Toward A Brain-Based Theory of Beauty

Abstract

We wanted to learn whether activity in the same area(s) of the brain correlate with the experience of beauty derived from different sources. 21 subjects took part in a brain-scanning experiment using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Prior to the experiment, they viewed pictures of paintings and listened to musical excerpts, both of which they rated on a scale of 1–9, with 9 being the most beautiful. This allowed us to select three sets of stimuli–beautiful, indifferent and ugly–which subjects viewed and heard in the scanner, and rated at the end of each presentation. The results of a conjunction analysis of brain activity showed that, of the several areas that were active with each type of stimulus, only one cortical area, located in the medial orbito-frontal cortex (mOFC), was active during the experience of musical and visual beauty, with the activity produced by the experience of beauty derived from either source overlapping almost completely within it. The strength of activation in this part of the mOFC was proportional to the strength of the declared intensity of the experience of beauty. We conclude that, as far as activity in the brain is concerned, there is a faculty of beauty that is not dependent on the modality through which it is conveyed but which can be activated by at least two sources–musical and visual–and probably by other sources as well. This has led us to formulate a brain-based theory of beauty.

An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music

“…As a notable exception, the activation of the dopaminergic reward system during listening to pleasurable music (presumably including pleasurable sad music) has been suggested to be driven by the degree to which musical events match implicit predictions about how music unfolds in time [108], akin to the musical expectancy mechanism proposed by Juslin and Västfjäll [22] and the ideas of Huron [109] and Meyer [110]. Based on neuroimaging evidence suggesting that music can engage the putative human have been taken in the context of both music [112] and other art forms [113].…”

Attractiveness and affordance shape tools neural coding: Insight from ERPs

“…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).…”

Impact of contour on aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions in architecture

“…Regarding the former, a large body of literature in neuroaesthetics has demonstrated that aesthetic judgments activate a distributed neural network (30), including the brain's reward and affective circuitry (31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36). Indeed, based on the results of the largest meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of aesthetic appraisal to date, Brown et al defined a "core circuit for aesthetic processing" (37).…”