaged. This differential of weighting of early
visual components based on the stimulus was indicated in the framework by
bidirectional arrows of early vision to attention.
Intermediate vision represented processes that Gestalt psychologists had
identified in which elements were grouped together, by similarity, or prox-
imity, and so on. This aspect of visual processing seemed important when
considering balance and order and harmony of elements—​elements prom-
inent in discussions about composition and what made some art more ap-
pealing than others.

Stimuli
Attention

Decision

Early vision, features Intermediate vision Emotional response

(orientation, shape, color) (grouping) Liking versus wanting

Representational domain
(places, faces)

Figure 1.1 A framework designed to decompose aesthetic experiences into its

component parts.
Adapted from Chatterjee, A. (2003). Prospects for a cognitive neuroscience of visual
aesthetics. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, 4(2), 55–​60.
 A Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Aesthetics 5

Late or higher vision is the stage where these visual elements cohered into
recognizable entities, such as people, places, and things. These entities are
relevant to the aesthetics of (1) what people look like; (2) our relationship to
the environment, whether natural or human-​built; and (3) objects, both the
quotidian as well as those peculiar artifacts that we designate “art.” Again,
attention plays a role in highlighting these aspects of object representation
depending on the stimuli under consideration. So, for portraits, brain areas
processing faces, such as the fusiform face area, would be engaged dispro-
portionately, and, for landscapes, the parahippocampal place area.
Since a major aspect of aesthetic engagement is the emotional experience
and valuation of stimuli, our emotion and reward systems would also be en-
gaged. When the focus is on beauty, as has been true for many studies in
neuroaesthetics, our reward and pleasure circuitry involving the ventral stri-
atum, ventromedial prefrontal, and orbitofrontal cortices would be engaged.
At the time, I pointed to the work on pleasure circuits distinguishing between
liking (or hedonic states) and wanting (or incentive states) and speculated
that engaging liking without wanting might be a biological characterization
of a kind of disinterested interest that philosophers like Immanuel Kant had
written about.
Finally, I included a module about decisions. The general idea is that
human decision-​making is influenced by several variables, the most obvious
ones having to do with homeostatic behavioral responses for survival. If we
are hungry, we seek food. If we are cold, we seek warmth. I thought that the
aesthetic value of objects would also modulate human decision-​making. We
might be more likely to approach objects and choose them if we find them to
be attractive.
How has the model fared over the years? In general, I believe that it has
held up reasonably well. The visual decomposition ideas remain relevant.
Evidence continues to grow for how relatively early vision engages in valu-
ation (perhaps mediated by attention). The emotional and reward aspects of
the framework have also been largely confirmed and are now dealt with in
more nuanced ways than I imagined. For example, the question of a common
currency of reward arises. Are the same neural structures involved in the
rewards received for beautiful faces as for places and things (see Chapter 14,
by Pegors)?
In retrospect, some aspects of the framework have not been adequately
studied, and the framework itself did not sufficiently emphasize other aspects
of aesthetic experience that we now know to be important.
6 Frameworks

The idea of disinterested interest and, more specifically, the relevance

of Kant to contemporary scientific aesthetics is now debated (Hayn-​
Leichsenring & Chatterjee, 2019). Is it possible for a disinterested interest to
be instantiated in the brain, and is such a state important? How would one
construct experiments to test this idea? More generally, a current debate in
the field is whether aesthetic experiences are ever disinterested, or if such en-
gagement, by necessity, involves a call to action.
While I considered decision-​making in the framework, I did not con-
sider the motor system, which is one outward expression of our decisions.
This omission was a mistake. The importance of motor aspects of aes-
thetic experiences is now better appreciated (see Chapter 18, by Gallese,
Freedberg, and Umiltà). In recent work, we report that beautiful faces influ-
ence motor systems that guide limb and eye movements (Faust, Chatterjee, &
Christopoulos, 2019).
The questions surrounding emotions are also developing in more nuanced
ways than implied by my early framing. Ostensibly negative emotions are
reconfigured. Why do seemingly negative emotions, such as horror or sus-
pense, play a prominent role in so many aesthetic experiences, whether they
be in narrative, music, or painting?
A big omission of the framework was that semantics and meaning were
not emphasized. Clearly, what we think we know influences what and how
we value what we see. Our personal background, education, and the historic
and cultural milieu (see Chapter 25, by Osaka) we inhabit have profound
influences on our evaluation of people, places, and things. These influences,
in my view, remain areas ripe for ongoing exploration.
To summarize now, almost two decades later, the idea that aesthetic
experiences can be investigated as a componential process continues to
make sense. Current areas of active investigation focus on the relative impor-
tance of these components, their properties, and their relationship to each
other. Furthermore, we can now leverage advances in cognitive neuroscience
methods that were not available in 2003. These methods include multivoxel
pattern analysis, connectivity analyses, and noninvasive brain stimulation.
We can also take advantage of advances in adjoining domains of cognitive
neuroscience, such as the neuroscience of decision-​making, emotion reg-
ulation, motor control, and valuation in general. In other words, we still
have much to learn about neuroaesthetics, but the methods and conceptual
foundations are in place to forge ahead.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose
network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several

printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by
copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus,
we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any
particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear
about new eBooks.
back