Unveiling the relation between aesthetic experiences and attention through a cross-experiment validation of their processing biomarkers

A centuries-old tradition encompassing philosophy, psychology and artistic practice describes aesthetic experiences as characterised by a special state of heightened attention towards external stimuli (i.e., an “aesthetic attitude”). In recent years, this view has motivated wide-ranging claims about the nature of our aesthetic encounters and the cognitive benefits of exposure to art. Despite sustained efforts from a growing stream of interdisciplinary research, however, it is still unclear whether aesthetic experiences can be systematically linked to observable attentional enhancements. In this study we address this long-standing question using electroencephalography and advanced machine learning techniques. We performed a series of EEG experiments measuring brain activity elicited by synthetic and natural images during an aesthetic (beauty judgements) and a pragmatic (symmetry judgements) task. Visual-evoked potentials and neural oscillations were used to assess whether the aesthetic tasks induce attentional enhancements. In line with our hypotheses, the power of alpha and beta pre-stimulus oscillations significantly decreased in the aesthetic vs pragmatic task. Furthermore, larger Late Positive Potential and N170 (the latter for natural images only) were found in the aesthetic vs pragmatic task. Accordingly, machine learning analyses demonstrated that pre-stimulus neural oscillations and N170 were systematically able to predict the type of task. Overall, our results highlight the presence of a perceptual processing enhancement and a heightened state of attention in aesthetic contexts. The upshot is a clearer understanding of the dynamics and neural underpinnings of our aesthetic experiences.