Beauty and the Brain
Have you ever wondered why some people love abstract art, while others can’t stand it? Or why your friend might fight a person attractive, while you don’t? The answer to these questions and the discrepancies in preferences for what we find appealing or beautiful may be found through the new, fast changing field of neuroaesthetics.
The saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is typically used to justify people’s differing preferences for what they find beautiful. The emerging field of neuroaesthetics aims to figure out how our brains interpret beauty in various forms of the senses. Norberto M. Grzywacz and his team of researchers produced a scientific journal titled “Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder or an Objective Truth?” that explored the scientific reasoning behind preferred aesthetics within the human brain (Grzywacz et al., 2019). Through performing experiments using visual stimulation and brian scanning technology, Dr. Grzywacz and his team were able to acquire quantitative data regarding how our brains react to different visual stimuli, with an emphasis on the areas that correspond to reward- given that our brain’s aesthetic value analysis has to do with expectation of reward. During our discussion with Dr. Grzywacz, it was mentioned that they used prairie voles during one of their studies in order to specify where these centers for reward and reward expectations are in the brain. Their analysis led to the conclusion that basal ganglia is a major component to the reward system. Knowing that balance is one of the features that is found to be the most satisfactory to the human brain, the team of researchers were able to perform an experiment focusing on different art styles- using both symmetrical, balanced art, as well as abstract, or chaotic art. An interesting finding during this project was the effect of gender on the person’s reaction to the art. There seemed to be a statistical difference between men and women when it came to rating preferences regarding art styles (Grzywacz et al. 2019). There also seemed to be a significant difference in people’s art style preferences regarding the abstract, chaotic art for subjects who had previous art exposure when compared to subjects who lacked any background knowledge in art. Dr. Grzywacz’s study and lecture found significant data and findings that will surely aid the process of how human brains perceive and consolidate thoughts about beauty.
While on the topic, it’s helpful to mention Daniel B. Yaroshs’ work titled “Perception and Deception: Human Beauty and the Brain” (Yarosh 2019). Here, he highlights the various aspects of the brain’s perception of beauty. In his introduction, he mentions a phenomenon that was also highlighted in Grzywacz’s review: the brain has elements to its judgment of beauty, and one that is popularly noted as visually satisfying is symmetry. Yarosh also mentions several other factors that the brain takes into account when assessing attractiveness: age, health, and body proportions (Yarosh 2019). Upon further analysis, Yarosh breaks down the “three modules” of the brain that are related to judgment of facial attractiveness: one for judgment, one for identification, and one for valuing. His article takes into consideration that beauty and our brain’s understanding of it have evolved with time. In the past, natural selection (in this case, naturally preferred characteristics for reproduction purposes) was the main driver of people’s choices when it came to finding a partner. Now, with the advancement of societies and technologies, the standards for who we choose as a partner are no longer so simple. These discrepancies in preferences also apply when looking at men and women in that a large factor which affects their preferences are varying levels of natural hormones in each respective gender. Yaroshs’ work brings up insightful comments regarding the brain’s processing of beauty, much of which correlates with the findings of Dr. Grzywacz.
From the historical accounts of the golden ratio of beauty during renaissance era Europe to modern day traits of attractiveness, the question “how does the brain understand beauty?” is one that has clearly perplexed humans for hundreds of decades. Work of scientists such as Dr. Grzywacz or Daniel Yarosh provides more possibilities of answering such complex questions, and potentially can even lead experimenters to new findings regarding the brain that can change the way we understand humans forever.
References
Aleem, H., Pombo, M., Correa-Herran, I., Grzywacz, N.M. Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder
or an Objective Truth? A Neuroscientific Answer. Mobile Brain-Body Imaging and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and Creativity.3 2019, 10. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24326-5_11
Yarosh, D.B. Perception and Deception: Human Beauty and the Brain. Behav. Sci. 2019, 9, 34.
https://doi.org/10.3390/bs9040034
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