THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON ART
New field of neuroesthetics analyzes responses to live performances
Art is considered the domain of the heart, but its transporting effects start in the brain, where intricate systems perceive and interpret it with dazzling speed. Using brain-imaging and other tools of neuroscience, the new field of neuroesthetics is probing the relationship between art and the brain.
Seeing a live performance is a neural rush on many levels. Let’s look at the ballet Swan Lake to see how it trips your brain cells.
Many leading neuroscientists studying art and the brain were interviewed.
WE LOVE TO BE ENTERTAINED IN A CROWD
An audience offers a rich social and sensory environment that engages several parts of the brain. The “social brain network,” which includes the temporoparietal junction and the medial prefrontal cortex, is involved in decoding facial expressions.
The “mirror neuron system,” which contains cells that represent actions, is activated when we detect the movements and emotions of other people. This system allows us to co-ordinate our behaviour with those around us — to applaud when others do. When we feel that others around us are emotionally moved our own emotions can become amplified, and sensed by the people next to us.
This social connection is part of a key function of our brains: making sense of human behaviour, a large part of which is evaluating movement within us and around us.
MOVEMENT IS IRRESISTIBLE
The brain is highly stimulated by motion, body language, facial expression, gestures — these elements combine in the Swan Lake experience. But we’re not only visually pulled to the movements of others. We feel them, in some small way, in our bodies. According to the mirror system theory, our brain automatically mimics other people’s actions through its motor system.
When a dancer leaps or turns, we may empathetically feel a soaring sensation in response.
Many scientists believe we map other people’s actions into our own somatosensory system, which conveys sensation through the brain and body and helps us empathize with others. A series of jumps becomes an expression of yearning, because we automatically grasp the emotion attached to it.
WE’RE PULLED IN BY A STORY
A narrative conveys information from one person’s brain to another’s in an effective way. We can learn vicariously through another’s experience from a safe space, without really being involved, which is why storytelling is so powerful. In Swan Lake, we can empathize with what the characters go through without suffering the full force of fresh heartbreak.
Swan Lake tells a rather straightforward story of good versus evil. It centres on Princess Odette, who has been put under a spell and must live a double life as a swan by day, woman by night, until she finds true love.
Prince Siegfried pledges himself to her, but he breaks his vow when a seductive villainess named Odile, also known as the Black Swan, fools him into betraying Odette.
The ballet ends in tragedy — research shows we tend to empathize more with characters in sad stories, and this may trigger hormones related to consoling and bonding.
THE LOGIC OF ART IS A NEURAL TURN-ON
Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran proposes several universal laws of art, or common patterns found in artworks across time and cultures. These principles powerfully activate our visual centres. In theory, they tap into evolved survival responses. Among those found in Swan Lake are isolation, contrast and metaphor.
Isolation: Singling out one element helps the brain block other sensory information and focus attention. This magnifies our emotional reaction, especially when the element is simplified to bare essentials. Odette is set apart from the rest of the cast, and she is recognizable as a swan with just a few gestures.
Contrast: The brain detects boundaries best when the edges are distinct, especially for objects next to each other. The blackand-white colour scheme of Swan Lake sets the main characters apart.
Metaphor: Linking seemingly unrelated elements can heighten emotion and empathy. Our brains create meaning from Odette’s swan movements, and this deepens our perception of her pain.
MUSIC IS THE PERFECT PARTNER
In another study, Julia Christensen of University London and her colleagues showed subjects silent dance clips and ones that included music. When the music and dance matched — sad music plus sad dancing — the subjects’ responses were stronger. If the music did not match, the responses were weaker. Something happens when emotionally compatible music and dance combine.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Art has emerged from the human brain for tens of thousands of years, and every human culture makes it. Yet scientists are only beginning to understand how the brain perceives and produces art, and why. The brain is largely an object of mystery. One secret yet to be discovered is how the fragile folds of matter locked inside our skulls cannot only conceive art, create it and contemplate it, but can also experience being transported by it, out of the head, out of the body, out of space and time and reality itself.