Application of EEG in the Areas of Neuroaesthetics and Neuroeconomics
Neuroaesthetics, a recently coined term, is the scientific study of the neural consequences of contemplating a creative work of art, such as the involvement of the prefrontal cortex (in thinking) and limbic systems (for emotions).
Neuroaesthetics utilizes a framework called the aesthetic triad (Chatterjee & Vartanian, 2014). The aesthetic triad is made up of three neural systems that create our experiences with beauty, and includes the (1) sensory-motor system, (2) emotion-valuation system, and (3) meaning-knowledge system.
Neuroesthetics (or neuroaesthetics) is a relatively recent sub-discipline of applied aesthetics. Empirical aesthetics takes a scientific approach to the study of aesthetic experience of art, music, or any object that can give rise to aesthetic judgments.[2] Neuroesthetics is a term coined by Semir Zeki in 1999[3] and received its formal definition in 2002 as the scientific study of the neural bases for the contemplation and creation of a work of art.[4] Neuroesthetics uses neuroscience to explain and understand the aesthetic experiences at the neurological level. The topic attracts scholars from many disciplines including neuroscientists, art historians, artists, art therapists and psychologists.
Neuroaesthetics is a field of experimental science that aims to combine (neuro-)psychological research with aesthetics by investigating the "perception, production, and response to art, as well as interactions with objects and scenes that evoke an intense feeling, often of pleasure.".[5] The recently developed field seeks among other things the neural correlates of aesthetic judgment and creativity. It is argued that visual aesthetics, namely the capacity of assigning different degrees of beauty to certain forms, colors, or movements, is a human trait acquired after the divergence of human and other ape lineages,[6] rendering the experience of beauty a defining characteristic of humankind.[7]
One core question for the field is whether art or aesthetic preferences are guided by a set of scientific laws or principles. Additionally, the evolutionary rationale for the formation and characteristics of these principles are sought. It is believed that identification of the brain circuitry involved in aesthetic judgments (e.g., by using through the use of brain imaging) can help pinpoint the origin of these responses.[8]
The aesthetic triad
Aesthetic experiences are an emergent property of interactions among a triad of neural systems that involve sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge circuitry.[11][19]
The visual brain segregates visual elements like luminance, color, and motion, as well as higher order objects like faces, bodies, and landscapes. Aesthetic encounters engage these sensory systems. For example, gazing at Van Gogh’s dynamic paintings evokes a subjective sense of movement and activates visual motion areas V5/MT+.[20] Portraits activate the face area in the fusiform gyrus (FFA) and landscape paintings activate the place area in the parahippocampal gyrus (PPA).[21] Beyond classifying visual elements, these sensory areas may also be involved in evaluating them. Beautiful faces activate the fusiform face and adjacent areas.[22] The question of how much and what kind of valuation takes place in sensory cortices is an area of active inquiry.
Looking at paintings that depict actions also engages parts of people’s motor systems. This engagement taps into the extended mirror neuron system. Mirror neurons, first discovered in monkeys, are neurons that respond to both the execution and perception of actions.[23] A similar system exists in humans.[24] This system resonates when people infer the intent of artistic gestures or observe the consequences of actions such as in Lucio Fontana’s cut canvases. This subtle motor engagement may represent an embodied element of our empathetic responses to visual art.[25][26]
The pleasure that people derive from looking at beautiful objects automatically engages general reward circuitry.[27] For example, attractive faces activate the FFA[22] and parts of the ventral striatum[28] even when people are not thinking explicitly about the attractiveness of these faces. The orbito- and medial-frontal cortex, the ventral striatum, anterior cingulate and insula respond to beautiful visual images[29][30][31][32] and the medial orbitofrontal cortex and adjacent cingulate cortex respond to different sources of pleasures including music[33] and even architectural spaces.[34]
Kirk and colleagues[35] investigated the effects of expectations on neural responses. People rated abstract “art-like” images as more attractive if labeled as being from a museum than labeled as generated by a computer. This preference was accompanied by greater neural activity in the medial orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Thinking an image was a museum piece also produced activity in the entorhinal cortex, suggesting that people’s expectations draw on memories that enhance (or probably also diminish) visual pleasure. Similarly, Lacey and colleagues[36] found that people’s ventral striatum and parts of the orbitofrontal cortex were more responsive to the “art status” than to the actual content of visual images. Huang and colleagues[37] found that people have different neural responses when told that they are looking at an authentic or copied Rembrandt portrait. Authentic portraits evoked orbitofrontal activity, whereas copies evoked neural responses in the frontopolar cortex and the right precuneus. The implication of these studies is that context and knowledge beyond the sensory qualities of visual images demonstrably affects people’s neural activity in aesthetic experiences.
