Aesthetics in motion: The beauty of action paintings as revealed by Parkinson’s disease

Visual art offers cognitive neuroscience an opportunity to study how subjective value is constructed from representations supported by multiple neural systems. A surprising finding in research on aesthetic judgment is that functional activation of motor areas of the brain often occurs in response to static, abstract stimuli, such as paintings. This motor activity has variously been hypothesised to reflect the embodied simulation of an artist’s painting movements or emotions, as well as possible preparatory approach-avoidance responses to liked and disliked artworks. However, whether this motor involvement functionally contributes to aesthetic appreciation has not been addressed. Here, we examined whether motor system dysfunction alters the aesthetic experiences of patients with Parkinson’s disease. 43 people with Parkinson’s disease and 40 controls made preference decisions and rated the motion content and their aesthetic appreciation of a set of high-motion action paintings (by Jackson Pollock) and a set of low-motion neoplastic paintings (by Piet Mondrian). People with Parkinson’s disease demonstrated stable and internally consistent preferences for abstract art, but their perception of movement in the paintings was significantly lower in both conditions than that of controls. In addition, people with Parkinson’s demonstrated enhanced preferences for high-motion art, and a fundamentally altered relationship between motion and aesthetic appreciation. Our results do not accord well with a straightforward embodied simulation account of aesthetic experiences, because artworks that did not include visual traces of the artist’s actions were still experienced as lower in motion by Parkinson’s patients. We suggest that the ability to form movement representations from static abstract images is more akin to a process of visual metaphor comprehension that is mediated through the motor system. Overall, we find support for hypotheses linking motion, motor responses and aesthetic appreciation, and provide clear evidence that altered neural functioning changes the way art is perceived and valued.

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Movement in Aesthetic Experiences: What We Can Learn from Parkinson's Disease

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_01718 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Stacey Humphries ◽

Jacqueline Rick ◽

Daniel Weintraub ◽

Anjan Chatterjee

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Aesthetic Judgment ◽

Motor Dysfunction ◽

Neural Systems ◽

Aesthetic Appreciation ◽

Jackson Pollock ◽

Aesthetic Experiences ◽

Subjective Value ◽

The Aesthetic

Abstract Visual art offers cognitive neuroscience an opportunity to study how subjective value is constructed from representations supported by multiple neural systems. A surprising finding in aesthetic judgment research is the functional activation of motor areas in response to static, abstract stimuli, like paintings, which has been hypothesized to reflect embodied simulations of artists' painting movements, or preparatory approach–avoidance responses to liked and disliked artworks. However, whether this motor involvement functionally contributes to aesthetic appreciation has not been addressed. Here, we examined the aesthetic experiences of patients with motor dysfunction. Forty-three people with Parkinson's disease and 40 controls made motion and aesthetics judgments of high-motion Jackson Pollock paintings and low-motion Piet Mondrian paintings. People with Parkinson's disease demonstrated stable and internally consistent preferences for abstract art, but their perception of movement in the paintings was significantly lower than controls in both conditions. The patients also demonstrated enhanced preferences for high-motion art and an altered relationship between motion and aesthetic appreciation. Our results do not accord well with a straightforward embodied simulation account of aesthetic experiences, because artworks that did not include visual traces of the artist's actions were still experienced as lower in motion by Parkinson's patients. We suggest that the motor system may be involved in integrating low-level visual features to form abstract representations of movement rather than simulations of specific bodily actions. Overall, we find support for hypotheses linking motor responses and aesthetic appreciation and show that altered neural functioning changes the way art is perceived and valued.

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“Paradoxical Kinesis” is not a Hallmark of Parkinson's disease but a general property of the motor system

Movement Disorders ◽

10.1002/mds.20987 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 21 (9) ◽

pp. 1490-1495 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

Bénédicte Ballanger ◽

Stéphane Thobois ◽

Pierre Baraduc ◽

Robert S. Turner ◽

Emmanuel Broussolle ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

General Property ◽

Motor System

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Reorganization of Motor System in Parkinson’s Disease

European Neurology ◽

10.1159/000330658 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 66 (4) ◽

pp. 220-226 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Zsuzsanna Kalmar ◽

Norbert Kovacs ◽

Gabor Perlaki ◽

Ferenc Nagy ◽

Zsuzsanna Aschermann ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Motor System

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Side of Onset in Parkinson’s Disease and Alterations in Religiosity: Novel Behavioral Phenotypes

Behavioural Neurology ◽

10.1155/2011/493013 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 133-141 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Paul M. Butler ◽

Patrick McNamara ◽

Raymon Durso

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Religious Belief ◽

Complex Disease ◽

Patient Centered ◽

Religious Ritual ◽

Treatment Plans ◽

The Aesthetic ◽

Prime Condition ◽

Neurologically Intact

Behavioral neurologists have long been interested in changes in religiosity following circumscribed brain lesions. Advances in neuroimaging and cognitive experimental techniques have been added to these classical lesion-correlational approaches in attempt to understand changes in religiosity due to brain damage. In this paper we assess processing dynamics of religious cognition in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). We administered a four-condition story-based priming procedure, and then covertly probed for changes in religious belief. Story-based priming emphasized mortality salience, religious ritual, and beauty in nature (Aesthetic). In neurologically intact controls, religious belief-scores significantly increased following the Aesthetic prime condition. When comparing effects of right (RO) versus left onset (LO) in PD patients, a double-dissociation in religious belief-scores emerged based on prime condition. RO patients exhibited a significant increase in belief following the Aesthetic prime condition and LO patients significantly increased belief in the religious ritual prime condition. Results covaried with executive function measures. This suggests lateral cerebral specialization for ritual-based (left frontal) versus aesthetic-based (right frontal) religious cognition. Patient-centered individualized treatment plans should take religiosity into consideration as a complex disease-associated phenomenon connected to other clinical variables and health outcomes.

