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Hoshi H, Ishii A, Shigihara Y, Yoshikawa T. Binocularly suppressed stimuli induce brain activities related to aesthetic emotions. Front Neurosci 2024; 18:1339479. [PMID: 38855441 PMCID: PMC11159128 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1339479] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2023] [Accepted: 04/16/2024] [Indexed: 06/11/2024] Open
Abstract
Introduction Aesthetic emotions are a class of emotions aroused by evaluating aesthetically appealing objects or events. While evolutionary aesthetics suggests the adaptive roles of these emotions, empirical assessments are lacking. Previous neuroscientific studies have demonstrated that visual stimuli carrying evolutionarily important information induce neural responses even when presented non-consciously. To examine the evolutionary importance of aesthetic emotions, we conducted a neuroscientific study using magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure induced neural responses to non-consciously presented portrait paintings categorised as biological and non-biological and examined associations between the induced responses and aesthetic ratings. Methods MEG and pre-rating data were collected from 23 participants. The pre-rating included visual analogue scales for object saliency, facial saliency, liking, and beauty scores, in addition to 'biologi-ness,' which was used for subcategorising stimuli into biological and non-biological. The stimuli were presented non-consciously using a continuous flash suppression paradigm or consciously using binocular presentation without flashing masks, while dichotomic behavioural responses were obtained (beauty or non-beauty). Time-frequency decomposed MEG data were used for correlation analysis with pre-rating scores for each category. Results Behavioural data revealed that saliency scores of non-consciously presented stimuli influenced dichotomic responses (beauty or non-beauty). MEG data showed that non-consciously presented portrait paintings induced spatiotemporally distributed low-frequency brain activities associated with aesthetic ratings, which were distinct between the biological and non-biological categories and conscious and non-conscious conditions. Conclusion Aesthetic emotion holds evolutionary significance for humans. Neural pathways are sensitive to visual images that arouse aesthetic emotion in distinct ways for biological and non-biological categories, which are further influenced by consciousness. These differences likely reflect the diversity in mechanisms of aesthetic processing, such as processing fluency, active elaboration, and predictive processing. The aesthetic processing of non-conscious stimuli appears to be characterised by fluency-driven affective processing, while top-down regulatory processes are suppressed. This study provides the first empirical evidence supporting the evolutionary significance of aesthetic processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hideyuki Hoshi
- Department of Sports Medicine, Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan
- Precision Medicine Centre, Hokuto Hospital, Obihiro, Japan
| | - Akira Ishii
- Department of Sports Medicine, Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan
| | | | - Takahiro Yoshikawa
- Department of Sports Medicine, Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan
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2
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Dorado A, Skov M, Rosselló J, Nadal M. Defensive emotions and evaluative judgements: Sensitivity to anger and fear predicts moral judgements, whereas sensitivity to disgust predicts aesthetic judgements. Br J Psychol 2023; 114:1-20. [PMID: 36609781 PMCID: PMC10087598 DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12590] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2021] [Revised: 07/27/2022] [Accepted: 07/28/2022] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
Abstract
Aesthetic and moral evaluations engage appetitive and defensive emotions. While the role played by pleasure in positive aesthetic and moral judgements has been extensively researched, little is known about how defensive emotions influence negative aesthetic and moral judgements. Specifically, it is unknown which defensive emotions such judgements tap into, and whether both kinds of judgement share a common emotional root. Here, we investigated how participants' individual sensitivity to disgust, fear, anger and sadness predicted subjective judgements of aesthetic and moral stimuli. Bayesian modelling revealed that participants who were more sensitive to anger and fear found conventional and moral transgressions more wrong. In contrast, participants who were more sensitive to disgust disliked asymmetrical geometric patterns and untidy rooms more. These findings suggest that aesthetic and moral evaluations engage multiple defensive emotions, not just disgust, and that they may rely on different defensive emotions as part of their computational mechanism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alejandro Dorado
- Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain
| | - Martin Skov
- Decision Neuroscience Research Cluster, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark.,Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Hvidovre, Denmark
| | - Jaume Rosselló
- Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain
| | - Marcos Nadal
- Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain
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3
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Ziogas A, Habermeyer E, Santtila P, Poeppl TB, Mokros A. Neuroelectric Correlates of Human Sexuality: A Review and Meta-Analysis. ARCHIVES OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR 2023; 52:497-596. [PMID: 32016814 DOI: 10.1007/s10508-019-01547-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2018] [Revised: 07/17/2019] [Accepted: 09/04/2019] [Indexed: 05/15/2023]
Abstract
Many reviews on sexual arousal in humans focus on different brain imaging methods and behavioral observations. Although neurotransmission in the brain is mainly performed through electrochemical signals, there are no systematic reviews of the electrophysiological correlates of sexual arousal. We performed a systematic search on this subject and reviewed 255 studies including various electrophysiological methods. Our results show how neuroelectric signals have been used to investigate genital somatotopy as well as basic genital physiology during sexual arousal and how cortical electric signals have been recorded during orgasm. Moreover, experiments on the interactions of cognition and sexual arousal in healthy subjects and in individuals with abnormal sexual preferences were analyzed as well as case studies on sexual disturbances associated with diseases of the nervous system. In addition, 25 studies focusing on brain potentials during the interaction of cognition and sexual arousal were eligible for meta-analysis. The results showed significant effect sizes for specific brain potentials during sexual stimulation (P3: Cohen's d = 1.82, N = 300, LPP: Cohen's d = 2.30, N = 510) with high heterogeneity between the combined studies. Taken together, our review shows how neuroelectric methods can consistently differentiate sexual arousal from other emotional states.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anastasios Ziogas
- Department of Forensic Psychiatry, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, Alleestrasse 61A, 8462, Rheinau, Switzerland.
| | - Elmar Habermeyer
- Department of Forensic Psychiatry, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Pekka Santtila
- Department of Arts & Sciences, New York University-Shanghai, Shanghai, China
| | - Timm B Poeppl
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Andreas Mokros
- Department of Forensic Psychiatry, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Faculty of Psychology, Fern Universität in Hagen (University of Hagen), Hagen, Germany
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4
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Blum K, Han D, Bowirrat A, Downs BW, Bagchi D, Thanos PK, Baron D, Braverman ER, Dennen CA, Gupta A, Elman I, Badgaiyan RD, Llanos-Gomez L, Khalsa J, Barh D, McLaughlin T, Gold MS. Genetic Addiction Risk and Psychological Profiling Analyses for "Preaddiction" Severity Index. J Pers Med 2022; 12:1772. [PMID: 36579510 PMCID: PMC9696872 DOI: 10.3390/jpm12111772] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2022] [Revised: 10/15/2022] [Accepted: 10/16/2022] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Since 1990, when our laboratory published the association of the DRD2 Taq A1 allele and severe alcoholism in JAMA, there has been an explosion of genetic candidate association studies, including genome-wide association studies (GWAS). To develop an accurate test to help identify those at risk for at least alcohol use disorder (AUD), a subset of reward deficiency syndrome (RDS), Blum's group developed the genetic addiction risk severity (GARS) test, consisting of ten genes and eleven associated risk alleles. In order to statistically validate the selection of these risk alleles measured by GARS, we applied strict analysis to studies that investigated the association of each polymorphism with AUD or AUD-related conditions, including pain and even bariatric surgery, as a predictor of severe vulnerability to unwanted addictive behaviors, published since 1990 until now. This analysis calculated the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium of each polymorphism in cases and controls. Pearson's χ2 test or Fisher's exact test was applied to compare the gender, genotype, and allele distribution if available. The statistical analyses found the OR, 95% CI for OR, and the post risk for 8% estimation of the population's alcoholism prevalence revealed a significant detection. Prior to these results, the United States and European patents on a ten gene panel and eleven risk alleles have been issued. In the face of the new construct of the "preaddiction" model, similar to "prediabetes", the genetic addiction risk analysis might provide one solution missing in the treatment and prevention of the neurological disorder known as RDS.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kenneth Blum
- Division of Addiction Research & Education, Center for Sports, Exercise, and Mental Health, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA 91766, USA
- Division of Nutrigenomics, The Kenneth Blum Behavioral Neurogenetic Institute, LLC, Austin, TX 78701, USA
- Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 1075 Budapest, Hungary
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, Wright University Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton, OH 45324, USA
- Division of Nutrigenomics, Victory Nutrition International, Inc., Harleysville, PA 19329, USA
