From beauty to knowledge: a new frame for the neuropsychological approach to aesthetics

Over the last decade the psychological and neurobiological approach to aesthetics has collected relevant data about the experience of art, aesthetic products, natural phenomena, and non-artistic objects—even if these data are somewhat divergent depending on the many differences in the stimuli, procedures, techniques, instructions, and tasks that are used (Chatterjee, 2011; Nadal and Skov, 2013). Given the strong historical association of the concept of beauty with art and aesthetics, the first applications of neuroimaging to visual aesthetic experience involved a privileged position for perceptual beauty (Cela-Conde et al., 2004; Kawabata and Zeki, 2004; Vartanian and Goel, 2004) but see also (Jacobsen, 2010; Ishizu and Zeki, 2013; Chatterjee, 2014). However, art history clearly shows that more often than not great artworks, especially modern ones, inhibit ordinary perceptual routines, violate predictions, involve disorder, disorganization, disharmony, ambiguity, contradictions, indeterminacy, uncertainty, strangeness, and so on (Bullot and Reber, 2013). Moreover, since Duchamp’s use of everyday objects, the borders between art and non-art have been somewhat blurred, so that modern art requires a larger need for interpretation than any previous art (Leder, 2013). Finally, a given aesthetic object often serves a multiplicity of purposes for different people with different skills, in different contexts, and at different times (Nadal and Pearce, 2011). In line with these features, the general focus of experimental studies has been rapidly and deeply reoriented. In particular, the neuropsychological approach to aesthetics has quickly gone beyond perceptual beauty and simple preference (Chatterjee and Vartanian, 2014). I propose that, if we consider with attention the more recent general trends of studies, at present the cognitive psychology and neuroscience of aesthetics are centered on aesthetic experience conceived as an experience of knowledge. First and foremost, this means that differences in processing experience influence aesthetic perception and evaluation—for instance, see the various studies concerning the effect of fluency on aesthetic appreciation (Reber et al., 2004). From this point of view, aesthetic experience is a function of previous knowledge and already acquired skills. However, recent evidence also shows that aesthetic experience represents at the same time a means of improving knowledge and enabling further skills acquisition. In this way, aesthetic experience is also cause and source of knowledge and skills. According tomy point of view, this new perspective is undoubtedly shown by current behavioral, neuropsychological, and brain imaging data concerning three relevant and interconnected lines of inquiry: (a) gestalt formation and dis/fluent appreciation; (b) fiction and high-quality art; (c) experts/non-experts processing differences.