Yellow-Red-Blue (1925) de Vassily Kandinsky.
Research analyzed the brain activity of people while observing abstract art and identified why we interpret the paint stains on the screen so uniquely.
When you look at an abstract painting in a museum, for example, what do you see and what you feel? Evokes an old memory, a sense of spirituality or confusion?
A long time ago artists and philosophers have been trying to answer these questions, namely about the meaning of art. Now scientists are still investigating. A new investigation analyzed what happens in people’s brains when they observe abstract art.
In PNAS, study provides a vision on how the brain interacts with different art forms and builds subjective experiences.
Researchers say their discoveries corroborate the concept of Beholder’s Share (The Observer’s part), according to which works of art are completed by the spectator – all their personal memories, emotions and particularities impregnate meanings in the work.
“Our findings have revealed more specific answers from each person to abstract paintings, indicating that individuals contribute more personal associations to abstract art than representative art,” the researchers wrote.
How our brains react to art
These are the different ways we interpret the art that give scientists clues about our individual minds and how the brain builds subjective experiences.
For the study, the researchers measured the brain activity of 59 people, using a technique called Functional Magnetic Resonance (FMRI). Participants were placed on a brain scanner while observing abstract and realistic artistic paintings.
Before we talk about the results, some basic principles:
When we see art, the flow of visual information goes from eye to part of the brain known as visual cortex. This is where visual information is first processed. To assign meaning to this information, it is sent to the “superior instances” of the brain.
Now let’s go to the discoveries. The study revealed that there were no real differences in participants’ brain activity at the visual cortex level. In other words, their brains probably created Similar visual perceptions From the work of art – they saw the same thing.
But there were differences in the brain activity of people in the higher instance regions, which are important to subjective experience. In particular, differences in brain activity on the standard network were recorded-a brain network involved in imagination, memories evocation and self-referential thinking.
This suggests that subjective variability results from higher cognitive processesinstead of differences in initial sensory processing in the visual cortex.
Researchers say the study makes room for new issues about why people interpret works of art in different ways. For example, differences in interpretative responses should differences in people’s ability to generate representations of art from ambiguous stimuli? Or, on the other hand, can they result from differences in emotional responses or aesthetic taste?
Observing art benefits the brain
Studies show that seeing art has beneficial effects for the brain and psychology.
For example, it is proven to see art Reduces stress. In 2003, investigators asked London workers to spit into a tube before and after passing the lunch break in an art gallery. Laboratory analysis found that cortisol levels had decreased after seeing art, which indicated that stress levels had normalized.
This is why abstract art is used in stress-related conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, having shown patients processing emotions and reducing stress.
Art is also an incredibly effective tool for learning – Something well known to our ancestors, who used rock art to educate other members of the community over time.
When art, the concepts or stories portrayed are fixed in mind as the pollen in the paws of the bees. The investigation suggests that stopping to enjoy the aesthetics of something facilitates learning on the subject. This idea of “stopping for knowledge” is motivated by pleasure and curiosity, leading us to ask questions and look for information.
Art and Neuroscience: Two ways of understanding the world
In a way, both art and science try to understand and describe the world around us. What differs is your methods and forms of communication.
Art creates experiences that are more memorable in evoking emotions or understanding, while science provides tools for empirical observation and reason.
One of the biggest issues that mobilize both fields is why our conscious experiences and perceived worlds differ with each other – that is, What makes our minds unique.
Poets and artists explore this theme there are millennia, but only now the tools of neuroscientific investigation are sufficiently advanced to probe the human mind and find answers.
The investigation is beginning to address and answer questions such as why some people have depression and others not, or how does pregnancy Reconfigure the brain of mothers. But scientists are still far from understanding how the brain creates consciousness and how to recreate human thinking on machines.