- Centre for Genomics and Applied Gene Technology, Institute of Integrative Omics and Applied Biotechnology, Nonakuri, Purba Medinipur 721172, West Bengal, India
- Department of Molecular Biology, Adelson School of Medicine, Ariel University, Ariel 40700, Israel
| | - David Han
- Department of Management Science and Statistics, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA
| | - Abdalla Bowirrat
- Department of Molecular Biology, Adelson School of Medicine, Ariel University, Ariel 40700, Israel
| | - Bernard William Downs
- Division of Nutrigenomics, Victory Nutrition International, Inc., Harleysville, PA 19329, USA
| | - Debasis Bagchi
- Division of Nutrigenomics, Victory Nutrition International, Inc., Harleysville, PA 19329, USA
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Southern University, Houston, TX 77004, USA
| | - Panayotis K. Thanos
- Behavioral Neuropharmacology and Neuroimaging Laboratory on Addictions, Clinical Research Institute on Addictions, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biosciences, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA
- Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA
| | - David Baron
- Division of Addiction Research & Education, Center for Sports, Exercise, and Mental Health, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA 91766, USA
- Division of Nutrigenomics, The Kenneth Blum Behavioral Neurogenetic Institute, LLC, Austin, TX 78701, USA
| | - Eric R. Braverman
- Division of Nutrigenomics, The Kenneth Blum Behavioral Neurogenetic Institute, LLC, Austin, TX 78701, USA
| | - Catherine A. Dennen
- Department of Family Medicine, Jefferson Health Northeast, Philadelphia, PA 19107, USA
| | - Ashim Gupta
- Future Biologics, Lawrenceville, GA 30043, USA
| | - Igor Elman
- Department of Psychiatry, Harvard School of Medicine, Cambridge, MA 02115, USA
| | - Rajendra D. Badgaiyan
- Department of Psychiatry, South Texas Veteran Health Care System, Audie L. Murphy Memorial VA Hospital, Long School of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, MT. Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10003, USA
| | - Luis Llanos-Gomez
- Division of Nutrigenomics, The Kenneth Blum Behavioral Neurogenetic Institute, LLC, Austin, TX 78701, USA
| | - Jag Khalsa
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine, School of Medicine, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
- Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse and Infections Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Debmalya Barh
- Centre for Genomics and Applied Gene Technology, Institute of Integrative Omics and Applied Biotechnology, Nonakuri, Purba Medinipur 721172, West Bengal, India
- Department of Genetics, Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil
| | - Thomas McLaughlin
- Division of Nutrigenomics, The Kenneth Blum Behavioral Neurogenetic Institute, LLC, Austin, TX 78701, USA
| | - Mark S. Gold
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA
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Karim AKMR, Proulx MJ, de Sousa AA, Likova LT. Do we enjoy what we sense and perceive? A dissociation between aesthetic appreciation and basic perception of environmental objects or events. COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2022; 22:904-951. [PMID: 35589909 PMCID: PMC10159614 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-022-01004-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/27/2022] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
This integrative review rearticulates the notion of human aesthetics by critically appraising the conventional definitions, offerring a new, more comprehensive definition, and identifying the fundamental components associated with it. It intends to advance holistic understanding of the notion by differentiating aesthetic perception from basic perceptual recognition, and by characterizing these concepts from the perspective of information processing in both visual and nonvisual modalities. To this end, we analyze the dissociative nature of information processing in the brain, introducing a novel local-global integrative model that differentiates aesthetic processing from basic perceptual processing. This model builds on the current state of the art in visual aesthetics as well as newer propositions about nonvisual aesthetics. This model comprises two analytic channels: aesthetics-only channel and perception-to-aesthetics channel. The aesthetics-only channel primarily involves restricted local processing for quality or richness (e.g., attractiveness, beauty/prettiness, elegance, sublimeness, catchiness, hedonic value) analysis, whereas the perception-to-aesthetics channel involves global/extended local processing for basic feature analysis, followed by restricted local processing for quality or richness analysis. We contend that aesthetic processing operates independently of basic perceptual processing, but not independently of cognitive processing. We further conjecture that there might be a common faculty, labeled as aesthetic cognition faculty, in the human brain for all sensory aesthetics albeit other parts of the brain can also be activated because of basic sensory processing prior to aesthetic processing, particularly during the operation of the second channel. This generalized model can account not only for simple and pure aesthetic experiences but for partial and complex aesthetic experiences as well.
