University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Neuroethics Publications Center for Neuroscience & Society 1-2011 Neuroaesthetics: A Coming of Age Story Anjan Chatterjee University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/neuroethics_pubs Part of the Medicine and Health Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Chatterjee, A. (2011). Neuroaesthetics: A Coming of Age Story. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23 (1), 53-62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2010.21457 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/neuroethics_pubs/58 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Neuroaesthetics: A Coming of Age Story Abstract Neuroaesthetics is gaining momentum. At this early juncture, it is worth taking stock of where the field is and what lies ahead. Here, I review writings that fall under the rubric of neuroaesthetics. These writings include discussions of the parallel organizational principles of the brain and the intent and practices of artists, the description of informative anecdotes, and the emergence of experimental neuroaesthetics. I then suggest a few areas within neuroaesthetics that might be pursued profitably. Finally, I raise some challenges for the field. These challenges are not unique to neuroaesthetics. As neuroaesthetics comes of age, it might take advantage of the lessons learned from more mature domains of inquiry within cognitive neuroscience. Disciplines Medicine and Health Sciences Comments This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/neuroethics_pubs/58 Neuroaesthetics: A Coming of Age Story Anjan Chatterjee Abstract ■ Neuroaesthetics is gaining momentum. At this early junc- gence of experimental neuroaesthetics. I then suggest a few areas ture, it is worth taking stock of where the field is and what lies within neuroaesthetics that might be pursued profitably. Finally, I ahead. Here, I review writings that fall under the rubric of neuro- raise some challenges for the field. These challenges are not aesthetics. These writings include discussions of the parallel or- unique to neuroaesthetics. As neuroaesthetics comes of age, it ganizational principles of the brain and the intent and practices of might take advantage of the lessons learned from more mature artists, the description of informative anecdotes, and the emer- domains of inquiry within cognitive neuroscience. ■ INTRODUCTION within the last century, isolate and enhance different visual What does neuroscience have to offer aesthetics? Neuro- attributes. For example, Matisse emphasized color and aesthetics, as a field, is gathering force (Skov & Vartanian, Calder emphasized motion. Zeki suggests that artists en- 2009). As it grows, the field faces the challenge of being deavor to uncover important distinctions in the visual both true to its scientific roots and relevant to aesthetics. world and discover visual modules that are segregated The term aesthetics is used broadly to encompass the per- functionally and anatomically within the brain. ception, production, and response to art, as well as inter- Parallelism claims point to the fact that artists are ex- actions with objects and scenes that evoke an intense perts of visual representations and part of their magic lies feeling, often of pleasure. I focus on visual aesthetics, in their creative expression of this expertise. For example, although the principles also apply to music, dance, and lit- Cavanagh (2005) also shows that images in paintings often erature. The term neuroaesthetics is also used broadly as a violate the physics of shadows, reflections, colors, and con- domain that has something to do with properties of the tours. Rather than follow physical properties of the world, brain as it engages in aesthetics. I describe the kinds of these painters reflect perceptual shortcuts used by our writings that fall under the rubric of neuroaesthetics and minds. Artists, in experimenting with forms of depiction, examine what, in my view, is needed for the field to mature discovered what psychologists and neuroscientists are as a science, particularly as an experimental science. I then now identifying as principles of perception. Livingstone point to some questions worth pursuing in the near future (2002) and Conway and Livingstone (2007) reveal how ar- and conclude with challenges for the field. tists make use of complex interactions between different components of vision in creating visual effects in their paintings. Livingstone suggests that the shimmering qual- NEUROAESTHETIC WRITINGS ity of water or the sunʼs glow on the horizon seen in some impressionist paintings (e.g., the sun and surrounding Parallelism clouds in Monetʼs “Impression Sunrise”)isproducedby Writings on aesthetics by prominent neuroscientists high- isoluminant objects distinguishable only by color. This light parallels between properties of art and organizational strategy plays on the distinction between the dorsal (where) principles of the brain. Zeki (1999a, 1999b) should be and ventral (what) processing distinction (Ungerleider & credited for introducing neuroaesthetics into scientific dis- Mishkin, 1982). The dorsal stream is sensitive to differ- course. He exemplifies the parallelism approach and ar- ences in luminance, motion, and spatial location, whereas gues forcefully that no theory of aesthetics is complete the ventral stream is sensitive to simple form and color. without an understanding of its neural underpinnings. Isoluminant forms are processed by the ventral stream He suggested that the goals of the nervous system and but are not fixed with respect to motion or spatial location, of artists are similar. Both are driven to understand essen- as the dorsal stream does not process this information. tial visual attributes of the world. The nervous system de- Thus, isoluminant forms are experienced as unstable or composes visual information into such attributes as color, shimmering. Conversely, because shape can be derived from luminance, and motion. Similarly, many artists, particularly luminance differences, she argues that artists can use con- trast to produce shapes, and leave color for expressive, rather University of Pennsylvania than descriptive, purposes. Livingstone highlights the way © 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23:1, pp. 53–62 that combinatorial properties of visual attributes contrib- problems with their language, attention, and ability to make ute to our visual perception. Artists use these combina- decisions. Despite these alterations in comportment and torial properties to produce specific aesthetic effects. cognition, Miller and Hou (2004) and Miller et al. (1998) Ramachandran and Hirstein (1999) proposed a set of discovered that some people with FTD develop a propen- perceptual principles that might underlie aesthetic experi- sity to produce art. They note that the art tends to be rea- ences. They emphasize the “peak shift” phenomenon as of- listic rather than abstract or symbolic. The art is most often fering insight into the aesthetics of abstract art by relying on visual and is highly detailed. The artists with FTD them- Tinbergenʼs (1954) work on this phenomenon. Tinbergen selves are intensely preoccupied with their art, suggesting observed that sea gull chicks beg for food from their that obsessive–compulsive traits acquired through their mothers by pecking on a red spot near the tip of the disease contributes to this artistic proclivity. motherʼs beak. However, the chicks respond even more Other cases of acquired obsessive–compulsive personal- vigorously to a disembodied long thin stick with three red ity traits have resulted in remarkable artistic output. Sacks stripes near the end. Ramachandran and Hirstein propose (1995b) described Franco Magnani, an Italian painter in San that neural structures that evolved to respond to specific vi- Francisco. Magnani painted hundreds of realistic scenes of sual stimuli respond more vigorously (a shift in their peak Pontito, an Italian town where he grew up. After a febrile response) to underlying primitives of that form even when illness, which was probably an encephalitis, he began to the viewer is not aware of the primitive. Their hypothesis paint obsessively. Pontito was the only subject of his art. is that artists producing abstracts make explicit use of Sacks speculated that Magnani had partial complex seizures these visual primitives in evoking aesthetic responses in and was, in part, demonstrating the obsessive personality viewers. disorder sometimes associated with temporal lobe epi- The parallelism approach to neuroaesthetics recognizes lepsy (Waxman & Geschwind, 1975). However, instead of that the production and perception of art ought to con- being hypergraphic verbally, as is more common among form to principles of neural organization. Properties of art- such people, he was hypergraphic visually. In a similar vein, works and strategies used by artists have parallels in how Lythgoe, Polak, Kalmus, de Haan, and Khean Chong (2005) the nervous system apprehends and organizes its visual reported the case of a builder with a subarachnoid hemor- world. The question for brain–art parallelism is how to rhage, who became an obsessive artist after he recovered translate this starting point into programmatic research from the initial injury. He began to draw hundreds of with experiments testing falsifiable hypotheses. sketches, mostly faces. He then moved to large-scale