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Annotated Bibliography

In What Ways Can the Expanding Field of Neuroaesthetics Define Beauty?

Samantha Barringer
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
3/10/2015

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Annotated Bibliography
Brattico, Elvira, and Marcus Pearce. "The Neuroaesthetics of Music." Psychology of Aesthetics,
Creativity, and the Arts 7.1 (2012): 48-61. Web.
This source comes from a scholarly journal found on the Atkins Library database. It was
peer-reviewed, and contains 165 citations of its own from separate, reputable journals.
For these reasons, and due to the fact that the authors, Elvira Brattico and Marcus Pearce,
are both renowned in their fields, this source can be considered reliable. The authors start
off by recognizing the fact that the neuroscience of music has been studied for many
years and that a great deal has been discovered about how music creates aesthetics
experiences for individuals. However, the authors go on to mention that very little
research has been conducted on the neuroaesthetics involved in the perception of music.
The article specifies three primary outcomes which occur when an individual hears a
piece of music. The first step is known as emotional recognition and induction. Emotional
recognition occurs simply when a person recognizes a particular emotion in music,
whereas emotional induction occurs when music itself evokes an emotion in the listener.
The second step, known as aesthetic judgment, occurs when the listener makes a decision
on the songs beauty. Finally the third step is known as liking and preference. In this time,
the listener determines whether he or she enjoys the song. These stages may not appear in
this order each time a person listens to music and they may go unnoticed by the listener,
but nonetheless, these are the things that make up the listeners aesthetic experience.
The article goes on to provide a very detailed overview of the emotions related to and
influenced by music, as well as an explanation of how music generates emotion in
individuals. Throughout this article, the authors mention and explain several different

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arguments that have been proposed in regards to aspects of music enjoyment. In my

project, I will certainly be focusing on the emotions brought about by music and other
works of art, so the specific information on emotion presented in this article will be
useful to me.
Cross, Emily S., and Luca F. Tucini. Neuroaesthetics and Beyond: New Horizons in Applying
the Science of the Brain to the Art of Dance- Springer. Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences 11.1 (2011): 5-16. Web.
In this article, Emily S. Cross, and Luca F. Tucini write about certain implications the art
of dance may have on neuroscience. Emily S. Cross and Luca F. Tucini are both experts
in their fields (action perception and cognitive neuroscience respectively), and their
article is all based on recent research related to their fields, making it a valid source for
my research.
The first main point the authors make is that the goal of neuroaesthetics is not to define
guidelines for what is beautiful or ugly, but to instead allow artists for understand exactly
how their work affects the neurophysiology of people experiencing it. This knowledge
would benefit not only the scientific community, but the dance community as well. An
additional point made in this source is that there is an interesting overlap between action
and perception in the brain. Specific neurons, now called mirror neurons, were
discovered in a study of monkeys. These neurons would fire both when a monkey
performed a certain task and when the monkey observed another monkey performing the
same task. Separate research has proven that there are regions in human brains that
function in similar ways. Furthermore, the authors suggest that dance offers a challenge

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to the field of neuroaesthetics because it stimulates both the visual regions of the brain as
well as sensorimotor domains.
The information in this article will be particularly useful to me when I begin writing on
the neuroscience of dance specifically. It allows me to explore past the surface of
neuroaesthetics to analyze how the perception of dance may differ from other art forms.
Information from this source will most likely appear in my project because I personally
find it fascinating, and because it adds depth to my research.
Hirstein, William. "Neuroaesthetics: Responding to the Critics." Psychology Today 18 Dec.
2012: Web.
In this article on Psychology Today, Dr. William Hirstein writes in defense of what he
believes to be the seven most common criticisms of neuroaesthetics. The first criticism he
discusses is the idea that neuroaesthetics as a whole is reductionistic. Many people
believe that assessing art in a neuroscientific light somehow lessens the experience and
perception of art as a whole. It is Hirsteins belief, however, that neuroaesthetics is
actually in the process of expanding the ways in which art can be understood and
discussed. The second common critique Hirstein mentions is simply that studying the
brain would not be able to expose anything about art that people do not already know. In
response to this, the author explains that there is, in fact, a great deal of research which
suggests there is much more involved in the perception of art than what meets the eye.
The next few criticisms cited in this article relate to neuroscience being supposedly
unable to explain the full complexity of art. Hirstein speaks to these arguments in a very
clever way, saying that the complicated nature of art is not only far from a weakness to

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neuroaesthetics, but that it is one of its strengths. He expands on this idea by admitting
that it is difficult to define a set of characteristics that is capable of uniting all of the
diverse styles of art, but he believes it is important to consider that problems encountered
in any form of science are ultimately the things which fuel progress.
The author, William Hirstein, is an American philosopher with a strong interest in
cognitive science and neuroscience. This article was written for a popular site in order to
reach a broad audience with varied opinions on neuroaesthetics. It is clear from the
beginning that Hirstein does have a bias in favor or neuroaesthetics, but he bases all of
his opinions on scientific fact. Overall, I would say that this is a relatively reliable source,
and I would consider it useful to me, but before I include anything from it into my
project, I plan to double check my facts with other sources.
Zeki, Semir. The Neurobiology of Beauty | Semir Zeki | TEDxUCL. Perf. Semir Zeki.
YouTube, YouTube. 02 July 2012. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.
In this short YouTube video, Semir Zeki, Professor of Neuroaesthetics at UCL, discusses
the topic of beauty. He begins his talk by saying that there is no true, fully agreed upon
definition of beauty in the world. He states that different cultures, and even different
people in the same culture, all view beauty in intensely different ways. Zeki also
emphasizes the fact that art and beauty are two connected, but different things. In order to
concentrate on beauty alone, he says, it is essential to recognize this.
Later in his talk, Zeki speaks of an experiment he and his colleague conducted in which
participants were asked to view paintings and listen to musical excerpts and rate them on
a scale of 1 to 10 from not beautiful to very beautiful. In all cases, the majority of the

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participants agreed on which paintings or musical symphonies were beautiful and which
were not. By analyzing the areas of the brain that were activated when the participants
experienced things they found beautiful, the neurologists were able to determine that the
area of the brain related to emotion, the medial orbito-frontal cortex, was specifically
activated by both forms of art. In Zekis analysis, this suggests that there is at least one
set of definitive characteristics that defines beauty and that is subconsciously understood
by humans.
This information can be considered completely reliable due to Zekis prestige in the field
of neuroaesthetics. This is, without a doubt, his area of expertise. This video was one of
the first sources I discovered through my research. After viewing it, I was able to narrow
my inquiry questions in order to gather even more useful data. Overall the talk provides
quality introductory information on neuroaesthetics that will most likely appear in my
final project.