Neural correlates of aesthetic experience in art

The present thesis discusses the results of studies on neuroesthetics, which were aimed at unfolding the basic mechanisms and processes underpinning the aesthetic experience for art and, in particular, its hedonic dimension. The type of art we considered is visual using, as main stimulus, the human body. Two studies were conducted using the functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) technique and two studies using the eye-tracking technique. The main results of our neuroimaging studies suggest that the hedonic character of one's aesthetic experience is underpinned by the activation of a brain network, which includes cortical areas encoding the physical properties of the stimuli and, crucially, the right anterior insula. Interestingly, the direct comparison between brain activations during the aesthetic judgment of art stimuli (Classical sculptures) and of biological non-art stimuli (photographs of young athletes) further showed that the hedonic value of aesthetic experience, hallmarked by insula activation, is peculiar for artworks, distinguishing it from the aesthetic evaluation of non-art material.