Putting Reward in Art: A Tentative Prediction Error Account of Visual Art

Abstract

The predictive coding model is increasingly and fruitfully used to explain a wide range of findings in perception. Here we discuss the potential of this model in explaining the mechanisms underlying aesthetic experiences. Traditionally art appreciation has been associated with concepts such as harmony, perceptual fluency, and the so-called good Gestalt. We observe that more often than not great artworks blatantly violate these characteristics. Using the concept of prediction error from the predictive coding approach, we attempt to resolve this contradiction. We argue that artists often destroy predictions that they have first carefully built up in their viewers, and thus highlight the importance of negative affect in aesthetic experience. However, the viewer often succeeds in recovering the predictable pattern, sometimes on a different level. The ensuing rewarding effect is derived from this transition from a state of uncertainty to a state of increased predictability. We illustrate our account with several example paintings and with a discussion of art movements and individual differences in preference. On a more fundamental level, our theorizing leads us to consider the affective implications of prediction confirmation and violation. We compare our proposal to other influential theories on aesthetics and explore its advantages and limitations.

Give Me Gestalt! Preference for Cubist Artworks Revealing High Detectability of Objects

“…This finding is in line with previous proposals about the link between detecting order and appreciation [7], reward by uncertainty reduction [1] and the detection of simplicity in complexity [6,8].…”

“…In line with Van de Cruys and Wagemans we thus propose that it is the presence of novelty, uncertainty or other challenges evoked by a stimulus that promotes dynamic aesthetic processes [1], not the fluency or immediacy of recognition per se. Further studies might assess in which way Gestalt detection influences those dynamics: is there an immediate effect of the insight [17] during Gestalt recognition on aesthetic appreciation and how does this relation unfold with time?…”

“…Reber et al claim that increased fluency in processing a complex topic enhances appreciation [8]. Meanwhile, Van de Cruys and Wagemans suggest that artworks often violate viewers' perceptual predictions, and that they are then able to derive aesthetic pleasure from reducing the cognitive uncertainty induced by those violations [1]. The neurologists Ramachandran and Hirstein argue that perceptual grouping processes in general are linked with the neural structures known as the 'reward system' [9].…”

“…Artworks often exploit, reveal, and play with the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms involved by presenting viewers with prediction-errors [1], contradictions [2], indeterminacy [3,4], or ambiguity [3,5] inducing elaboration of various interpretations at the same time. Cubist paintings are especially open to interpretation as they are full of everyday objects that are concealed because they are depicted in a fragmented way that makes immediate recognition very difficult.…”

The imaginative mind

“…The prediction error account of aesthetic appreciation does a handy job of accommodating seemingly counterintuitive processes that are play during aesthetic appreciation ( Van de Cruys and Wagemans, 2011). The central idea is that great works of art are designed such that expectations are generated and then destroyed at optimal points.…”