Empirical studies suggest that art improves health and well-being among individuals. However, how aesthetic appreciation affects our cognitive and emotional states to promote physical and psychological well-being is still unclear. In this review, we consider the idea that the positive emotional output elicited from the aesthetic experience affects mood, and indirectly promotes health and well-being. First, we examine evidence that arts promoting well-being involve art museums, healthcare settings, and education. Second, we review some neuroimaging studies addressing aesthetic experience and emotional processing. In particular, we leveraged advances in neuroaesthetics to explore different hypotheses about the determinants of aesthetic pleasure during art reception, in the attempt to clarify how experiencing art promotes well-being. Finally, we propose research on aesthetic experience and psychophysiological measures of stress, with the goal of promoting a focused use of art as a tool for improving well-being and health.

The subject under discussion concerns the existence of an automatic aesthetic evaluation. When we encounter an object like an artwork or an architectural structure that activates an aesthetic response, does the associated evaluation appear in our mind as an automatic process? From the broad field of aesthetic appraisal, we will be considering a specific aspect that refers only to the positive and negative affects related to an individual's preference between two art styles (figurative vs. abstract) and two architectural styles (classic vs. contemporary). The hypothesis is that there is a preexistent preference within the visual arts and architecture that can clearly be identified using implicit measurements. Results from two experiments that were conducted with the use of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) showed that participants' reaction times were faster in associating positive words to figurative art and classical architecture (the so-called compatible task) than to abstract art and contemporary architecture (the so-called incompatible task). The results are in line with the hypothesis that aesthetic preferences can also be experienced automatically. Prototypicality (i.e., the degree to which an object is representative of a general class of object), familiarity and the relative simplicity of figurative art and classical architecture (compared to abstract art and modern architecture) can explain the shorter reaction time and as a consequence, an implicit aesthetic preference for these kinds of stimuli.

McManus, I. C., & Furnham, A. (2006). Aesthetic activities and aesthetic attitudes: Influences of education, background and personality on interest and involvement in the arts.

A comparison between preference judgments of curvature and 2 sharpness in architectural façades 3 4 Word count: 5.976 (including bibliography: 7.547) Curvature and sharpness in architectural façades 6 A comparison between preference judgments of curvature and 7 sharpness in architectural façades 8 Can curvature drive preference for architectural façades and their perceived 9 familiarity, complexity, stability or approachability? In this study we aimed to 10 investigate if the well-known preference for curvature can be extended to the 11 architectural domain. We generated four different versions of the same reference 12 building, varying only the amount of curvature of the façade. Twenty-four 13 participants 1) made a preference forced-choice task between pairs of stimuli; 2) 14 ranked all stimuli from the most to the least preferred; 3) evaluated each stimulus 15 on different psychological variables. Multidimensional scaling on forced choices 16 showed that the curved façade was the most preferred. Multidimensional 17 unfolding on the ranking task showed that the majority expressed higher 18 preferences for the curved facades compared to sharp-angled and rectilinear ones. 19Ratings on different psychological variables gave supporting evidence for 20 curvature significantly influencing liking and approaching judgments. We then 21 processed the stimuli with a dynamical model of the visual cortex and a model 22 that characterises discomfort in terms of adherence to the statistics of natural 23 images. Results from these image analyses matched behavioural data. We discuss 24 the implications of the findings on our understanding of human preferences, 25 which are intrinsically dynamic and influenced by context and experience. 26

Very often the titles of Futurist paintings contain words denoting movement in order to satisfy their artistic poetic focused on motion and velocity. The aim of the present study is to investigate the reported dynamism and aesthetic quality of several Futurist artworks as a function of their title. Ten Futurist artworks with a movement-related word in the title were selected for this study. The titles were manipulated, resulting in four conditions for each painting: the “original title” with the movement word; an “increased” title in which an adjective was added in order to intensify the sense of dynamism; a “decreased” title, in which the movement word was eliminated; no title. Participants evaluated the movement suggested by each painting in the four different title conditions, rated their beauty and reported how much they liked the work. Results showed that the manipulation of the title had an effect on the reported movement: compared to the others, paintings presented with the “original” and with the “increased” title received significant higher movement scores. Of interest, beauty did not differ across conditions, but liking was higher for the conditions with more movement. Lastly, positive correlations between the quantity of perceived movement and aesthetic evaluation were found. From the present results it can be concluded that Futurists attributed much relevance to the titles of their artworks in order to effectively increase the expression of the movement represented.