Beauty and the brain: culture, history and individual differences in aesthetic appreciation

Jacobsen, Thomas

doi:10.1111/j.1469-7580.2009.01164.x

Beauty and the brain: culture, history and individual differences in aesthetic appreciation

Publication date

2010

Document type

Forschungsartikel

Author

Jacobsen, Thomas

Organisational unit

Allgemeine und Biologische Psychologie

DOI

10.1111/j.1469-7580.2009.01164.x

URI

https://openhsu.ub.hsu-hh.de/handle/10.24405/16428

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Series or journal

Journal of Anatomy

ISSN

1469-7580

Periodical volume

216

Periodical issue

2

First page

184

Last page

191

Peer-reviewed

✅

Part of the university bibliography

✅

Language

English

Keyword

Aesthetics

Cognitive neuroscience of aesthetics

Empirical aesthetics

Experimental aesthetics

Experimental psychology of aesthetics

Neuroaesthetics

Abstract

Human aesthetic processing entails the sensation-based evaluation of an entity with respect to concepts like beauty, harmony or well-formedness. Aesthetic appreciation has many determinants ranging from evolutionary, anatomical or physiological constraints to influences of culture, history and individual differences. There are a vast number of dynamically configured neural networks underlying these multifaceted processes of aesthetic appreciation. In the current challenge of successfully bridging art and science, aesthetics and neuroanatomy, the neuro-cognitive psychology of aesthetics can approach this complex topic using a framework that postulates several perspectives, which are not mutually exclusive. In this empirical approach, objective physiological data from event-related brain potentials and functional magnetic resonance imaging are combined with subjective, individual self-reports.

Version

Published version

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