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How Neuroscience Helps Answer

the Question: What Is Beauty?

If someone asked you what’s beautiful, you might Thus, neuroaesthetics is the study of how the brain
tell them about a flower, or about a person you’re close experiences beauty. Scientists that research the brain,
with, a painting you like, or even a building in your city. If neuroscientists, take advantage of developments in
that person then asked you, “Why is that beautiful?,” you’d technology to investigate how people perceive beauty.
probably find that harder to answer. We all experience In one study, researchers used magnetic resonance imaging
beauty differently, and we’re drawn to different types of (MRI) to look at a person’s brain activity when they listened
things. But why? to music. The researchers found that the more a person

The questions of what beauty is and why we all experience liked a song, the more activity there was in a particular
it differently were discussed as far back as ancient Greece. pathway in their brain (called the mesolimbic striatum).3
The philosopher Plato asked, “What is beauty?” in Hippias Neuroscientists have also looked at how professional
Major, which he wrote in 390 B.C.1 Since then, many people artists experience things differently than novices. In one
have tried to understand beauty better. In 1757, the experiment, researchers found that established artists were
Scottish philosopher David Hume said that maybe some not better at making sense of some kinds of basic visual
people, like artists and art critics, were better at perceiving information than novices; in other words, something else
beauty because others have been biased by experiences is responsible for the more experienced artists’ ability to
which taint their view of beauty.2 These debates and create their artworks.4 In another, art students perceived
questions are still with us today. Whenever you disagree things mostly the way non-art students did, but changes
with a movie review, enjoy reading a novel or short story, in the art students’ brains were related to their increased
debate a friend about how good a singer is, or admire a creativity and artistic skills.
painting, you are making a small judgment about what is Neuroscientists have increased our understanding of what
beautiful and why. beauty is and how we experience it, but a lot of questions
As technology developed over the years, scientists became remain. In the future, scientists may be able to understand
able to understand more about what people find beautiful how to create songs or paintings that are even more
and why. This scientific field is called “neuroaesthetics.” beautiful than the ones we have now; they might know
“Neuro” means relating to nerves or the brain; aesthetics why humans are drawn to beauty in nature, like mountains
(pronounced es-THEH-tiks) is the philosophy of beauty. and flowers; they might even know how to use art more
effectively as therapy to help sick people get better. In
the meantime, when you find yourself liking a particular
song or finding one painting prettier than another, you
can appreciate the beauty of both the art and the amazing
brain that, together, are creating the experience.
Electrical lines and streetlights depicted as firing neutrons illuminate an American neighborhood in
a moment of silence on Blackout Tuesday.
By Calen Smith
“
Research Assistant Imagine what your mind looks like when you sympathize with the
University of Utah
pain of others. It is fascinating that we, as humans, are created for

solidarity regardless of culture. Through this work of art, I hope to
1 Plato. (1986). Plato’s Hippias major. Bryn Mawr, Pa.: Thomas Library, Bryn Mawr College. community. We are all capable of feeling empathy. We can experience
2 Hume, D. (1757). Of the standards of taste. Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (pp. 226-249). Liberty Classics: https://philpapers.org/rec/HUMOTS.
3 Salimpoor, V., den Bosch, I., Kovacevic, N., McIntosh, A., Dagher, A., Zatorre, R. (2013). Interactions Between the Nucleus Accumbens and Auditory bring consolation to everyone that has been negatively affected by
Cortices Predict Music Reward Value. Science. 340 (6129), pp 216-219. DOI: 10.1126/science.1231059. ongoing racial injustice amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
4 Perdreau, F., & Cavanagh, P. (2013). Is artists’ perception more veridical? Frontiers in Neuroscience. 7(6). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2013.00006 ”
5 Schlegel, A., Alexander, P., Fogelson, S., Li, X., Lu, Z., Kohler, P...... Meng, M. (2015). The artist emerges: Visual art learning alters neural structure and —Laili Xie, Research Assistant
function. NeuroImage. 105. 440- 51. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.11.014 University of California, San Diego