Running head: AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 1

How Aesthetic Judgements are Made: a Multifaceted Process Involving Neural Pathways,

Emotion, Memory, and Learning

Rebecca Dykes

University of Idaho

Abstract
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 2

Aesthetic judgements regarding the field of psychology involve the analysis of neural

pathways, cognitive theories, emotionality, development, and learning-based views. In this way,

a picture of the overall processes behind judging a visual artwork can be understood. Studies in

the neural pathways have found increased activation in sensorimotor areas, core emotional

centers, and reward-related centers, as well as an effect of processing fluency on assessed

“liking” of artwork. Cognitive appraisal, motor resonance, and embodied cognition affect the

ways in which viewers judge an art piece, and an individual’s emotional responses are facilitated

by levels of emotional contagion, expertise, and where attention is focused when viewing art.

Although art judgements seem to be highly subjective, there are consistent methods for studying

why we appraise art as we do, to add to social, cultural, evolutionary, and situational aspects

which affect our judgements of visual art.

How Aesthetic Judgements are Made: a Multifaceted Process Involving Neural Pathways,

Emotion, Memory, and Learning

Art and aesthetic appraisals have long been deemed to only be relevant outside of the

realm of empirical science. More recently, however, those in the field of psychology have begun
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 3

to examine the trends that determine why humans like or dislike visual art, neurologically,

cognitively, emotionally, and developmentally. This is the focus of the developing field of

Neuroaesthetics, which is a relatively recent field of research which attempts to bridge the gap

between science and art by attempting to explain aesthetic evaluations with neural processes

(Cinzia & Vittorio, 2009). It was introduced in the 1990’s by its foremost pioneer, Semir Zeki,

and has gained more popularity in recent years, although its validity is still contested. Zeki uses

his previous knowledge of the visual brain in his view of art, focusing specifically on the ability

for the brain to create prototype-models of things in the world which are constantly changing,

capturing them by detecting constants. He posits that art acts much in the same way, creating an

immovable snapshot of the world that is constantly in motion (Zeki, 1999). Understanding

aesthetic appreciation using a psychological lens requires one to adopt many different modalities

of conceptualizing information. Art evaluation is such a multifaceted process that the aesthetic

judgements we make are affected by copious variables in the stimulus, the viewer, and the

situation in which we find ourselves appraising it. I will be adopting Jacobsen’s model of the

study of the psychology of aesthetics by dividing my research into different vantage points: the

mind, body, and personal variables of the viewer. These account for the neuroscience of art

appraisal, cognition processes, how emotionality ties to aesthetic judgements, and individual

differences in age or skill level. I deduced that the content vantage point would be of limited use

to this paper since I will be focusing specifically on visual art, although it is worth mentioning

because there is much variability among the visual art forms. The diacronia vantage point covers

the biological evolution of neural processes involving aesthetic appraisal, as well as other factors

that have lasting temporal stability, were the isochronic view tries to explain the current cultural

and social processes which may influence the viewer’s appraisal of the art. For the sake of
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 4

brevity, I will focus this paper specifically on visual art and the processes involved, instead of

including music appreciation as well. Although I expand the cognitive, emotional, learning,

memory, and it is still important to take into account all of the variables for understanding

aesthetic evaluations to make accurate statements about the processes of such, as there is much

individual variation. Nothing discussed is mutually exclusive.

Neural Underpinnings of Aesthetic Judgements

Researchers have attempted to locate the neurological pathways involved in art evaluations using

functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG),

and electroencephalography (EEG) (Hagtvedt, Hagtvedt, & Patrick, 2008). However, this can be

a daunting task due to the complex and multifaceted nature of aesthetic judgements. The

neurology of aesthetic experience has been studied in separate, distinct aspects in the hopes that

the many pieces will create a larger picture (Cela-Conde et al., 2010). Through the compilation

of several studies, there are overall generalizations that can be made about the nature of aesthetic

judgements and the areas of activation in the brain involving specifically visual art. Overall,