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The nature of perception and emotion in aesthetic appreciation: A response to Makin’s challenge to Empirical Aesthetics

10.31234/osf.io/f98kv ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Martin Skov ◽

Marcos Nadal

Keyword(s):

Research Methods ◽

Scientific Knowledge ◽

Aesthetic Experience ◽

Aesthetic Appreciation ◽

Aesthetic Experiences ◽

Emotional Processes ◽

Distinct Kind ◽

The Aesthetic ◽

Mainstream Psychology

Alexis Makin argued in a recent paper that Empirical Aesthetics is unable to properly advance our understanding of the mechanisms involved in aesthetic experience. The reason for this predicament, he claims, is an inability of current research methods to capture the psychological properties that truly characterize aesthetic experience, especially the unique perceptual and emotional processes involved in the aesthetic experience. We show that Makin’s argument rests on assumptions that are at odds with scientific knowledge of the neurobiological mechanisms involved in the appreciation of sensory objects. We thereafter show that such mechanisms are rooted in shared neurobiological systems, and operate according to computational principles that are common to many domains of experience. This casts doubt on the notion that aesthetic experiences constitute a distinct kind of experiences that can be defined according to a set of special and unique qualities. Finally, we discuss how attributing this specialness to “aesthetic” experiences leads Empirical Aesthetics astray from mainstream psychology and neuroscience.

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An Immersive Virtual Reality Exergame for People with Parkinson’s Disease

Lecture Notes in Computer Science - Computers Helping People with Special Needs ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-58796-3_18 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 138-145

Author(s):

Weiqin Chen ◽

Martin Bang ◽

Daria Krivonos ◽

Hanna Schimek ◽

Arnau Naval

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Virtual Reality ◽

Physical Exercise ◽

Cognitive Rehabilitation ◽

Motor System ◽

Neurodegenerative Disorder ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Immersive Virtual Reality

AbstractParkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects primarily motor system. Physical exercise is considered important for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) to slow down disease progression and maintain abilities and quality of life. However, people with PD often experience barriers to exercises that causes low-level adherence to exercise plans and programs. Virtual Reality (VR) is an innovative and promising technology for motor and cognitive rehabilitation. Immersive VR exergames have potential advantages by allowing for individualized skill practice in a motivating interactive environment without distractions from outside events. This paper presents an immersive virtual reality (VR) exergame aiming at motor training on fingers and hand-and-eye coordination. The results from the usability study indicate that immersive VR exergames have potential to provide motivating and engaging physical exercise for people with PD. Through this research, we hope to contribute to evidence-based design principles for task-specific immersive VR exergames for patients with Parkinson’s Disease.

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Altered functional organization of the motor system related to ankle movements in Parkinson’s disease: insights from functional MRI

Journal of Neural Transmission ◽

10.1007/s00702-011-0621-x ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 118 (5) ◽

pp. 783-793 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Petra Katschnig ◽

Petra Schwingenschuh ◽

Margit Jehna ◽

Martin Švehlík ◽

Katja Petrovic ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Functional Mri ◽

Motor System ◽

Functional Organization

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: Evidence from a common mnemonic advantage between aesthetics judgement and self-reference

10.31234/osf.io/rw39q ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Hyojun Lee ◽

Amélie Jacquot ◽

Dominique Makowski ◽

Margherita Arcangeli ◽

Jérôme Dokic ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sense Of Self ◽

Subjective Evaluation ◽

Aesthetic Judgment ◽

Aesthetic Judgement ◽

Aesthetic Experiences ◽

Referential Processing ◽

The Aesthetic ◽

Judgment Condition ◽

Physical Features ◽

Self Reference

A long-lasting and unresolved debate in the field of aesthetics is whether beauty is inherent to the object of appreciation or to the subject contemplating it. Several studies suggest that physical features (e.g., symmetry, contrast) of an artwork influence aesthetic rating. Nevertheless, this objectivist approach fails to explain the idiosyncratic nature of aesthetic experiences (AE). Recent models propose a multi-process account of AE, integrating a subjective evaluation based on self-referential processing. This proposition seems coherent with neuroimaging studies showing activation of a common neural network during AE and self-reference. Nevertheless, behavioural data supporting this hypothesis is missing. We took advantage of the self-reference effect (SRE) in memory – the mnemonic advantage for material encoded in a self-related mode - to test the hypothesis that aesthetic judgement is based on self-related processes. We predicted that if aesthetic judgement recruits self-referential processing, incidentally encoding artworks in this condition should produce a similar mnemonic advantage as the SRE. To test this hypothesis, 30 participants incidentally encoded 60 painting in three conditions: self-reference, judgement of beauty and judgement of symmetry (control condition). We found that items encoded in the aesthetic judgment condition were as well recognized as those encoded in self-reference condition when participants gave extreme judgements on the beauty scale during encoding. These findings suggest that at least intense AEs activate an individual’s sense of self.

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