Neuroesthetics

What is going on in your brain when you behold the Pietà by Michelangelo?

On one level your brain instantly perceives the shapes and contours, and it recognizes that the image on your computer screen is a photograph of a three-dimensional form. Even if you had never seen it before, you would recognize that the sculptural form represents human figures. You might observe that the sculpture is accomplished at the highest level of mastery. The subjects portrayed are not just any humans, but Mary and Jesus, with all the emotional and spiritual associations that go with that story. Perhaps you might recall the mentally disturbed geologist who vandalized the work with a hammer in 1972.

When I saw the Pietà in person, I was overcome by its beauty. I remember the feelings welled up inside me. I choked up, my eyes filled with tears, and I was unable to speak.

All these responses to a work of art can be studied using the new functional MRI (fMRI) mapping techniques. Corresponding with each level of response, there is specific and localized electrical activity going on in different parts of the brain.

Traditionally, the study of how and why we respond to beauty has been addressed by the field of aesthetics, a domain of philosophy. But today, a small group of scientists is working to understand aesthetic response in neurological terms, and this is part of a larger movement called “empirical aesthetics.”

One of the pioneers in this new field of neuroesthetics is Professor Semir Zeki. He coined the term, and he runs the Institute of Neuroesthetics at University College London. In his Statement on Neuroesthetics, he says, “Art is a human activity and, like all human activities, including morality, law and religion, depends upon, and obeys, the laws of the brain.”

Professor Zeki graciously responded to a few questions:

JG: Can we tell from brain imaging that the response to art is somehow special or different from the response to utilitarian or nonesthetic objects?

SZ: At present it is difficult to tell the difference between the response to an ordinary object (eg. a chair) and the response to viewing the painting of a chair. The same applies to faces. If, however, one were to focus specifically on the aesthetic value of what is being viewed, one would (I think) be able to differentiate between the two - assuming that the painting has greater aesthetic appeal. This is because, in that case, there would be greater activation of the orbito-frontal cortex.

JG: Tolstoy’s definition of art involves one person consciously infecting another with an emotion. When a subject reports that a work is beautiful or ugly, how is the brain’s emotional center involved?

SZ: Perceiving something as ugly or beautiful involves activation of the medial orbito-frontal cortex. Activity here is much more pronounced when pictures considered to be beautiful are perceived (in other words the activity is proportional to the declared experience of beauty).

JG: Walter Pater said that all of the arts aspire to the condition of music. Can we tell from fMRI studies how the response to visual art actually compares to the response to music or literature?

SZ: This is a question that I cannot answer at present. It is nevertheless an interesting question, worthy of future study.

JG: Does the brain respond differently to abstract versus representational art?

SZ: Yes, it seems to. Portrait paintings activate a specific part of the brain, landscapes another, and still lifes yet another. Abstract art seems to lead to very little activation, presumably because in the contrasts used to elicit the activation, the ubiquity of what is shown in abstract paintings (that is to say the features there that are also common to landscapes and still lifes and portraits) lead to activity being cancelled out in the subtraction process.

JG: How would you respond to critics who say that this line of inquiry is too reductive and diminishes the mystery and grandeur of the aesthetic experience?

SZ: I would say that they are misguided, because knowledge of the mechanisms involved in artistic appreciation and creativity does not in the least diminish the affective value of these works when we view them. I would also say that they are misguided to think that there can ever be a satisfying theory of aesthetics and beauty which does not take into account the neural activity which leads to aesthetic experiences. I would finally say that, whatever their concerns, science has now embarked firmly on a study of neuroesthetics, and there is no turning back.
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Professor Semir Zeki's blog and website. and his statement on neuroesthetics.
Wikipedia entry on Neuroesthetics, link
Association of Neuroesthetics website, link.
More about fMRI, link.
Image of brain from: www.psc.edu/science/goddard.html
More about the Pieta and its vandal, Laszlo Toth, link.