these findings suggest activation in sensorimotor areas, core emotional centers, and reward-

related centers. The process of art appraisal begins with typical processing of the stimulus in the

primary and secondary visual brain areas, which is then processed further based on context,

familiarity, interest, and other attributional and attentional networks. Although there are

innumerable factors involved in this process, a study performed with Alzheimer’s patients found

that they continually preferred the same artwork despite the inability to remember that they had

seen the art previously (Cela-Conde et al., 2010). The findings from this study lead one to
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 5

suppose that although the processes may be multiplex, individuals have consistent pathways

which lead them to the same evaluations, which suggests a significant role of neurobiology on

aesthetic appraisals, historically thought to be in the realm of philosophy.

A compilation of many studies by Di Dio & Vittorio focusing specifically on aesthetic

assessment, or the judgement of whether something is visually "good or bad" revealed different

brain activations for "judged-beautiful" stimuli as opposed to the judged-neutral or -ugly images

(2009). Increased activation in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was found in judged-

beautiful images, while judged-ugly images revealed the lowest levels of activation in the OFC.

A similar study found decreased activation in the caudate nucleus with decreasing preference for

the stimulus, which is involved in reward properties of stimuli and suggests reward processes

play a role in aesthetic judgements. As preference increased, the activation in the left anterior

cingulate sulcus also increased, which is an area determined to be involved in reward-related

processing of stimuli that vary in emotional valence.

Studies performed by Cela-Conde et al. (2009) and Cupchik et al. (2009) support the idea that

aesthetic experience is processed by visuo-spatial coding, as well as motor mapping. They found

differences in several parietal foci, including increased left superior parietal lobe activation

(Cupchik et al., 2009). Using the theory of embodied cognition, which posits that cognitive

processes are deeply rooted in the body’s interactions with the world, and external stimulus are

part of the thinking process, describes aesthetic experience as being influenced both by the

relationship between the simulation-driven empathetic feelings and the content in visual art, as

well as the relationship between the empathetic feelings experienced by the viewer and the

artists' creative gestures (Wilson, 2002). Di Dio et al. found that when observing classical and

renaissance sculptures, participants had higher levels of activation in the ventral premotor cortex
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 6

and the posterior parietal cortex (2007). This finding suggests that participants were experiencing

motor resonance similar to the movements portrayed in the sculptures, they found internal

activation of the observer’s motor system specifically attuned to the perceived movement of the

sculpture. This can be generalized to other mediums of artwork in which movement is implied

through the human figure or can be seen through an artist’s brushstrokes.

Lastly, emotional centers play a significant role in aesthetic judgements. Significant

lesion studies were performed on patients with bilateral amygdala damage, which found that

those with lesions on the amygdala had differences in aesthetic preferences when compared with

a neurotypical control group, and were, in fact, less likely to be able to grasp the emotionality

depicted in various pieces of art (Adolphs & Tranel, 1999). The impairment was most

pronounced when viewing stimuli which was normally liked the least due to its’ negative

valence, which suggests the amygdala plays a role in role in guiding preferences for visual

stimuli that is normally judged to be aversive in some way. As neuroimaging techniques have

advanced, it is possible to study the effects of emotion centers on aesthetic judgements without

lesion studies. Phelps and LeDoux found that "liked" images by participants elicited activation in

the right amygdala (2005), while Cupchik et al. found higher activation in the insula when

viewing "liked" images (2009). These findings serve as support for the theory that aesthetic

appreciation is intimately involved with one's' own emotions.

Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman posit that the largest effect of artwork form on aesthetic

judgements comes from the overall processing fluency (2004). Specifically, they found that

perceptual fluency and conceptual fluency were relevant in the discussion of aesthetic

judgements, which are the ease of identifying the physical identity of a stimulus and the ease of

mental operations concerned with stimulus meaning and its relation to semantic knowledge
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 7

structures, respectively. Overall, they found that features which facilitate fluent processing

include all of the core features identified in objectivist theories of beauty like goodness of form,

symmetry, and figure-ground contrast. All of these things influence the speed at which we can

comprehend both the subject and meaning of visual artwork, and processing fluency is correlated

with positive affect, as we deem easily processed items as familiar and non-threatening.