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Affiliation(s)
- A K M Rezaul Karim
- Department of Psychology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, 1000, Bangladesh.
- Envision Research Institute, 610 N. Main St., Wichita, KS, USA.
- The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, 2318 Fillmore St., San Francisco, CA, USA.
| | | | | | - Lora T Likova
- The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, 2318 Fillmore St., San Francisco, CA, USA
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6
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Lan M, Peng M, Zhao X, Chen H, Liu Y, Yang J. Facial attractiveness is more associated with individual warmth than with competence: behavioral and neural evidence. Soc Neurosci 2022; 17:225-235. [PMID: 35443146 DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2022.2069152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
Individuals appear to infer others' psychological characteristics according to facial attractiveness and these psychological characteristics can be classified into two categories in social cognition, that is, warmth and competence. However, which category of psychological characteristic is more associated with face attractiveness and its neural mechanisms have not been explored. To address this, participants were asked to judge others' warmth and competence traits based on face attractiveness, while their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). They also assessed the attractiveness of faces after scanning. Behavioral results showed that the correlation between face attractiveness and warmth ratings was significantly higher than that with competence ratings. fMRI results demonstrated that the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), temporoparietal junction (TPJ), lateral prefrontal cortex, and lateral temporal lobe were more involved in the warmth task. Moreover, attractiveness ratings were negatively correlated with activation of the dmPFC and TPJ only in the warmth task. Furthermore, the attractiveness ratings were negatively correlated with the defined dmPFC, region related to attractiveness judgement, only in the warmth task. In conclusion, people are more inclined to infer others' warmth than competence characteristics from face attractiveness, that is, face attractiveness is more associated with warmth than with competence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mengxue Lan
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.,Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Maoying Peng
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.,Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Xiaolin Zhao
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.,Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Haopeng Chen
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.,Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Yadong Liu
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.,Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Juan Yang
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.,Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
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7
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Takahashi K, Yotsumoto Y. Testing the Reproducibility of the Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation: Failure to Modulate Beauty Perception by Brain Stimulation. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:767344. [PMID: 35250512 PMCID: PMC8894197 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.767344] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2021] [Accepted: 01/27/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been recognized as a promising tool for investigating the causal relationship between specific brain areas of interest and behavior. However, the reproducibility of previous tDCS studies is often questioned because of failures in replication. This study focused on the effects of tDCS on one cognitive domain: beauty perception. To date, the modulation of beauty perception by tDCS has been shown in two studies: Cattaneo et al. (2014) and Nakamura and Kawabata (2015). Here, we aimed at replicating their studies and investigating the effects of tDCS on beauty perception using the following parameters: (1) cathodal stimulation over the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) (Nakamura and Kawabata, 2015); (2) anodal stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) (Cattaneo et al., 2014). We also performed a more focal stimulation targeting the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to determine the optimal stimulation site for modulating beauty perception (3). Participants rated the subjectively-perceived beauty of the images before and after the tDCS administration. We divided images into four clusters according to the obtained scores in our preliminary study and examined changes in beauty ratings in each image cluster separately to exclude factors, such as stimuli attributions that may reduce tDCS effects. The results showed no strong effects of tDCS with the same parameters as in previous studies on beauty rating scores in any image cluster. Likewise, anodal stimulation over the OFC did not result in a change in rating scores. In contrast to previous studies, the current study did not corroborate the effects of tDCS on beauty perception. Our findings provide evidence regarding the recent reproducibility issue of tDCS effects and suggest the possible inflation of its effects on cognitive domains.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kuri Takahashi
- Department of Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Department of Psychology and Neurosciences, Leibniz Research Center for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany
- Department of Neuropsychology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany
- *Correspondence: Kuri Takahashi,
| | - Yuko Yotsumoto
- Department of Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
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8
