On beauty

Czech version

Authors: F. Koukolík
Authors‘ workplace: Primář: doc MUDr. Radoslav Matěj, PhD. ; Národní referenční laboratoř prionových chorob ; Thomayerova nemocnice, Praha ; Oddělení patologie a molekulární medicíny
Published in: Prakt. Lék. 2014; 94(4): 165-171
Category: Editorial

Overview

The term aesthetics is used broadly to encompass the perception, production, and response to art, as well as interactions with objects and scenes that evoke an intense feeling, often of pleasure. Neuroaesthetics is a young field of research concerned primarily with the neural basis of cognitive and affective processes engaged when an individual takes an aesthetic or artistic approach towards a work of art, a non-artistic object or a natural phenomenon. Contemporary neuroesthetics is made possible owing to functional imaging methods. There exist two systems of neural aesthetic evaluation and there exist a difference between pragmatic and aesthetic visual cognition. Human brain recognizes a difference between authentic picture and a picture labeled as its copy. There is a common cortical denominator of visual and musical beauty: the medial orbito-frontal cortex (mOFC). The activity produced by the experience of beauty derived from either source overlapping almost completely within it. The strength of activation in this part of the mOFC was proportional to the strength of the declared intensity of the experience of beauty. Magnetoencephalography proves gender differences in aesthetic experience. There are differences in assessment of the attractivity of human faces between females and males and between homosexual and heterosexual people. Human capability of distinguishing beauty could be an evolutionary adaptation.

Keywords:
neuroesthetics – common cortical denominator – aesthetic experience – beauty – adaptation

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Article was published in

General Practitioner

2014 Issue 4