Cognition and Emotion

Many neural variables such as processing fluency have their impact on “positive affect”,

which leads the viewer to have positively-valenced emotions regarding artwork. In fact,

emotions have been forefront in the discussion of aesthetic judgements for most of its’ history.

Many researchers have been in agreement that emotional processing is fundamental for aesthetic

evaluations in visual artwork, and is presumably associated with the biological dichotomy of

approach and avoidance (Chatterjee, 2013). Some have posited that aesthetic judgements are

often linked to the emotionality of the viewer (Silvia, 2005), yet many believe that the

emotionality belongs to the artwork, as a study found that portraits can elicit the same emotional

responses in different individuals and Lipps posited his empathy theory in 1906, which suggests

aesthetic appreciation is experienced as belonging to the artwork rather than the observer

(Hagtvedt, Hagtvedt & Patrick, 2008). However, I think it imperative to note that these similar

appraisals could be coming from humans’ capability for emotion recognition in the faces

depicted in artwork, as I have found in other publications that there is a large number of

heterogeneous emotions elicited from similar artworks (Silvia, 2005). It would be fallacious to

assume that the theories’ reliance on portraitures is simply coincidence, yet Gernot, Pelowski,

and Leder (2016) would argue that the ability for a viewer to socially perceive emotion affects
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 8

how they experience the artwork. It is imperative to note that even the word “empathy” has its’

roots tied closely with art, as it began as the English version of the word “Einfühlung”, meaning

to “feel into”. Einfühlung came into use to describe the ability for a person to feel emotions

transmitted from an image or artwork (Gernot, Pelowski & Leder, 2016). From the onset, this

concept has been closely related to art evaluations, despite being unfamiliar in the empirical

research of art appraisals until more recently. Our common concept of empathy today has little to

do with art, as we use the word to describe the ability to perceive and mirror the emotions of

another person in social settings. However, art has had ties with emotionality for much of

history, and it is known that art pieces can elicit emotions with or without human forms or faces

involved. Higher trait empathy, as originally developed in the study of social psychology, has an

impact in the realm of aesthetics as well. Individuals who score higher in “emotion contagion”

(EC, the ability to feel emotions elicited from other individuals or objects) in social settings find

themselves more in consensus on the emotionality elicited from color patches and patterns, and

they can find greater enjoyment in songs or paintings which evoke negative emotions (Gernot et

al.). In both psychophysiological and attitudinal measures, Gernot et al. found that emotional

contagion is a primary response to art. Participants with high EC had higher activation in facial

muscles, as well as an increased emotional reaction toward art when presented with both

representational and abstract art. A similar response to both representational and abstract art

suggests that the ability to tune into the emotions of others can also be generalized to the elicited

emotions of non-human content.

Although emotion contagion seems to be an essential aspect of human's empathetic

engagement with art, I found there to be some limitations with the scale which the valence of

artwork was measured. There was only a positive/negative affect scale for artwork, although we
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 9

all know human emotions to span a complex range. Modern appraisal theory, however, considers

the entire span of emotion, including guilt, shame, anger, disgust, surprise, interest, happiness,

and contempt (Silvia, 2005). The appraisal model is applied to many different studies in

psychology, but is generally the view that emotions are elicited from our evaluations (or

appraisals) of events and objects. These appraisals assume that evaluations of events, not events

themselves, are the cause of emotional experience. An art piece can be objectively complex, but

it is only of interest if the viewer sees it as complex. This model branches away from the

rudimentary psychobiological reward and punishment systems to offer a more holistic approach

to understanding the connection between art evaluations and emotionality. The terms interesting

and enjoyable could both be seen as "positive" emotions, while interest does not necessitate the

enjoyment of artwork. Interest involves a novelty check (deeming something new, exciting, or

unencountered) as well as a coping-potential check (whether the viewer believes themselves

capable of understanding and applying meaningfulness to the novel object). Silvia (2005) found

that participants' appraisals of their ability to understand a complex and unique artwork greatly

determined their assessment of such as interesting, while this appraisal did not change their

views on how much they considered the piece enjoyable. The distinction between appraisal

processes shows a need for an expansion of the empirical study of emotionality in art.