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Yuan G, Liu G, Wei D. Roles of P300 and Late Positive Potential in Initial Romantic Attraction. Front Neurosci 2021; 15:718847. [PMID: 34720856 PMCID: PMC8552996 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2021.718847] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2021] [Accepted: 09/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Initial romantic attraction (IRA) refers to a series of positive reactions to potential romantic partners at the initial encounter; it evolved to promote mate selection, allowing individuals to focus their mating efforts on their preferred potential mates. After decades of effort, we now have a deeper understanding of the evolutionary value and dominant factors of IRA; however, little is known regarding the brain mechanisms related to its generation and evaluation. In this study, we combined classic event-related potential analysis with dipole-source analysis to examine electroencephalogram (EEG) signals generated while participants assessed their romantic interest in potential partners. The EEG signals were categorized into IRA-engendered and unengendered conditions based on behavioral indicators. We found that the faces elicited multiple late positivities, including P300 over the occipital-parietal regions and late positive potentials (LPPs) over the anterior regions. When compared to faces that did not engender IRA, faces that did engender IRA elicited (1) enhanced P300 over the parietal regions and heightened neural activity in the insula and cingulate cortex and (2) larger LPPs over the anterior regions and heightened neural activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, frontal eye field, visual cortex, and insula. These results suggest IRA is generated and evaluated by an extensive brain network involved in emotion processing, attention control, and social evaluations. Furthermore, these findings indicate that P300 and LPP may represent different cognitive processes during IRA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guangjie Yuan
- College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
- Chongqing Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Chongqing, China
- Institute of Affective Computing and Information Processing, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
- Chongqing Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Circuits and Intelligent Information Processing, Chongqing, China
| | - Guangyuan Liu
- College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
- Chongqing Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Chongqing, China
- Institute of Affective Computing and Information Processing, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
- Chongqing Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Circuits and Intelligent Information Processing, Chongqing, China
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
- Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Chongqing, China
| | - Dongtao Wei
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
- Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Chongqing, China
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He M, Zhang W, Deng J, He X. The effect of action observation on aesthetic preference of Chinese calligraphy: An fMRI study. Brain Behav 2021; 11:e2265. [PMID: 34152097 PMCID: PMC8413759 DOI: 10.1002/brb3.2265] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2020] [Revised: 06/01/2021] [Accepted: 06/09/2021] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION There is some evidence suggesting that movement perception has an effect on aesthetic experience. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the observation of creators' creative action (the process that calligraphers create calligraphy) remain unclear. METHODS In this study, participants were scanned with fMRI while performing aesthetic judgments on Chinese calligraphy images with/without action observation. RESULTS Behavioral results showed that both the work by the expert and novice with action observation were rated significantly higher on aesthetic preference than those without action observation. Imaging results showed that brain regions associated with perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processing were commonly activated by calligraphy images with/without action observation. However, compared with no action observation, aesthetic judgments of calligraphy images with action observation elicited stronger activation in the anterior cingulate cortex and the bilateral insula. Meanwhile, the superior parietal lobe which is associated with relevant inner action imitation, was also activated when observing the creator's action. CONCLUSIONS Brain activation in the superior parietal lobe, anterior cingulate cortex, and the bilateral insula indicated that observing the creative action of the creators contributed to the aesthetic experience of the observer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingcheng He
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education.,School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.,Center for the Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.,Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China
| | - Wei Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education.,School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.,Center for the Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.,Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China
| | - Jiamin Deng
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education.,School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.,Center for the Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.,Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China
| | - Xianyou He
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education.,School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.,Center for the Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.,Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China
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10
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Risso P, Maggioni E, Gallace A. A preliminary study on the effect of gender‐matched odours on the evaluation of emotional, cognitive and aesthetic characteristics of faces. FLAVOUR FRAG J 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/ffj.3653] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Paola Risso
- Department of Psychology Milan Center for Neuroscience University of Milano‐Bicocca Milan Italy
- Bicocca cEnter of Science and Technology for FOOD – BEST4FOOD Milano Italy
- Bicocca Mind and behavior Technological Center – MibTec Milano Italy
- Bicocca Center for Applied Psychology – BiCApP Milano Italy
| | | | - Alberto Gallace