Semir Zeki's laws of the visual brain
Semir Zeki, professor of neuroesthetics at the University College of London, views art as an example of the variability of the brain.[38][3][39] Thus a neurological approach to the source of this variability may explain particular subjective experiences as well as the ranges of abilities to create and experience art. Zeki theorizes that artists unconsciously use techniques to create visual art to study the brain. Zeki suggests that
He proposes two supreme laws of the visual brain:
Constancy[edit]
Despite the changes that occur when processing visual stimuli (distance, viewing angle, illumination, etc.), the brain has the unique ability to retain knowledge of constant and essential properties of an object and discard irrelevant dynamic properties. This applies not only to the ability to, for example, always see a banana as the color yellow but also the recognition of faces at varying angles.
Comparatively, a work of art captures the essence of an object. The creation of art itself may be modeled off of this primitive neural function. The process of painting for example involves distilling an object down to represent it as it really is, which differs from the way the eyes see it. Zeki also tried to represent the Platonic Ideal and the Hegelian Concept through the statement: forms do not have an existence without a brain and the ability for stored memory, referring to how artists such as Monet could paint without knowing what the objects are in order to capture their true form.[3]
Abstraction
This process refers to the hierarchical coordination where a general representation can be applied to many particulars, allowing the brain to efficiently process visual stimuli. The ability to abstract may have evolved as a necessity due to the limitations of memory. In a way, art externalizes the functions of abstraction in the brain. The process of abstraction is unknown to cognitive neurobiology. However, Zeki proposes an interesting question of whether there is a significant difference in the pattern of brain activity when viewing abstract art as opposed to representational art.[38]
Ramachandran's eight laws of artistic experience
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and his fellow researchers including William Hirstein, developed a highly speculative theory of human artistic experience and the neural mechanisms that mediate it.[8] These "laws" combine to develop underlying high order concepts of the human artistic experience. Although not all encompassing as there are undoubtedly many other principles of artistic experience, the theorists claim that they provide a framework for understanding aspects of visual art, style and design. Although testing of these principles quantitatively may provide future evidence for specific areas of the brain responsible for one kind of aesthetic appeal, the theory faces substantial philosophical and historical objections.
Peak shift principle[edit]
This psychological phenomenon is typically known for its application in animal discrimination learning. In the peak shift effect, animals sometimes respond more strongly to exaggerated versions of the training stimuli. For instance, a rat is trained to discriminate a square from a rectangle by being rewarded for recognizing the rectangle. The rat will respond more frequently to the object for which it is being rewarded to the point that a rat will respond to a rectangle that is longer and more narrow with a higher frequency than the original with which it was trained. This is called a supernormal stimulus. The fact that the rat is responding more to a 'super' rectangle implies that it is learning a rule.
This effect can be applied to human pattern recognition and aesthetic preference. Some artists attempt to capture the very essence of something in order to evoke a direct emotional response. In other words, they try to make a 'super' rectangle to get the viewer to have an enhanced response. To capture the essence of something, an artist amplifies the differences of that object, or what makes it unique, to highlight the essential features and reduce redundant information. This process mimics what the visual areas of the brain have evolved to do and more powerfully activates the same neural mechanisms that were originally activated by the original object.[8]
Some artists deliberately exaggerate creative components such as shading, highlights, and illumination to an extent that would never occur in a real image to produce a caricature. These artists may be unconsciously producing heightened activity in the specific areas of the brain in a manner that is not obvious to the conscious mind. A significant portion of the experience of art is not self-consciously reflected upon by audiences, so it is not clear whether the peak-shift thesis has any special explanatory power in understanding the creation and reception of art.
Isolation
Isolating a single visual cue helps the organism allocate attention to the output of a single module, thereby allowing it to more effectively enjoy the peak shift along the dimensions represented in that module.[8] In other words, there is a need to isolate the desired visual form before that aspect is amplified. This is why an outline drawing or sketch is sometimes more effective as art than an original color photograph. For example, a cartoonist may exaggerate certain facial features which are unique to the character and remove other forms which it shares such as skin tones. This efficiency prevents non-unique features from detracting from the image. This is why one can predict that an outline drawing would be more aesthetically pleasing than a color photograph.
The viewers attention is drawn towards this single area allowing one's attention to be focused on this source of information. Enhancements introduced by the artist more carefully noted resulting in the amplification of limbic system activation and reinforcement.
