Aesthetic Experiences Across Cultures: Neural Correlates When Viewing Traditional Eastern or Western Landscape Paintings

Compared with traditional Western landscape paintings, Chinese traditional landscape paintings usually apply a reversed-geometric perspective and concentrate more on contextual information. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we discovered an intracultural bias in the aesthetic appreciation of Western and Eastern traditional landscape paintings in European and Chinese participants. When viewing Western and Eastern landscape paintings in an fMRI scanner, participants showed stronger brain activation to artistic expressions from their own culture. Europeans showed greater activation in visual and sensory-motor brain areas, regions in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and hippocampus when viewing Western compared to Eastern landscape paintings. Chinese participants exhibited greater neural activity in the medial and inferior occipital cortex and regions of the superior parietal lobule in response to Eastern compared to Western landscape paintings. On the behavioral level, the aesthetic judgments also differed between Western and Chinese participants when viewing landscape paintings from different cultures; Western participants showed for instance higher valence values when viewing Western landscapes, while Chinese participants did not show this effect when viewing Chinese landscapes. In general, our findings offer differentiated support for a cultural modulation at the behavioral level and in the neural architecture for high-level aesthetic appreciation

Complementarity As Generative Principle: A Thought Pattern for Aesthetic Appreciations and Cognitive Appraisals in General

In experimental aesthetics the relationship between the arts and cognitive neuroscience has gained particular interest in recent years. But has cognitive neuroscience indeed something to offer when studying the arts? Here we present a theoretical frame within which the concept of complementarity as a generative or creative principle is proposed; neurocognitive processes are characterized by the duality of complementary activities like bottom-up and top-down control, or logistical functions like temporal control and content functions like perceptions in the neural machinery. On that basis a thought pattern is suggested for aesthetic appreciations and cognitive appraisals in general. This thought pattern is deeply rooted in the history of philosophy and art theory since antiquity; and complementarity also characterizes neural operations as basis for cognitive processes. We then discuss some challenges one is confronted with in experimental aesthetics; in our opinion, one serious problem is the lack of a taxonomy of functions in psychology and neuroscience which is generally accepted. This deficit makes it next to impossible to develop acceptable models which are similar to what has to be modeled. Another problem is the severe language bias in this field of research as knowledge gained in many languages over the ages remains inaccessible to most scientists. Thus, an inspection of research results or theoretical concepts is necessarily too narrow. In spite of these limitations we provide a selective summary of some results and viewpoints with a focus on visual art and its appreciation. It is described how questions of art and aesthetic appreciations using behavioral methods and in particular brain-imaging techniques are analyzed and evaluated focusing on such issues like the representation of artwork or affective experiences. Finally, we emphasize complementarity as a generative principle on a practical level when artists and scientists work directly together which can lead to new insights and broader perspectives on both sides

Inhibition of Return in the visual field

Inhibition of return (IOR) as an indicator of attentional control is characterized by an eccentricity effect, that is, the more peripheral visual field shows a stronger IOR magnitude relative to the perifoveal visual field. However, it could be argued that this eccentricity effect may not be an attention effect, but due to cortical magnification. To test this possibility, we examined this eccentricity effect in two conditions: the same-size condition in which identical stimuli were used at different eccentricities, and the size-scaling condition in which stimuli were scaled according to the cortical magnification factor (M-scaling), thus stimuli being larger at the more peripheral locations. The results showed that the magnitude of IOR was significantly stronger in the peripheral relative to the perifoveal visual field, and this eccentricity effect was independent of the manipulation of stimulus size (same-size or size-scaling). These results suggest a robust eccentricity effect of IOR which cannot be eliminated by M-scaling. Underlying neural mechanisms of the eccentricity effect of IOR are discussed with respect to both cortical and subcortical structures mediating attentional control in the perifoveal and peripheral visual field

Dopaminergic reward system: a short integrative review

Memory is an essential element to adaptive behavior since it allows consolidation of past experience guiding the subject to consider them in future experiences. Among the endogenous molecules that participate in the consolidation of memory, including the drug-seeking reward, considered as a form of learning, is dopamine. This neurotransmitter modulates the activity of specific brain nucleus such as nuclei accumbens, putamen, ventral tegmental area (VTA), among others and synchronizes the activity of these nuclei to establish the neurobiological mechanism to set the hedonic element of learning. We review the experimental evidence that highlights the activity of different brain nuclei modulating the mechanisms whereby dopamine biases memory towards events that are of motivational significance

Attentional modulation of speed-change perception in the perifoveal and near- peripheral visual field

The ability to perceive changes in motion, such as rapid changes of speed, has important ecological significance. We show that exogenous and endogenous attention have different effects on speed-change perception and operate differently in different regions of the visual field. Using a spatial-cueing paradigm, with either exogenous or endogenous cues followed by drifting Gabor patches of changing speed that appear at the cued or uncued location, we measured participants' thresholds for localizing both acceleration and deceleration of the Gabor patches in different regions (5 degrees and 10 degrees) of the visual field. The results revealed a larger exogenous cueing effect, indexed by a lower threshold for the cued relative to the uncued conditions, at 5 degrees for perceiving acceleration and at 10 degrees for perceiving deceleration. Endogenous attention, in contrast, improved performance equally at both eccentricities. We conclude that exogenous and endogenous spatial orienting constitute two independent attentional systems, with distinct modulation patterns on speed change perception in the visual field. While exogenous attentional modulation is eccentricity-dependent, endogenous attention acts homogeneously in perifoveal and near-peripheral regions of the visual field

