According to a millennial-old philosophical debate, aesthetic emotions have been connected to knowledge acquisition. Recent scientific evidence, collected across different disciplinary domains, confirms this link, but also reveals that motor inhibition plays a crucial role in the process. In this review, we discuss multidisciplinary results and propose an original account of aesthetic appreciation (the stopping for knowledge hypothesis) framed within the predictive coding theory. We discuss evidence showing that aesthetic emotions emerge in correspondence with an inhibition of motor behavior (i.e., minimizing action), promoting a simultaneous perceptual processing enhancement, at the level of sensory cortices (i.e., optimizing learning). Accordingly, we suggest that aesthetic appreciation may represent a hedonic feedback over learning progresses, motivating the individual to inhibit motor routines to seek further knowledge acquisition. Furthermore, the neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies we review reveal the presence of a strong association between aesthetic appreciation and the activation of the dopaminergic reward-related circuits. Finally, we propose a number of possible applications of the stopping for knowledge hypothesis in the clinical and education domains.

根据千禧年哲学争论，审美情感与知识获取有关。跨学科领域收集的最新科学证据证实了这一联系，但同时也揭示了运动抑制在该过程中起着至关重要的作用。在这篇评论中，我们讨论了多学科的结果，并提出了审美欣赏的原始说明（知识假设的停止）。）构筑在预测编码理论中。我们讨论的证据表明，审美情感的出现与运动行为的抑制（即，最小化动作）相对应，促进了感觉皮质水平（即，优化学习）同时感知过程的增强。因此，我们建议审美欣赏可能代表对学习进度的享乐反馈，从而激发个人抑制运动常规以寻求进一步的知识获取。此外，我们审查的神经影像学和神经心理学研究揭示了审美欣赏与多巴胺能奖赏相关电路的激活之间有很强的联系。最后，我们提出了知识假设停止的许多可能应用 在临床和教育领域。