Activation of the prefrontal cortex in the human visual aesthetic perception

Abstract

Here we report the results of an experiment carried out with magnetoencephalography which shows that the prefrontal area is selectively activated in humans during the perception of objects qualified as ''beautiful'' by the participants. Therefore, aesthetics can be hypothetically considered as an attribute perceived by means of a particular brain processing system, in which the prefrontal cortex seems to play a key role.

Attractiveness and affordance shape tools neural coding: Insight from ERPs

“…Around 300-400 ms, the neural activity is already sensitive to subjective evaluation (Höfel et al, 2007;Jacobsen and Höfel, 2003) and a greater activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was found when subjects rated the stimuli as beautiful, reflecting a fast impression formation that influenced attention, perception and response selection (Höfel et al, 2007;Jacobsen and Höfel, 2003;Cela-Conde et al, 2004. Later on, from 400 to 1000 ms, esthetic appreciation is indexed by an enhanced positivity for stimuli which are perceived as beautiful compared to stimuli which are perceived as ugly (de Tommaso et al, 2008;Höfel et al, 2007;Jacobsen and Höfel, 2003).…”

“…Brain imaging research on neuroesthetic shows that the core neural networks underlying pleasure evoked by beauty are likely to engage the same neural structures that mediate emotions, and, in particular, the reward systems (Cela-Conde et al, 2004;Ishizu and Zeki, 2011;Kawabata and Zeki, 2004;Marzi and Viggiano, 2010;Vartanian and Goel, 2004;Wiesmann and Ishiai, 2008;Chatterjee et al, 2009). Thus, it has been found that the esthetic experience involves a widely distributed circuit with greater activation for beautiful stimuli in anterior cingulate gyrus, dorsolateral and medial frontal cortices (Berridge and Kringelbach, 2008;Breiter et al, 2001;Di Dio et al, 2011;Kirk et al, 2009).…”

“…Furthermore, the temporal aspects, as assessed by magnetoencephalographic (Cela-Conde et al, 2004;Munar et al, 2012) and event related potential (ERP) (Höfel et al, 2007;Jacobsen, and Höfel, 2003) studies are characterized by two-stage processing of beauty. Around 300-400 ms, the neural activity is already sensitive to subjective evaluation (Höfel et al, 2007;Jacobsen and Höfel, 2003) and a greater activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was found when subjects rated the stimuli as beautiful, reflecting a fast impression formation that influenced attention, perception and response selection (Höfel et al, 2007;Jacobsen and Höfel, 2003;Cela-Conde et al, 2004.…”

Extrastriate body area underlies aesthetic evaluation of body stimuli

“…Artistic activity is thought to be a uniquely human behaviour (Cela-Conde et al, 2004), associated with development of specific cortical circuits. Art objects may be considered to activate brain networks that generate aesthetic experiences.…”

“…These studies typically used a 'subjectivist' approach, presenting a wide range of stimuli, and comparing the responses for those liked, or found 'beautiful' to responses for those disliked, or found 'ugly', while acknowledging that participants differ in their evaluation of any particular stimulus. For example, Cela-Conde et al (2004) found that liked pictures elicited stronger prefrontal cortex activations than disliked pictures. Kawabata and Zeki (2004) found stronger activation of orbitofrontal cortex for pictures found beautiful than for pictures judged ugly, and stronger activation of sensorimotor cortex for the opposite contrast.…”