Complementarity As Generative Principle: A Thought Pattern for Aesthetic Appreciations and Cognitive Appraisals in General

In experimental aesthetics the relationship between the arts and cognitive neuroscience has gained particular interest in recent years. But has cognitive neuroscience indeed something to offer when studying the arts? Here we present a theoretical frame within which the concept of complementarity as a generative or creative principle is proposed;neurocognitive processes are characterized by the duality of complementary activities like bottom-up and top-down control, or logistical functions like temporal control and content functions like perceptions in the neural machinery. On that basis a thought pattern is suggested for aesthetic appreciations and cognitive appraisals in general. This thought pattern is deeply rooted in the history of philosophy and art theory since antiquity;and complementarity also characterizes neural operations as basis for cognitive processes. We then discuss some challenges one is confronted with in experimental aesthetics;in our opinion, one serious problem is the lack of a taxonomy of functions in psychology and neuroscience which is generally accepted. This deficit makes it next to impossible to develop acceptable models which are similar to what has to be modeled. Another problem is the severe language bias in this field of research as knowledge gained in many languages over the ages remains inaccessible to most scientists. Thus, an inspection of research results or theoretical concepts is necessarily too narrow. In spite of these limitations we provide a selective summary of some results and viewpoints with a focus on visual art and its appreciation. It is described how questions of art and aesthetic appreciations using behavioral methods and in particular brain-imaging techniques are analyzed and evaluated focusing on such issues like the representation of artwork or affective experiences. Finally, we emphasize complementarity as a generative principle on a practical level when artists and scientists work directly together which can lead to new insights and broader perspectives on both sides

Neural correlates of moral judgments in first- and third-person perspectives: implications for neuroethics and beyond

Background: There appears to be an inconsistency in experimental paradigms used in fMRI research on moral judgments. As stimuli, moral dilemmas or moral statements/ pictures that induce emotional reactions are usually employed; a main difference between these stimuli is the perspective of the participants reflecting first-person (moral dilemmas) or third-person perspective (moral reactions). The present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to investigate the neural correlates of moral judgments in either first-or third-person perspective. Results: Our results indicate that different neural mechanisms appear to be involved in these perspectives. Although conjunction analysis revealed common activation in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, third person-perspective elicited unique activations in hippocampus and visual cortex. The common activation can be explained by the role the anterior medial prefrontal cortex may play in integrating different information types and also by its involvement in theory of mind. Our results also indicate that the so-called "actor-observer bias" affects moral evaluation in the third-person perspective, possibly due to the involvement of the hippocampus. We suggest two possible ways in which the hippocampus may support the process of moral judgment: by the engagement of episodic memory and its role in understanding the behaviors and emotions of others. Conclusion: We posit that these findings demonstrate that first or third person perspectives in moral cognition involve distinct neural processes, that are important to different aspects of moral judgments. These results are important to a deepened understanding of neural correlates of moral cognition-the so-called "first tradition" of neuroethics, with the caveat that any results must be interpreted and employed with prudence, so as to heed neuroethics "second tradition" that sustains the pragmatic evaluation of outcomes, capabilities and limitations of neuroscientific techniques and technologies

Distortions of Subjective Time Perception Within and Across Senses

Background: The ability to estimate the passage of time is of fundamental importance for perceptual and cognitive processes. One experience of time is the perception of duration, which is not isomorphic to physical duration and can be distorted by a number of factors. Yet, the critical features generating these perceptual shifts in subjective duration are not understood. Methodology/Findings: We used prospective duration judgments within and across sensory modalities to examine the effect of stimulus predictability and feature change on the perception of duration. First, we found robust distortions of perceived duration in auditory, visual and auditory-visual presentations despite the predictability of the feature changes in the stimuli. For example, a looming disc embedded in a series of steady discs led to time dilation, whereas a steady disc embedded in a series of looming discs led to time compression. Second, we addressed whether visual (auditory) inputs could alter the perception of duration of auditory (visual) inputs. When participants were presented with incongruent audio-visual stimuli, the perceived duration of auditory events could be shortened or lengthened by the presence of conflicting visual information; however, the perceived duration of visual events was seldom distorted by the presence of auditory information and was never perceived shorter than their actual durations. Conclusions/Significance: These results support the existence of multisensory interactions in the perception of duration and, importantly, suggest that vision can modify auditory temporal perception in a pure timing task. Insofar as distortions in subjective duration can neither be accounted for by the unpredictability of an auditory, visual or auditory-visual event, we propose that it is the intrinsic features of the stimulus that critically affect subjective time distortions

Bodily illusions in young children: Developmental change in visual and proprioceptive contributions to perceived hand position.

We examined the visual capture of perceived hand position in forty-five 5- to 7-year-olds and in fifteen young adults, using a mirror illusion task. In this task, participants see their left hand on both the left and right (by virtue of a mirror placed at the midline facing the left arm, and obscuring the right). The accuracy of participants’ reaching was measured when proprioceptive and visual cues to the location of the right arm were put into conflict (by placing the arms at different distances from the mirror), and also when only proprioceptive information was available (i.e., when the mirror was covered). Children in all age-groups (and adults) made reaching errors in the mirror condition in accordance with the visually-specified illusory starting position of their hand indicating a visual capture of perceived hand position. Data analysis indicated that visual capture increased substantially up until 6 years of age. These findings are interpreted with respect to the development of the visual guidance of action in early childhood