Neurocognitive decoding of aesthetic appreciation

Abstract

The neural mechanisms that mediate the aesthetic experience and judgment are complex and belong to higher hierarchically cognitive domains. They involve perception, emotion, memory, language, and possibly some other cognitive functions. This complexity is a source of controversy during discussions on the mind/brain interaction regarding aesthetic experience. Accordingly, neuroimaging experiments, mainly by means of fMRI, have identified several brain regions directly involved in aesthetic appreciation such as parts of medial and dorsal frontal cortex, left temporal and parietal regions, precuneus, and cingulate cortex. The coherent engagement of different simultaneous cognitive subprocesses is certainly a source of confusion in the abundant body of knowledge related to neuroesthetics. Studies involving the characterization of such high hierarchy neural processes in terms of functional connectivity may shed light on the debate. Thus, brain networks active during aesthetic appreciation include medial parts of frontal cortex, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex. Moreover, by analyzing the dynamics of such brain networks, differential patterns might lead to a deeper understanding of beauty as a psychological construct.