Rebuilding Neuroaesthetics from the Ground Up

In the field of neuroaesthetics, certain avenues of research have led to important discoveries regarding the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying visual aesthetic preference. I believe that studies of facial attractiveness are an especially profitable means of studying aesthetics. Subjects from a range of cultural backgrounds generally agree on which faces they consider to be beautiful, and their ratings have been shown to correlate strongly with certain patterns of neural activity.

Neuroscientists would do well to study aesthetics independently of art. I will defend this statement by outlining a few of the methodological and philosophical challenges to empirical research in the arts, and I will cite cases in which neuroscientists have overestimated their ability to trace artistic behaviors back to the brain. At the end of my talk, I will acknowledge the differences between judgments about faces and judgments about paintings, and I will propose a framework through which to relate research in the psychology of facial aesthetics to our understanding of art.