Dynamics of aesthetic experience are reflected in the default-mode network

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.12.017

NeuroImage

Volume 188, March 2019, Pages 584-597

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.12.017 Get rights and content

Abstract

Neuroaesthetics is a rapidly developing interdisciplinary field of research that aims to understand the neural substrates of aesthetic experience: While understanding aesthetic experience has been an objective of philosophers for centuries, it has only more recently been embraced by neuroscientists. Recent work in neuroaesthetics has revealed that aesthetic experience with static visual art engages visual, reward and default-mode networks. Very little is known about the temporal dynamics of these networks during aesthetic appreciation. Previous behavioral and brain imaging research suggests that critical aspects of aesthetic experience have slow dynamics, taking more than a few seconds, making them amenable to study with fMRI. Here, we identified key aspects of the dynamics of aesthetic experience while viewing art for various durations. In the first few seconds following image onset, activity in the DMN (and high-level visual and reward regions) was greater for very pleasing images; in the DMN this activity counteracted a suppressive effect that grew longer and deeper with increasing image duration. In addition, for very pleasing art, the DMN response returned to baseline in a manner time-locked to image offset. Conversely, for non-pleasing art, the timing of this return to baseline was inconsistent. This differential response in the DMN may therefore reflect the internal dynamics of the participant's state: The participant disengages from art-related processing and returns to stimulus-independent thought. These dynamics suggest that the DMN tracks the internal state of a participant during aesthetic experience.

Section snippets

Participants

Thirty participants were recruited at New York University and paid for their participation. Five participants were excluded due to excessive motion (see below), leaving a final group of 25 participants (8 men, 17 women; 24 right-handed; 27.56 ± 6.49 years of age). The Institutional Review Board approved this study and all participants gave informed consent in accordance with the New York University Committee on Activities Involving Human Subjects.

Our sample size was determined by conducting a

Continuous pleasure ratings well fit by a prior model

Continuous pleasure ratings were well fit by a simple model adapted from a previous study using a different manual response (finger spread on the surface of an iPad, eqs. (1)–(4) in Brielmann and Pelli, 2017). The model supposes a stable initial response level r_initial. After stimulus onset, pleasure asymptotically approaches the steady-state r_steady as a decaying exponential with time constant τ_short. After stimulus offset, pleasure asymptotically approaches the final response level r_final as

Discussion

We found that activity in the DMN, a brain network hypothesized to support internally directed mentation (Buckner et al., 2008), responded to aesthetically pleasing art regardless of how long the art was viewed. With non-appealing images, suppression of the DMN increased for longer presentation durations. Unlike behavioral ratings of continuous pleasure, the DMN response did not linger after the image disappeared; rather, the DMN was transiently modulated by aesthetic appreciation and also

Conclusions

Aesthetically pleasing interactions with visual artworks dynamically engage perceptual, reward, and DMN networks, resulting in both transient and sustained changes in network activation. By varying the duration of the art image, we distinguished stimulus-driven from intrinsic dynamics. Stimulus-driven dynamics ended shortly after stimulus offset and included visual responses in higher-level visual regions and reward responses in the basal ganglia and DMN. Intrinsic dynamics included suppression

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the following: Clay Curtis for suggestions on statistical analysis, Kat Markowski for help with fMRI data preprocessing, David Poeppel for help with project management, and Lauren Vale for help with squeezeball implementation. Funding was provided by the NYU Global Institute for Advanced Study.

Grateful acknowledgement is given for permission to reproduce the following artworks depicted in Fig. 1: An Ecclesiastic, c. 1874. Mariano José Maria Bernardo Fortuny y Carbo.

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¹: These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Dynamics of aesthetic experience are reflected in the default-mode network

Abstract

Section snippets

Participants

Continuous pleasure ratings well fit by a prior model

Discussion

Conclusions

Conflicts of interest

Acknowledgements

Neuron

Trends Cognit. Sci.

Brain Lang.

Cortex

Neuroimage

Neuroimage

Brain Cogn.

Trends Cognit. Sci.

Conscious. Cognit.

Conscious. Cognit.

Neuroimage

Neuroimage

Poetics

Int. J. Psychophysiol.

Phys. Life Rev.

Neuroimage

Neuroimage

Cognition

Investigating the intrinsic dimensionality of fMRI data for ICA

Music evokes vivid autobiographical memories

Memory

Rapid timing of musical aesthetic judgments

J. Exp. Psychol. Gen.

Individual ratings of vividness predict aesthetic appeal in poetry

Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts

Perceptual pleasure and the brain: A novel theory explains why the brain craves information and seeks it through the senses

Am. Sci.

Echoes of the brain: Local-scale representation of whole-brain functional networks within transmodal cortex

Neuroscientist

The psychophysics toolbox

Spatial Vis.

Art in time and space: Context modulates the relation between art experience and viewing time

PLoS One

Beauty requires thought

Curr. Biol.

Beauty at a glance. The feeling of beauty and the amplitude of pleasure are independent of stimulus duration

J. Vis.

The brain's default network: Anatomy, function, and relevance to disease

Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci.

Sex-related similarities and differences in the neural correlates of beauty

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Unit. States Am.

Dynamics of brain networks in the aesthetic appreciation

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Unit. States Am.

Prospects for a cognitive neuroscience of visual aesthetics

Bull. Psychol. Arts

Recruitment of the default mode network during a demanding act of executive control

ELife

Gustave Caillebotte, French impressionism, and mere exposure

Psychonomic Bull. Rev.Rev.

Dorsal striatum responses to reward and punishment: effects of valence and magnitude manipulations

Cognit. Affect Behav. Neurosci.

Tracking the hemodynamic responses to reward and punishment in the striatum

J. Neurophysiol.

Toward Semantics in the Wild: Activation to Manipulable Nouns in Naturalistic Reading

J. Neurosci.

Evaluations of pleasurable experiences: the peak-end rule

Psychonomic Bull. Rev.Rev.

Being moved by unfamiliar sad music is associated with high empathy

Front. Psychol.

An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music

Phys. Life Rev.

G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences

Behav. Res. Methods

Cognitive control and unusual decisions about beauty: An fMRI study

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A