Whenever you’re in an art gallery, you’ll always see that one lone figure off in a corner, staring down a painting for ages. You’ll likely wonder what’s going through his head. What’s so interesting about that one painting? What is he thinking about when he sees it? That’s where neuroaesthetics comes in.
Neuroaesthetics is the scientific study of how and why humans respond to art. The study uses imaging techniques to look at what goes on in our brains when we take in a piece of artwork. The term was coined by neuroscientist Semir Zeki in 2002, and incorporates ideas from neuroscience, art history, and evolutionary biology.
According to neuroaesthetic research, humans are the only organisms capable of appreciating and assigning different degrees of beauty to visual forms. Some researchers suggest that our ability to discern beauty was important and beneficial for human evolution, since “ugly” traits like asymmetry are biologically associated with infection and disease, and could lead to poor mate selection.
But when it comes to studying modern-day humans, research generally looks at how our reactions to art are mapped out on the neural level. In one experiment, participants were asked to judge visual stimuli as beautiful, ugly, or neutral. They were then asked to observe these stimuli—usually paintings—while researchers used techniques like fMRI scans to study the parts of the brain activated during the task. One study showed that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), an area involved in emotion and reward, activated less in response to ugly stimuli, while beautiful stimuli resulted in increased OFC activity.
In general, research has shown that aesthetic experience isn’t just about perception of visual objects. Observing art also triggers emotional parts of the brain responsible for movement and physical sensation, or rather sensorimotor responses. These findings suggest that our encounters with art lead to the simulation of actions and emotions in the brain, creating a sense of embodiment when we experience an artwork.
Another neuroaesthetics research area seeks to answer the controversial question of what makes art good. In other words, what makes a Picasso different from your drawings from preschool? According to one theory, there are eight laws of artistic experience, which all stimulate the visual areas of the brain in ways that enhance the aesthetic encounter.
One of these laws, called the peak shift principle, suggests that in the attempt to capture the “essence” of an object, artists will often exaggerate the related forms or illumination of the object in ways that would otherwise look unrealistic. This means that artists highlight the features of objects that make them unique. According to researchers, this process of amplifying unique features actually mimics the way the visual areas of the brain treat information. Observing a painting that uses this technique should therefore amplify the neural effect.
Studies like these suggest that the craft of an artist is really just a matter of manipulating the right visual cues to activate specific brain areas. And on some level, this seems intuitive. Looking at an emotional face will make you feel similar emotions. A dark painting might create a gloomy atmosphere. But the research also runs the risk of missing the complexity of the aesthetic experience as it varies among different people. After all, you might not think the Mona Lisa is anything special. Maybe the abstract art that some people can’t stand is really what gets you going. In the end, can we really reduce every brush stroke to the firing of neurons and lit-up spots on a brain scan?
According to Semir Zeki, it looks like we can. In Statement on Neuroaesthetics, he writes, “The artist is in a sense a neuroscientist exploring the potential 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.”
