During aesthetically appealing visual experiences, visual content provides a basis for computation of affectively tinged representations of aesthetic value. How this happens in the brain is largely unexplored. Using engaging video clips of natural landscapes, we tested whether cortical regions that respond to perceptual aspects of an environment (e.g., spatial layout, object content and motion) were directly modulated by rated aesthetic appeal. Twenty-four participants watched a series of videos of natural landscapes while being scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and reported both continuous ratings of enjoyment (during the videos) and overall aesthetic judgments (after each video). Although landscape videos engaged a greater expanse of high-level visual cortex compared to that observed for images of landscapes, independently localized category-selective visual regions (e.g., scene-selective parahippocampal place area and motion-selective hMT+) were not significantly modulated by aesthetic appeal. Rather, a whole-brain analysis revealed modulations by aesthetic appeal in ventral (collateral sulcus) and lateral (middle occipital sulcus, posterior middle temporal gyrus) clusters that were adjacent to scene and motion selective regions. These findings suggest that aesthetic appeal per se is not represented in well-characterized feature- and category-selective regions of visual cortex. Rather, we propose that the observed activations reflect a local transformation from a feature-based visual representation to a representation of “elemental affect”, computed through information-processing mechanisms that detect deviations from an observer’s expectations. Furthermore, we found modulation by aesthetic appeal in subcortical reward structures but not in regions of the default-mode network (DMN) nor orbitofrontal cortex, and only weak evidence for associated changes in functional connectivity. In contrast to other visual aesthetic domains, aesthetically appealing interactions with natural landscapes may rely more heavily on comparisons between ongoing stimulation and well-formed representations of the natural world, and less on top-down processes for resolving ambiguities or assessing self-relevance.

中文翻译：

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从视觉感知到审美吸引力：大脑对具有审美吸引力的自然景观电影的反应

在美观的视觉体验中，视觉内容为计算审美价值的情感表征提供了基础。这种现象在大脑中是如何发生的很大程度上尚未被探索。使用引人入胜的自然景观视频片段，我们测试了对环境感知方面（例如空间布局、物体内容和运动）做出反应的皮层区域是否受到评级审美吸引力的直接调节。24 名参与者观看了一系列自然景观视频，同时使用功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 进行扫描，并报告了连续的享受评分（在视频期间）和总体审美判断（在每个视频之后）。尽管与景观图像相比，景观视频涉及更广泛的高级视觉皮层，但独立定位的类别选择性视觉区域（例如，场景选择性海马旁区域和运动选择性 hMT+）并未受到审美的显着调节。上诉。相反，全脑分析揭示了与场景和运动选择性区域相邻的腹侧（侧副沟）和外侧（中枕沟、后颞中回）簇的审美吸引力的调节。这些发现表明，审美吸引力本身并没有在视觉皮层的特征和类别选择区域中得到体现。相反，我们建议观察到的激活反映了从基于特征的视觉表示到“基本影响”表示的局部转换，通过检测与观察者期望的偏差的信息处理机制来计算。此外，我们在皮层下奖励结构中发现了审美吸引力的调节，但在默认模式网络（DMN）和眶额皮层区域中没有发现，并且只有微弱的证据表明功能连接性的相关变化。与其他视觉美学领域相比，与自然景观的美观互动可能更多地依赖于持续刺激与自然世界的良好表征之间的比较，而不是依赖于解决歧义或评估自我相关性的自上而下的过程。