- Department of Psychology Milan Center for Neuroscience University of Milano‐Bicocca Milan Italy
- Bicocca cEnter of Science and Technology for FOOD – BEST4FOOD Milano Italy
- Bicocca Mind and behavior Technological Center – MibTec Milano Italy
- Bicocca Center for Applied Psychology – BiCApP Milano Italy
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11
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Galli G, Miniussi C, Pellicciari MC. Transcranial electric stimulation as a neural interface to gain insight on human brain functions: current knowledge and future perspective. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2020; 17:4-14. [PMID: 32756871 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsaa099] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2020] [Revised: 05/12/2020] [Accepted: 07/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The use of brain-stimulation approaches in social and affective science has greatly increased over the last two decades. The interest in social factors has grown along with technological advances in brain research. Transcranial electric stimulation (tES) is a research tool that allows scientists to establish contributory causality between brain functioning and social behaviour, therefore deepening our understanding of the social mind. Preliminary evidence is also starting to demonstrate that tES, either alone or in combination with pharmacological or behavioural interventions, can alleviate the symptomatology of individuals with affective or social cognition disorders. This review offers an overview of the application of tES in the field of social and affective neuroscience. We discuss issues and challenges related to this application and suggest avenue for future basic and translational research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Galli
- Department of Psychology, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston Upon Thames, KT1 2EE, United Kingdom
| | - Carlo Miniussi
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences - CIMeC, University of Trento, Corso Bettini, 31, 38068 Rovereto, TN Italy
| | - Maria Concetta Pellicciari
- UniCamillus - Saint Camillus International University of Health Sciences, via di Sant'Alessandro 8, 00131, Rome, Italy
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Neural correlates of visual aesthetic appreciation: insights from non-invasive brain stimulation. Exp Brain Res 2019; 238:1-16. [PMID: 31768577 PMCID: PMC6957540 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-019-05685-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2018] [Accepted: 11/07/2019] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
During the last decade, non-invasive brain stimulation techniques have been increasingly employed in the field of neuroaesthetics research to shed light on the possible causal role of different brain regions contributing to aesthetic appreciation. Here, I review studies that have employed transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to investigate neurocognitive mechanisms mediating visual aesthetic appreciation for different stimuli categories (faces, bodies, paintings). The review first considers studies that have assessed the possible causal contribution of cortical regions in mediating aesthetic appreciation along the visual ventral and dorsal pathways (i.e., the extrastriate body area, the motion-sensitive region V5/MT+ , the lateral occipital complex and the posterior parietal cortex). It then considers TMS and tDCS studies that have targeted premotor and motor regions, as well as other areas involved in body and facial expression processing (such as the superior temporal sulcus and the somatosensory cortex) to assess their role in aesthetic evaluation. Finally, it discusses studies that have targeted medial and dorsolateral prefrontal regions leading to significant changes in aesthetic appreciation for both biological stimuli (faces and bodies) and artworks. Possible mechanisms mediating stimulation effects on aesthetic judgments are discussed. A final section considers both methodological limitations of the reviewed studies (including levels of statistical power and the need for further replication) and the future potential for non-invasive brain stimulation to significantly contribute to the understanding of the neural bases of visual aesthetic experiences.
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Cattaneo Z, Ferrari C, Schiavi S, Alekseichuk I, Antal A, Nadal M. Medial prefrontal cortex involvement in aesthetic appreciation of paintings: a tDCS study. Cogn Process 2019; 21:65-76. [DOI: 10.1007/s10339-019-00936-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2018] [Accepted: 10/10/2019] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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Perception and Deception: Human Beauty and the Brain. Behav Sci (Basel) 2019; 9:bs9040034. [PMID: 30934856 PMCID: PMC6523404 DOI: 10.3390/bs9040034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2019] [Revised: 03/19/2019] [Accepted: 03/25/2019] [Indexed: 01/31/2023] Open
Abstract
Human physical characteristics and their perception by the brain are under pressure by natural selection to optimize reproductive success. Men and women have different strategies to appear attractive and have different interests in identifying beauty in people. Nevertheless, men and women from all cultures agree on who is and who is not attractive, and throughout the world attractive people show greater acquisition of resources and greater reproductive success than others. The brain employs at least three modules, composed of interconnected brain regions, to judge facial attractiveness: one for identification, one for interpretation and one for valuing. Key elements that go into the judgment are age and health, as well as symmetry, averageness, face and body proportions, facial color and texture. These elements are all Costly Signals of reproductive fitness because they are difficult to fake. However, people deceive others using tricks such as coloring hair, cosmetics and clothing styles, while at the same time they also focus on detecting fakes. People may also deceive themselves, especially about their own attractiveness, and use self-signally actions to demonstrate to themselves their own true value. The neuroscience of beauty is best understood by considering the evolutionary pressures to maximize reproductive fitness.
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Ferrari C, Nadal M, Schiavi S, Vecchi T, Cela-Conde CJ, Cattaneo Z. The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex mediates the interaction between moral and aesthetic valuation: a TMS study on the beauty-is-good stereotype. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2018; 12:707-717. [PMID: 28158864 PMCID: PMC5460046 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsx002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2016] [Accepted: 01/16/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Attractive individuals are perceived as possessing more positive personal traits than unattractive individuals. This reliance on aesthetic features to infer moral character suggests a close link between aesthetic and moral valuation. Here we aimed to investigate the neural underpinnings of the interaction between aesthetic and moral valuation by combining transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with a priming paradigm designed to assess the Beauty-is-Good stereotype. Participants evaluated the trustworthiness of a series of faces (targets), each of which was preceded by an adjective describing desirable, undesirable, or neutral aesthetic qualities (primes). TMS was applied between prime and target to interfere with activity in two regions known to be involved in aesthetic and moral valuation: the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC, a core region in social cognition) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC, critical in decision making). Our results showed that when TMS was applied over vertex (control) and over the dlPFC, participants judged faces as more trustworthy when preceded by positive than by negative aesthetic primes (as also shown in two behavioral experiments). However, when TMS was applied over the dmPFC, primes had no effect on trustworthiness judgments. A second Experiment corroborated this finding. Our results suggest that mPFC plays a causal role linking moral and aesthetic valuation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chiara Ferrari
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Marcos Nadal
- Human Evolution and Cognition Group (EvoCog), University of the Balearic Islands and IFISC, Associated Unit to CSIC, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
| | - Susanna Schiavi
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Tomaso Vecchi
- Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.,Brain Connectivity Center, C. Mondino National Neurological Institute, Pavia, Italy
| | - Camilo J Cela-Conde
- Human Evolution and Cognition Group (EvoCog), University of the Balearic Islands and IFISC, Associated Unit to CSIC, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
| | - Zaira Cattaneo
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.,Brain Connectivity Center, C. Mondino National Neurological Institute, Pavia, Italy
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Bognár A, Csete G, Németh M, Csibri P, Kincses TZ, Sáry G. Transcranial Stimulation of the Orbitofrontal Cortex Affects Decisions about Magnocellular Optimized Stimuli. Front Neurosci 2017; 11:234. [PMID: 28491018 PMCID: PMC5405140 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00234] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2016] [Accepted: 04/07/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Visual categorization plays an important role in fast and efficient information processing; still the neuronal basis of fast categorization has not been established yet. There are two main hypotheses known; both agree that primary, global impressions are based on the information acquired through the magnocellular pathway (MC). It is unclear whether this information is available through the MC that provides information (also) for the ventral pathway or through top-down mechanisms by connections between the dorsal pathway and the ventral pathway via the frontal cortex. To clarify this, a categorization task was performed by 48 subjects; they had to make decisions about objects' sizes. We created stimuli specific to the magno- and parvocellular pathway (PC) on the basis of their spatial frequency content. Transcranial direct-current stimulation was used to assess the role of frontal areas, a target of the MC. Stimulation did not bias the accuracy of decisions when stimuli optimized for the PC were used. In the case of stimuli optimized for the MC, anodal stimulation improved the subjects' accuracy in the behavioral test, while cathodal stimulation impaired accuracy. Our results support the hypothesis that fast visual categorization processes rely on top-down mechanisms that promote fast predictions through coarse information carried by MC via the orbitofrontal cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Bognár
- Department of Physiology, University of SzegedSzeged, Hungary
| | - Gergő Csete
- Department of Neurology, University of SzegedSzeged, Hungary
- Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Therapy, University of SzegedSzeged, Hungary
| | - Margit Németh
- Department of Physiology, University of SzegedSzeged, Hungary
| | - Péter Csibri
- Department of Physiology, University of SzegedSzeged, Hungary
| | | | - Gyula Sáry
- Department of Physiology, University of SzegedSzeged, Hungary
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Dynamic Changes in Amygdala Psychophysiological Connectivity Reveal Distinct Neural Networks for Facial Expressions of Basic Emotions. Sci Rep 2017; 7:45260. [PMID: 28345642 PMCID: PMC5366904 DOI: 10.1038/srep45260] [Citation(s) in RCA: 105] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2016] [Accepted: 02/23/2017] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The quest to characterize the neural signature distinctive of different basic emotions has recently come under renewed scrutiny. Here we investigated whether facial expressions of different basic emotions modulate the functional connectivity of the amygdala with the rest of the brain. To this end, we presented seventeen healthy participants (8 females) with facial expressions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and emotional neutrality and analyzed amygdala's psychophysiological interaction (PPI). In fact, PPI can reveal how inter-regional amygdala communications change dynamically depending on perception of various emotional expressions to recruit different brain networks, compared to the functional interactions it entertains during perception of neutral expressions. We found that for each emotion the amygdala recruited a distinctive and spatially distributed set of structures to interact with. These changes in amygdala connectional patters characterize the dynamic signature prototypical of individual emotion processing, and seemingly represent a neural mechanism that serves to implement the distinctive influence that each emotion exerts on perceptual, cognitive, and motor responses. Besides these differences, all emotions enhanced amygdala functional integration with premotor cortices compared to neutral faces. The present findings thus concur to reconceptualise the structure-function relation between brain-emotion from the traditional one-to-one mapping toward a network-based and dynamic perspective.
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Cazzato V, Mele S, Urgesi C. Different contributions of visual and motor brain areas during liking judgments of same- and different-gender bodies. Brain Res 2016; 1646:98-108. [PMID: 27235869 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2016.05.047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2015] [Revised: 05/17/2016] [Accepted: 05/25/2016] [Indexed: 01/15/2023]
Abstract
Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that body aesthetic appreciation involves the activation of both visual and motor areas, supporting a role of sensorimotor embodiment in aesthetic processing. Causative evidence, however, that neural activity in these areas is crucial for reliable aesthetic body appreciation has so far provided only for extrastriate body area (EBA), while the functional role played by premotor regions remained less clear. Here, we applied short trains of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over bilateral dorsal premotor cortex (dPMC) and EBA during liking judgments of female and male bodies varying in weight and implied motion. We found that both dPMC and EBA are necessary for aesthetic body appreciation, but their relative contribution depends on the model's gender. While dPMC-rTMS decreased the liking judgments of same-, but not of different-gender models, EBA-rTMS increased the liking judgments of different-, but not of same-gender models. Relative contributions of motor and visual areas may reflect processing of diverse aesthetic properties, respectively implied motion vs. body form, and/or greater sensorimotor embodiment of same- vs. different-gender bodies. Results suggest that aesthetic body processing is subserved by a network of motor and visual areas, whose relative contribution may depend on the specific stimulus and task.
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Affiliation(s)
- V Cazzato
- Dipartimento di Lingue e letterature, Comunicazione, Formazione e Società, Università di Udine, Udine, Italy; Scientific Institute (IRCCS) Eugenio Medea, Polo Friuli Venezia Giulia, San Vito al tagliamento, Pordenone, Italy; School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK.
| | - S Mele
- Dipartimento di Lingue e letterature, Comunicazione, Formazione e Società, Università di Udine, Udine, Italy; Scientific Institute (IRCCS) Eugenio Medea, Polo Friuli Venezia Giulia, San Vito al tagliamento, Pordenone, Italy
| | - C Urgesi
- Dipartimento di Lingue e letterature, Comunicazione, Formazione e Società, Università di Udine, Udine, Italy; Scientific Institute (IRCCS) Eugenio Medea, Polo Friuli Venezia Giulia, San Vito al tagliamento, Pordenone, Italy; School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, UK.
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Shaping and reshaping the aesthetic brain: Emerging perspectives on the neurobiology of embodied aesthetics. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2016; 62:56-68. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.12.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 64] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2015] [Revised: 11/10/2015] [Accepted: 12/10/2015] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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