Viewing and contemplating visual
artworks has been a leisure activity as well as a scholarly undertaking for
centuries. In addition, processing the aesthetics of our surroundings is a part
of our everyday experience. Considering how common the viewing and processing
of visual art is in our society, very little is known about the neural
mechanisms that differentiate the cognitive processing of visual art from all
other visual stimuli or how this this processing differs across the sexes. However,
some neuroscientists have begun to explore and speculate about the neural pathways
involved in viewing a work of art.
Changeux’s (1994) review article,
that compiled various studies speaking to this process, states that when
looking at a painting or other work of visual art, multiple brain areas are
involved in taking information from the visual field to be further analyzed and
synthesized into an integrated whole. The eyes capture the colored surface and
the light radiations the surface gives off. This data is converted into
electrical impulses that travel to the brain (Changeux, 1994). This is a
relatively passive process that happens at the level of perception. This
perceptual information about the visual artwork is passed from the occipital lobe to the neurons in brain areas
like the temporal lobe, which makes it
possible to recognize specific objects or people, or to the parietal lobe,
which can define the spatial relationship between these figures or objects and
understand their movements (Mishkin et al. 1983). These brain structures can then
connect the information to the prefrontal cortex and other higher level
cortexes which engage in the synthesis of the artwork’s form,
distribution in space and movement (Changeux, 1994). Synthesis is an active
focus of the viewer's attention that allows for an inner representation of the
painting, to take shape (Changeux, 1994).
Figure
1. Stimuli processing tasks that are impaired by lesions in particular brain
regions from Mishkin et al.’s (1983)
study. A: displays impairment in object discrimination present in monkeys who
have a lesion in their temporal lobe. B: displays impairment in landmark
discrimination present in monkeys with parietal lobe lesions.
Changeux states that physically, “a
painting can be defined as a differentiated distribution of colors on a flat
surface (1994, pg. 189).” However, many mechanisms in the brain may make the
reception of visual artwork different than our reception of other stimuli.
Changeux describes this difference in processing. He states that the
representation of an object or a natural happening is created by experience and
is coherent, universal and revisable (1994). However, a work of art differs
because of its dual function as an image and a symbolic function. Underlying
knowledge, which is the expression of a particular culture, is required to
access the second, symbolic function of the artwork (Changeux 1994). Changeux’s
theory on the differences between visual stimuli and visual art does not begin
to explain the neurological processes that are possibly involved in these
differences. As of now, there is little evidence supporting that our brains
know to process an artistic representation of color, space, form, or movement
differently than how we process these same characteristics in reality. However,
one aspect of human perception that may be involved in the further synthesis of
a painting is the perception of color stability.
Zeki’s (1984) study provides
evidence for a mechanism involved in how we mentally maintain the stability of
stimuli in an artwork, specifically color, even when its visual input is being
manipulated by external effectors, specifically outside light. By incorporating
an internal understanding of color stability, the human brain can change the
reflections of the light it is viewing to disregard the external light
variability that is affecting the colors on the painting. Zeki’s (1983) study
on monkeys suggests that they do not respond to the light wavelengths that vary
as the light changes throughout the day. This study suggests that colors are
instead coded in the brain to be perceived as an existing understanding of that
color. So, the processing of color by the brain can be related to the qualitative
state that philosophers have referred to as qualia (Changeux, 1994). The
qualia, or individual, subjective experience of the whole color stimuli, is
then thought to possess meaning or effective qualities beyond the accumulation
of responses to neural mechanisms that transduce the sensory input.
Even with these recognized gaps
between the subjective experience and the visual perception of color, the field
of neuroaesthetics has created some backlash due to the controversial reduction
of the human experience of art to a mere commutation of neural mechanisms.
Relating an experience as subjective as the cognitions that are involved in the
viewing of art, to physiological mechanisms is particularly controversial.
