Resolving the neural dynamics underlying aesthetic visual experiences

• Applicant: Professor Daniel Kaiser, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience ; Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 536053998

Natural vision often gives rise to aesthetic experiences. These experiences can stem from very different visual contents, such as from a scenic sunset, a well-composed piece of art, or an attractive face. Research in visual aesthetics often focuses on why observers find particular visual stimuli beautiful, focusing on objectifiable image properties. Research in neuro-aesthetics additionally focuses on how aesthetic experiences arise from cortical activity. To study the brain processes governing our aesthetic experiences, researchers typically show participants visual stimuli of different aesthetic quality and monitor neural responses across space (using fMRI) or time (using EEG). They have thereby identified brain regions and processing stages that reliably differentiate stimuli of different aesthetic qualities. However, the current literature in neuro-aesthetics is highly fragmented. First, most studies use only one visual stimulus category (such as faces). This severely limits conclusions about whether the identified brain mechanisms represent aesthetic quality across different naturalistic contents. Second, most studies highlight only few distinct processing stages, either across space or across time. This renders it unclear how information is dynamically propagated through the brain. To make progress, researchers now need to assemble these different findings into a general account of how different aesthetic experiences arise from complex cortical dynamics. The proposed project aims to provide such a general account. To achieve this, the project will spearhead two novel experimental approaches: First, we will combine spatially and temporally resolved neural recordings with subjective ratings of aesthetic quality and computer models of visual processing in a unifying analysis framework. This will provide the first comprehensive and seamless characterization of how information flows across our brains during aesthetic experiences. Second, we will establish how rhythmic neural activity orchestrates the interplay between perceptual stimulus attributes and cognitive evaluation processes during aesthetic perception. This will provide key insights into how feedforward and feedback information flows in our brains give rise to the feeling of beauty.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants