Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 11/02/2013 16:14:17

Title: How is beauty detected in the brain?
Post by: thedoc on 11/02/2013 16:14:17

New research shows that the perception of beauty has its own region of the brain...

Read the whole story on our  website by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/news/news/1000078/)

  

Title: Re: How is beauty detected in the brain?
Post by: Minerva on 11/02/2013 17:59:36

I think it would be interesting to see what areas are activated in two people who are looking at one object where one participant finds the object aesthetically pleasing and the other dislikes it.  Is there any indication if aesthetic perception activates the dopamine system in some way?

Title: Re: How is beauty detected in the brain?
Post by: cheryl j on 16/02/2013 15:43:01

I always wondered why certain experiences register as fun or pleasant that don't seem to have any benefit. Maybe similar experiences do have a benefit, and it's just riding the evolutionary coat tails. For example, why is snow sticking to the trees beautiful? Why is a sunny summer day so elevating to the mood compared to an overcast one, even if the weather is not threatening? And of course, things like music.

Title: Re: How is beauty detected in the brain?
Post by: Minerva on 16/02/2013 17:47:04

I think we sometimes ignore the social and cultural aspects of enjoying and liking things.  Howard Becker showed how people learn to like things that they initially hate (in this instance smoking marijuana) from the people around them and how really, they were talked into seeing the dizziness and other effects as pleasant.  I rather suspect that drinking and smoking is the same. 

I wonder how much of our sense of something being aesthetically pleasing is a learned behaviour in that sense.  I see my niece feeding her baby food that she herself doesn't like sometimes and she cant help but pull a face-its quite subtle but I pick up on it and so does he.  Since babies learn by imitation its quite possible that they remember and are influenced by the faces/styles/objects that mum and dad like.  Well at least until puberty any way   [:D]

Title: Re: How is beauty detected in the brain?
Post by: menageriemanor on 19/02/2013 03:48:44

I'm in Oz, in drought, and my heart sings with all day gentle rain, and to a lesser degree, heavier rain.  Hot sunny days I find depressing, I LOATHE high winds, and high winds and hot days set me to low grade terror.  (Bushfires).