Critics of the neuroaesthetics discipline want to emphasize the distinction
between the subjective experience of the mind and the physical mechanisms of
the brain. Alva Noë, the author of the blog post, Art and the Limits of
Neuroscience,
points out that neuroscientists have yet to find all-encompassing evidence for
the causal link between the physical brain and the subjective, cognitive
experiences of humans.
Interestingly,
our perception of art is even more complex than we might imagine. Even among the general population, there is
evidence that males and females differ on various levels of their perception of
art but it is an area that needs to be further explored. There may be both
physiological sex differences and socially learned gender differences in how
art is perceived and later interpreted. It is reasonable to assume that there
are sex differences in the perception and interpretation of artworks because
the more elemental processes that make up the higher level synthesizing of an
art work have been shown to display sex differences. For example, various
research has demonstrated that males display better performance on mental
rotation and other spatial tasks than women (eg. Lippa et al. 2010). Women
perform better on matching similar, visual stimuli out of a group of stimuli
(Kimbra 2002). Males also have shown a stronger orientation toward objects
while women show a stronger orientation toward people (Beltz et al. 2011). These cognitive differences may have direct
or indirect effects on sex differences in the perception and synthesization of
visual art.
There
is some research that has scratched the surface of the differences in men and women’s
interpretations of color categories. Swaringen
et al.’s (1978) study looked at the male and female responses to an
unrestrained-choice color-naming task. This study found the number of color categories
females used to divide 21 colored chips was significantly greater than the
number of categories males divided them as. The study went on to rate males and
females’ amount of leisure activities that involved color. They found that the
color in leisure activities rating was positively correlated with the number of
color categories used to divide the chips and was also correlated with gender.
Swaringen et al. (1978) suggests that these differences in color
categorizations are a product of differences in learning that occurred from
gendered socialization. This finding has been replicated in other studies and is
a good example of one gender difference possibly involved in the reception of
visual artwork.
An individual’s life experience (like the amount of
color exposure during leisure activities) contributes to their experience of an
artwork. Whether there are other systematically different life experiences of
most men and women that would contribute to predictable responses to an
observed art piece is within the realm of possibility. However, because few
studies have been done on the interpretation of art pieces, studies that
address how life-experience effects these interpretations are also rare.
The
new field of neuroaesthetics has an understanding of the pathways involved in
viewing an art work, yet the differences in neuro processing that may
distinguish the reception of visual art from other visual stimuli is still
being explored. More elemental and basic perception tasks have begun to
illuminate the art interpretation mechanisms in the brain and how they might be
different for men and women. Some of the studies mentioned above on sex
differences in the more basic and elemental processes of visual perception and
visual interpretation may be the most appropriate way to begin studying the
differences in the neural mechanisms involved in viewing art.
-Jessica Flannery
Beltz, A.M., Swanson, J.L., &
Berenbaum, S.A. (2011) Gendered occupational interests: Prenatal androgen
effects on psychological orientation to Things versus People. Hormones and Behavior, 60, 313–317.
Changeux JP (1994) Art and Neuroscience. Leonardo, Art and Science Similarities,
Differences and Interactions. 27: 189-201.
Kimura, D. (2002) Sex differences in the
brain. Sci Am, 2002, 32-37.
Lippa, R.A., Collaer, M.L., & Peters, M.
(2009) Sex Differences in Mental Rotation and Line Angle Judgments Are
Positively Associated with Gender Equality and Economic Development Across 53
Nations. Arch Sex Behav, 39, 990–997.
Mishkin M, Ungerleider LG, Macko K, (1983) Object Vision and Spatial
Vision: Two Cortical Pathways. Trends in
Neuroscience 6: 414-417.
Swaringen S, Layman
S, Wilson A (1978) Sex Differences In Color Naming. Perceptual and Motor Shills 47:440-442.
Zeki S, (1984) The Construction of Colours by the Cerebral
Cortex. Proceedings of the Royal Institute of Great Britain 56:231-258.
