If you were suddenly asked “What makes something beautiful?”, you would probably find yourself stumped. Yes, you can give examples of things you find beautiful: your baby’s smile, sunflowers towering in a field, the latte art you get at the local coffee shop, etc. If you’re given a moment to seriously think about why you find such things to be beautiful, even if they seem to have nothing in common, you might come up with reasonings like these: your baby is the most important thing in the world to you, sunflowers are yellow and that is your favorite color, you find the latte art beautiful because you have no idea how they’re able to create those images so pristinely. So what if those things have little to do with each other; perhaps the very idea that such a question can be answered is flawed to its core. Can a concept such as beauty be quantified or pinned down at all?
The research paper, “Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder or an Objective Truth? A Neuroscientific answer” seeks to answer such a query. The writers open up the article with the very same question, “What makes something beautiful?” and goes on to say, “For philosophers, short of defining beauty, the principal question has been to discover where it lies. Specifically, is beauty a quality of objects (objectivist view) or does it come from within the beholder (subjectivist view)?” (Aleem et al., 2019).
The paper then goes on to state that there is strong support throughout the scientific community for an objective definition of beauty. Features such as symmetry, balance, color, fractality, complexity, and curvature have been shown to be appealing across cultures, genders, and age groups. However, there are plenty of subjective differences on an individual and socio-cultural level that point to subjectivity. How can both the subjective and objective aspects of beauty be explained?
These researchers establish that the answer is multifaceted. When it comes to objectivity in beauty, they discuss the processing fluency theory, evolution, and various brain functions as a suitable explanation. The processing fluency theory states that “the easier it is for a perciever to process the properties of a stimulus, the greater its aesthetic response will be…the processing fluency theory assumes that objects differ in their fluency…[and] that fluency is hedonistically marked, so objects are perceived more positively than are those with lower fluency” (Aleem et al., 2019). This theory has a clear relationship to evolution. Since we rely on our senses to perceive anything that can threaten or sustain our survival, any amount of visual imbalance would attract our visual attention (e.g. noticing that a certain plant has three leaves can help distinguish poison ivy from a harmless vine).
However, it does not explain the subjectivity in beauty. After all, there are undeniable cultural differences in what is perceived to be beautiful. Understanding how these differences present neurologically is challenging for the very same reason that is highlighted in the beginning of this article. A facial expression, flower, and food can all have their own aesthetic response. Does the brain respond in the same way to each of them? An fMRI study referenced in the paper revealed that “aesthetic appraisal may be a special case of generalized appraisal mechanisms in the brain” (Aleem et al., 2019). The brain regions that activated during generalized appraisal were the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior insula, and the ventral basal ganglia. These combined brain regions facilitate reward based learning, which further supports evolution’s role in our perception of beauty. If we eat a red apple and find it to be sweet, we are rewarded and learn that those two traits might be connected. If we find an apple that is an even brighter red than the last, and it tastes even sweeter, our learning is updated. This could translate to that individual enjoying paintings of red apples over paintings of tart, bitter apples. The fact that reward based learning provides an explanation for cultural differences in perception of beauty, since the same stimuli and result will not be present in all environments. The paper also proposes that learning under different motivations can explain a variance in an individual’s aesthetic preferences.
This article concludes that “objectivity [in beauty] may have arisen in part to our evolutionary history and principles captured by the processing fluency theory…[but] while all of us may be born with similar aesthetic biases, over time these biases are shaped by our experience through learning” (Aleem et all., 2019).
You may be thinking that while this is interesting, perhaps, what real world benefit results from this study? From understanding how we perceive beauty? Just because we know what brain regions are involved or what role evolution or reward based learning plays into our aesthetic preferences does not erase the frivolity of beauty.
However, there is a wealth of research that suggests that the perceived beauty of our environment provides a genuine impact on patient outcomes and satisfaction. For example, “A New Tool in Treating Mental Illness: Building Design” discusses the newfound effort to create more beautiful, welcoming hospitals to reduce stress and aggression. Understanding the mechanisms of beauty, how we perceive it, why we perceive it the way we do, lends legitimacy to the objectionist view of beauty. If beauty is something that can be defined by generally universal standards, adjusting to the learned cultural perceptions of beauty of their desired patient population, then it is something that can be pinned down and clearly implemented. If beauty is shown to be something with a biological basis (evolution, brain processes), then it lends legitimacy to the concept of beauty in general, and potentially increases support and funding to improve patient outcomes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/business/mental-health-facilities-design.html
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