Grouping
Perceptual grouping to delineate a figure from the background may be enjoyable. The source of the pleasure may have come about because of the evolutionary necessity to give organisms an incentive to uncover objects, such as predators, from noisy environments. For example, when viewing ink blots, the visual system segments the scene to defeat camouflage and link a subset of splotches together. This may be accomplished most effectively if limbic reinforcement is fed back to early vision at every stage of visual processing leading up to the discovery of the object. The key idea is that due to the limited attentional resources, constant feedback facilitates processing of features at earlier stages due to the discovery of a clue which produces limbic activation to draw one's attention to important features.[8] Though not spontaneous, this reinforcement is the source of the pleasant sensation. The discovery of the object itself results in a pleasant 'aha' revelation causing the organism to hold onto the image.
An artist can make use of this phenomenon by teasing the system. This allows for temporary binding to be communicated by a signal to the limbic system for reinforcement which is a source of the aesthetic experience.
Contrast
Extracting contrast involves eliminating redundant information and focusing attention. Cells in the retina, the lateral geniculate body or relay station in the brain, and in the visual cortex respond predominantly to step changes in luminance rather than homogeneous surface colors. Smooth gradients are much harder for the visual system to detect rather than segmented divisions of shades resulting in easily detectable edges. Contrasts due to the formation of edges may be pleasing to the eye. The importance of the visual neuron's varying responses to the orientation and presence of edges has previously been proven by David H. Hubel and Torsten Wiesel.[41] This may hold evolutionary significance since regions of contrast are information rich requiring reinforcement and the allocation of attention. In contrast to the principle of grouping, contrasting features are typically in close proximity eliminating the need to link distant, but similar features.
Perceptual problem solving
The generic viewpoint
The visual system dislikes interpretations which rely on a unique vantage point. Rather it accepts the visual interpretation for which there is an infinite set of viewpoints that could produce the class of retinal images. For example, in a landscape image, it will interpret an object in the foreground as obscuring an object in the background, rather than assuming that the background figure has a piece missing.
In theory, if an artist is trying to please the eye, they should avoid such coincidences.[8] However, in certain applications, the violation of this principle can also produce a pleasing effect.
Visual metaphors
Ramachandran defines a metaphor as a mental tunnel between two concepts that appear grossly dissimilar on the surface, but instead share a deeper connection. Similar to the effects of perceptual problem solving, grasping an analogy is rewarding. It enables the viewer to highlight crucial aspects that the two objects share. Although it is uncertain whether the reason for this mechanism is for effective communication or purely cognitive, the discovery of similarities between superficially dissimilar events leads to activation of the limbic system to create a rewarding process.[8]
Support for this view is highlighted by the symptoms of Capgras delusion, where sufferers experience reduced facial recognition due to impairments in the connections from the inferotemporal cortex to the amygdala, which is responsible for emotions. The result is that a person no longer experiences the warm fuzzy feeling when presented with a familiar face. A person's 'glow' is lost through what is suggested as due to the lack of limbic activation.
Symmetry
The aesthetic appeal of symmetry is easily understandable. Biologically it is important during the detection of a predator, location of prey, and the choosing of a mate as all of these tend to display symmetry in nature. It complements other principles relating to the discovering of information rich objects. Additionally, evolutionary biologists suggest that the predisposition towards symmetry is because biologically, asymmetry is associated with infection and disease,[8] which can lead to poor mate selection. However, departures from symmetry in visual art are also widely considered beautiful, suggesting that while symmetry may explain the judgment that a particular individual's face is beautiful, it cannot explain the judgment that a work of art is beautiful.
Neuroeconomics
What Is Neuroeconomics?
Neuroeconomics tries to link economics, psychology, and neuroscience to glean a better understanding of economic decision-making. The fundamentals of economic theory were formed based on the assumption that we would never discover the intricacies of the human mind. However, with technological advances, neuroscience has produced methods for analyzing brain activity.
Neuroeconomics is the application of neuroscience tools and methods to economic research. Neuroeconomics tries to bridge the disciplines of neuroscience, psychology, and economics. Neuroeconomics analyzes brain activity using advanced imagery and biochemical tests before, during, and after economic choices.
Key Highlights
- Neuroeconomics is the application of neuroscience tools and methods to economic research.
- Neuroeconomics tries to bridge the disciplines of neuroscience, psychology, and economics.
- Neuroeconomics analyzes brain activity using advanced imagery and biochemical tests before, during, and after economic choices.
- Neuroeconomics attempts to show the links between economic activity and physiological activity in certain portions of the brain.
- Neuroeconomics is useful to business because it explores the brain processes that underlie decision-making.
Neorodesign approach for designing interiors
Description
A study was conducted to design interiors for 4 different 2 BHK apartments and then all designs were evaluated using electroencephalograph (EEG).
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