title: The role of the lateral occipital cortex in aesthetic appreciation of representational and abstract paintings: a TMS study.
abstract: Neuroimaging studies of aesthetic appreciation have shown that activity in the lateral occipital area (LO)-a key node in the object recognition pathway-is modulated by the extent to which visual artworks are liked or found beautiful. However, the available evidence is only correlational. Here we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate the putative causal role of LO in the aesthetic appreciation of paintings. In our first experiment, we found that interfering with LO activity during aesthetic appreciation selectively reduced evaluation of representational paintings, leaving appreciation of abstract paintings unaffected. A second experiment demonstrated that, although the perceived clearness of the images overall positively correlated with liking, the detrimental effect of LO TMS on aesthetic appreciation does not owe to TMS reducing perceived clearness. Taken together, our findings suggest that object-recognition mechanisms mediated by LO play a causal role in aesthetic appreciation of representational art.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy; Brain Connectivity Center, National Neurological Institute C. Mondino, Pavia, Italy. Electronic address: zaira.cattaneo@unimib.it.
authors: Zaira
authors: Z
authors: Cattaneo
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
authors: Carlotta
authors: C
authors: Lega
authors: Brain Connectivity Center, National Neurological Institute C. Mondino, Pavia, Italy; Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
authors: Chiara
authors: C
authors: Ferrari
authors: Brain Connectivity Center, National Neurological Institute C. Mondino, Pavia, Italy; Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
authors: Tomaso
authors: T
authors: Vecchi
authors: Human Evolution and Cognition, IFISC, UIB-CSIC, Spain.
authors: Camilo José
authors: CJ
authors: Cela-Conde
authors: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Westminster, UK.
authors: Juha
authors: J
authors: Silvanto
authors: Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, University of Vienna, Austria.
authors: Marcos
authors: M
authors: Nadal
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004954:Esthetics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D010151:Paintings; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aesthetic appreciation; Art; Clearness; LO; Liking; Object-recognition; TMS