The appraisal model encompasses other cognitive theories of art judgements as well.

Hagtvedt et al. discussed the roles of top-down processes such as the preference-for-prototype

model (2009), which posits that an object will be viewed more positively if that object is

stereotypically representative of its’ category. For example, a chair will be more positively

viewed if it has four legs (which we assume most chairs to have) rather than one. The appraisal

model can seek to explain this effect by asserting that objects which do not follow the general
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 10

“rules” of features in which an object of its’ kind should possess is making the viewer consider

themselves less able to understand the scene and therefore will judge the piece as less interesting

overall.

Learning and Memory

Although both cognitive and emotional processes form aesthetic judgements, expertise

and memory play significant roles in our evaluations of art. Not only is this influenced by an

educational background in art, but the modes by which we judge art changes based on our

accumulated knowledge of such. Many people acquire knowledge about art through direct

instruction or experiences in art museums, reading books, visiting galleries, and on the internet

(Smith & Smith, 2006). The "aesthetic fluency scale" is used in current neuroaesthetics to assess

an individual's knowledge about the arts; aesthetic fluency is often likened to an individual's

vocabulary capacity in that it is acquired through life experiences and education. Silvia's study

on aesthetic fluency (2007) and its' relation to fluid intelligence and the Big Five dimensions of

personality found that openness to experience steadily predicted one's levels of aesthetic fluency.

This is the first step in a more extensive study of how the study of aesthetics can be related to

other domains of empirical research, such as personality psychology. However, many studies

have been performed on the nature of aesthetic judgements regarding experience, memory, and

expertise.

To assess the effects of development on aesthetic evaluations and fluency, a study by

Schabmann et al. (2016) on the differences of art evaluations on kindergarten-aged children (4-6)

and primary school children (9-11) found that differences in processing arise in many aspects of

aesthetic appraisals. Schabmann et al. used four dimensions of aesthetic experience to gauge the
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 11

differences between the two groups: liking, emotional valence, arousal, and understanding.

When showed different paintings classified as abstract, modern, and classic, the kindergarten

group of children showed higher degrees of favoritism in their reasoning for preferring a picture

(ex. "this has a dog in it, I like dogs, so I like this one best"). They also gave similar evaluations

on different styles, showing that they were not yet using knowledge of established groups of art

to frame their preferences. Kindergarten children were less likely to demonstrate an

understanding of art pieces as the abstractness of the art increased. In contrast, children aged 9-

11 had a much more elaborated knowledge about art and used abstract phrases they most likely

heard from adults or read about in books. They had less inter-rater reliability and were able to

differentiate evaluations based on the perceived style of art. These results show that as we

develop, we begin to have a broader sense of "art", put less emphasis on favoritism into our

assessments, a better sense of cognitive mastering based on content. The older group also relied

less heavily on emotions, which is consistent with the view that as knowledge of aesthetics

increase, we shift from an affective view towards increasing cognitive and learning based

assessments.

A shift from an emotionally-based judgement pattern of visual art toward a cognitive

evaluation can be found more strikingly when studying levels of expertise. Many researchers in

the field of neuroaesthetics accept the idea that untrained viewers of visual artwork use their

"gut-instincts" to evaluate such, known as the "feelings-as-information" model (Leder, Gerger,

