title: Associated and dissociated neural substrates of aesthetic judgment and aesthetic emotion during the appreciation of everyday designed products.
abstract: The aesthetics of designed products have become part of our life in modern society. This study explores the neural mechanisms of how aesthetic judgment and aesthetic emotion interplay during the appreciation of designed products that are commonly seen in daily life. Participants were 30 college students, and the stimuli were 90 pictures of everyday designed products. Based on an event-related paradigm, the findings of this study suggest that there are associative and dissociative neutral mechanisms underlying different types of aesthetic judgment and aesthetic emotion. The study identified the following main findings: (a) normative beauty and subjective beauty both involved the left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC); (b) subjective beauty and positive emotion both involved the right ACC; (c) subjective beauty and negative emotion both involved the precuneus; (d) subjective ugliness and negative emotion both involved the right inferior frontal gyrus; (e) subjective ugliness alone additionally activated the insula; and (f) subjective beauty alone additionally activated the caudate. The findings in this study shed light on complex but ordinary processes of aesthetic appreciation.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Teacher Education, National Chengchi University, No. 64, Zhinan Road, Section 2, Taipei 116, Taiwan, ROC; Research Center for Mind, Brain & Learning, National Chengchi University, No. 64, Zhinan Road, Section 2, Taipei 116, Taiwan, ROC. Electronic address: ycyeh@nccu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Yu-Chu
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Yeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Education, National Chengchi University, No. 64, Zhinan Road, Section 2, Taipei 116, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Chung-Wei
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, No. 43, Section 4, Keelung Road, Da'an District, Taipei 106, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Wei-Chin
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, No. 155, Section 2, Linong Street, Taipei 112, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Wen-Jui
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Kuo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Learning Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, No. 101, Section 2, Kuang-Fu Road, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Yu-Chen
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D004954:Esthetics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D010865:Pilot Projects; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aesthetic emotion; Aesthetic judgment; Design; Neural substrate