Viewing artworks: Contributions of cognitive control and perceptual facilitation to aesthetic experience

Cupchik, Gerald C.; Vartanian, Oshin; Crawley, Adrian; Mikulis, David J.

doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2009.01.003

Cited by 356 publications

(341 citation statements)

References 43 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

319

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…moment. Everyday life perception of images and the ability to contemplate objects as likely to be seen as beautiful are different orientations that can lead to distinct cognitive processes (59). Nevertheless, we can posit that the Aha!…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of brain networks in the aesthetic appreciation

Cela‐Conde

García-Prieto²,

Ramasco

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

124

114

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Neuroimage experiments have been essential for identifying active brain networks. During cognitive tasks as in, e.g., aesthetic appreciation, such networks include regions that belong to the default mode network (DMN). Theoretically, DMN activity should be interrupted during cognitive tasks demanding attention, as is the case for aesthetic appreciation. Analyzing the functional connectivity dynamics along three temporal windows and two conditions, beautiful and not beautiful stimuli, here we report experimental support for the hypothesis that aesthetic appreciation relies on the activation of two different networks, an initial aesthetic network and a delayed aesthetic network, engaged within distinct time frames. Activation of the DMN might correspond mainly to the delayed aesthetic network. We discuss adaptive and evolutionary explanations for the relationships existing between the DMN and aesthetic networks and offer unique inputs to debates on the mind/brain interaction.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of brain networks in the aesthetic appreciation

Cela‐Conde

García-Prieto²,

Ramasco

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

124

114

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Importantly, the portraits did not evoke aversive responses by themselves. When viewing artworks bilateral insular recruitment has been reported (Cupchik et al, 2009). Albeit related to aesthetic perceptions, these activities were attributed by the authors to the experience of emotion.…”

Section: Positive Versus Negative Emotional Primingmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Images of art -paintings, sketches and photographs -have been used in a variety of brain imaging paradigms investigating their influence on perception, imagination, emotion and memory processes (Zaidel and Kasher, 1998;Ishai et al, 2007;Lacey et al, 2011). The few studies that examined neuronal activation in relation to visual art exposure suggest that perception and memory depend on visual as well as semantic brain processes (Ishai et al, 2007;Fairhall & Ishai, 2008;Cupchik et al, 2009). Also attention networks, such as the prefrontal and parietal cortex, and memoryrelated brain areas such as the temporal and hippocampal regions have been documented to be involved (Yago & Ishai, 2006;Wiesmann & Ishai, 2008), as well as reward-related regions such as the ventral striatum and the orbitofrontal cortices (Lacey et al, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of emotional priming on the neural substrates of memory: A prospective fMRI study using portrait art stimuli

Baeken

Raedt

Schuerbeek³

et al. 2012

NeuroImage

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract AbstractEvents coupled with an emotional context seem to be better retained than non-emotional events. The aim of our study was to investigate whether an emotional context could influence the neural substrates of memory associations with novel portrait art stimuli. In the current prospective fMRI study, we have investigated for one specific visual art form (modern artistic portraits with a high degree of abstraction) whether memory is influenced by priming with emotional facial pictures. In total forty healthy female volunteers in the same age range were recruited for the study. Twenty of these women participated in a brain imaging memory paradigm and were asked to memorize a series of similar looking, but different portraits. After randomization, for twelve participants (Group 1), a third of the portraits was emotionally primed with approach-related pictures (smiling baby faces), a third with withdrawal-related pictures (baby faces with severe dermatological conditions), and another third with neutral images.Group 2 consisted of eight participants and they were not primed. Then, during an fMRI session two hours later, these portraits were viewed in random order intermixed with a set of new (previously unseen) ones, and the participants had to decide for each portrait whether or not they had already been seen. In a separate experiment, a different sample of twenty healthy females (Group 3) rated their mood after being exposed to the same art stimuli, without priming. The portraits did not evoke significant mood changes by themselves, supporting their initial neutral emotional character (Group 3).The correct decision on whether the portraits were Familiar of Unfamiliar led to similar neuronal activations in brain areas implicated in visual and attention processing for both groups (Group 1 and 2). In contrast, whereas primed participants showed significant higher neuronal activities in the left midline superior frontal cortex (Brodmann area (BA) 6), unprimed volunteers displayed higher right medial frontal cortical (BA 10) activities. Furthermore, specifically in Group 1, correct retrieval of negatively primed portraits evoked increased neuronal activity in the left medial orbitofrontal cortex (BA 11) and in the right (posterior) insula, suggesting enhanced stress-related responses to the memory of withdrawal-related primed modern artistic portraits in this group. Our prospective memory data in healthy females indicate that, to reach a correct retrieval decision, different midline anterior 3 neuronal networks are recruited for portraits that were emotionally primed than for the unprimed ones. Importantly, our results also suggest that the negative emotional context leads to the formation of associations that are reactivated during memory retrieval processes of the initially neutral art portraits.When correctly recognized, the portraits evoke neuronal activities consistent with the withdrawalrelated character of the emotional visual stimuli with which they have been associated. Although o...

show abstract

“…Aesthetic experience corresponds to the personal experience that is felt when engaged with art and differs from the everyday experience which deals with the interpretation of natural objects, events, environments and people (Cupchik et al, 2009;Marković, 2012). The exploration of the aesthetic experience and emotions in a social setting can provide the means for better understanding why humans choose to make and engage with art, as well as which features of artistic objects affect our experience.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Films, Affective Computing and Aesthetic Experience: Identifying Emotional and Aesthetic Highlights from Multimodal Signals in a Social Setting

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the last years, affective computing has been strengthening its ties with the humanities, exploring and building understanding of people's responses to specific artistic multimedia stimuli. "Aesthetic experience" is acknowledged to be the subjective part of some artistic exposure, namely, the inner affective state of a person exposed to some artistic object. In this work, we describe ongoing research activities for studying the aesthetic experience of people when exposed to movie artistic stimuli. To do so, this work is focused on the definition of emotional and aesthetic highlights in movies and studies the people responses to them using physiological and behavioral signals, in a social setting. In order to examine the suitability of multimodal signals for detecting highlights, we initially evaluate a supervised highlight detection system. Further, in order to provide an insight on the reactions of people, in a social setting, during emotional and aesthetic highlights, we study two unsupervised systems. Those systems are able to (a) measure the distance among the captured signals of multiple people using the dynamic time warping algorithm and (b) create a reaction profile for a group of people that would be indicative of whether that group reacts or not at a given time. The results indicate that the proposed systems are suitable for detecting highlights in movies and capturing some form of social interactions across different movie genres. Moreover, similar social interactions during exposure to emotional and some types of aesthetic highlights, such as those corresponding to technical or lightening choices of the director, can be observed. The utilization of electrodermal activity measurements yields in better performances than those achieved when using acceleration measurements, whereas fusion of the modalities does not appear to be beneficial for the majority of the cases.

show abstract

Viewing artworks: Contributions of cognitive control and perceptual facilitation to aesthetic experience

Cited by 356 publications

References 43 publications

Dynamics of brain networks in the aesthetic appreciation

Dynamics of brain networks in the aesthetic appreciation

The influence of emotional priming on the neural substrates of memory: A prospective fMRI study using portrait art stimuli

Films, Affective Computing and Aesthetic Experience: Identifying Emotional and Aesthetic Highlights from Multimodal Signals in a Social Setting

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About