The nature of perception and emotion in aesthetic appreciation: A response to Makin’s challenge to empirical aesthetics.

Abstract

Alexis Makin argued in a recent paper that Empirical Aesthetics is unable to properly advance our understanding of the mechanisms involved in aesthetic experience. The reason for this predicament, he claims, is an inability of current research methods to capture the psychological properties that truly characterize aesthetic experience, especially the unique perceptual and emotional processes involved in the aesthetic experience. We show that Makin's argument rests on assumptions that are at odds with scientific knowledge of the neurobiological mechanisms involved in the appreciation of sensory objects. We thereafter show that such mechanisms are rooted in shared neurobiological systems, and operate according to computational principles that are common to many domains of

Animal Preferences: Implications of Sexual Selection Research for Empirical Aesthetics

“…Similar patterns of coactivation, integrating contextual information, are found in other domains of behavioral decision-making (Berridge & Kringelbach, 2015;Pessiglione & Lebreton, 2015;Skov, 2019b). This mounting evidence has led to the formulation of computational models suggesting that not only must perceptual representations gain access to reward neurons in order to yield hedonic liking, but the way these nuclei respond to a given perceptual input is modulated by signals from interoceptive and cognitive regulation systems (Berridge & Kringelbach, 2015;Pessiglione & Lebreton, 2015;Skov, 2019aSkov, , 2019bSkov & Nadal, 2019). Furthermore, studies find that the way sensory information is filtered through different perceptual and cognitive mechanisms can imbue identical stimuli with different representational content that leads to variations in hedonic responses (Skov, 2019b).…”

“…Interestingly, primate and rodent research suggests that flexibility is build into the computational principles underlying the generation of hedonic responses to sensory representations (Skov, 2019a(Skov, , 2019bSkov & Nadal, 2019). Specifically, studies suggest that value signals in the reward circuit are modulated by signals from other neural systems (Berridge & Kringelbach, 2015;Pessiglione & Lebreton, 2015;Seymour & McClure, 2008).…”

“…These include signals from interoceptive systems signaling the homeostatic state of the internal organism, hormones such as gonadal sex hormones or stress hormones, or signals emanating from cognitive systems that can reflect beliefs, expectations, or other processes relevant to the control of behavior (Skov, 2019b). As a result, hedonic liking for sensory representations appear to be modulated by neural processing that goes beyond stimulus-triggered activity in perceptual systems (Skov & Nadal, 2019).…”

“…The hypothesis that aesthetic appreciation constitutes a special kind of sensory appraisal, characterized by a distinct set of functional and neurobiological properties, looms large in contemporary debates about how to understand findings in empirical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics. Together with Marcos Nadal I have myself argued that there is little clear evidence that the kind of sensory appraisals we call aesthetic appreciation is categorically different from other types of sensory appraisals in humans (Skov, 2019a;Skov & Nadal, 2019, 2020. It still remains true, though, that humans engage in types of sensory appraisal that are specific to us as a species, including appraisals directed at sensory objects that can be though of as possibly "abstract", "cultural", or "non-utilitarian".…”

“…I think it is. By limiting its purview to the study of human liking responses, often exclusively in the context of cultural objects, and eschewing adaptive liking in other species, contemporary empirical aesthetics has effectively become married to a specific set of assumptions, especially the idea that human aesthetic liking is disinterested and emotionally special (Skov, 2019a;Skov & Nadal, 2019). These assumptions depress the empirical scrutiny of a possible continuity between "human" and "animal" aesthetics, and promote ideas for which we have no actual evidence, especially the notion that aesthetic preferences are non-utilitarian (Skov & Nadal, 2020).…”