Breiber & Schwarz, 2014). Those without expertise tend to like what makes them feel good and

elicits positive emotions overall, but trained viewers' emotional response may be nuanced by

their attention to other features, such as the style of the piece or the evaluation of artistic

execution. Visual art can elicit different responses when determined by the viewer to be "art";
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 12

they lose the goal relevance they would have if the stimulus was judged otherwise and no longer

need the same behavioral response (Frijda & Schram, 1995). Leder et al. performed a study in

which they tested the emotionally distanced stance taken by art experts and whether it extended

to other emotionally charged visual stimuli, or if it was only relevant when the experts knew they

were viewing "art". Using facial EMG and expressed ratings of valence, familiarity, and liking,

they found that those from all levels of expertise distinguished between stimuli of positive

emotionality and negative emotionality, but the magnitude of response was dependent upon the

level of knowledge of the viewer. Art experts had less M. corrugator ("frowning" muscle)

activation when viewing negatively-valenced artwork as well as less relaxation to positively

valenced artwork, which indicate subdued emotional responses or changes in cognitive

processes, or both. These psychophysiological responses in experts were observed when viewing

non-art IAPS (International Affective Picture System) photographs as well as artwork, although

the effect was not as significant. The fact that artwork elicited weaker emotional responses in art

experts than the photographs is consistent with Frijda & Schram's (1995) view that negative

emotions are more intense in situations deemed as "real life" situations by the viewer. The results

of the study by Leder et al. supports the theory that expertise in art lowers the immediacy of

emotions, and the higher liking of negatively valenced artwork could be due to an increase in

familiarity, as familiarity influences liking. Experts could be exhibiting a higher processing

fluency from repeated exposure (2014). Nonetheless, experts do interact with visual media in a

more distanced way than non-experts. This is consistent with Kant's proposal of a detached and

disinterested method of judging artwork (1790/2001). Those with more practice in evaluating the

components of art can find themselves more easily engaging with the piece emotionally, as well

as having a better flexibility in art appraisal (Schabmann et. al., 2016). which points to the theory
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 13

that much of our knowledge about art is learned and acclimated to (Schabmann et.al., 2016).

This is important to delve into, as it shows that the more intellectually based ones’ notions about

art are, the less often one will primarily use their emotionality to appraise it.

Impact of Content, Viewing Situation, Social, Cultural, and Modernity

In his model to be used for the study of the psychology of aesthetics, Jacobsen (2006)

highlights the importance of considering neural, cognitive/emotional, and memory/learning

factors that affect aesthetic judgements. Yet he also adds that the elements of diachronic,

ipsachronic (sic), person and situational factors need to be considered for a full view of what is

happening during aesthetic evaluations. Diachronic elements include a cultural change over time,

which can be studied using evolutionary biology and cultural evolution. Ipsachronia refers to a

focus on the current climate of culture and society. Personal and situational differences depend

heavily on personality characteristics, one's situation, and the situation in which the visual art is

being evaluated (such as in a home or a museum). All of these factors are important to

understand the psychology of aesthetic judgements fully and comprehensively, although I

wanted to focus on the neural, cognitive/emotional, and memory/learning factors to align more

with the goals of this class in particular. However, it is important to note that a more

comprehensive view of art evaluations would include the four factors mentioned above.

Conclusion

The field of neuroaesthetics attempts to scientifically investigate the reasons why we

appraise art as we do, and where consistencies and inconsistencies lie among viewers. In this
AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 14

way, we can create a holistic view of art appreciation, and begin to understand better a subject

historically thought to be left in the realm of philosophy. There are consistent neural pathways

which are involved in art appraisal, as well as a cognitive and emotional foundation due to

processes such as selection, focusing, abstraction, prototype models, and levels of emotional

contagion of the viewer. Overall, we can see a shift from an emotionally-driven view of art

towards a more cognitively-based one following development and art education. It has been

found that art expertise lowers the immediacy of emotional responses when viewing art.

Aesthetic processing can best be fully understood from evolutionary, historical, cultural,

educational, neurobiological, individual, personality, situational, emotional, and cognitive

perspectives, and should be viewed from a stance more inclusive than the one I was able to take.

However, the concepts detailed in this paper hopefully create an accurate introduction into the

psychology of art judgements and the field of neuroaesthetics.

AESTHETICS AND THE BRAIN 15

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