Perhaps the difference is between applied research and basic research? With applied research you are looking for something useful ... and I agree I see nothing useful here ...yet. With basic research you are collecting data that may later be used in an applied setting. Basic research: This mold just killed my bacteria science experiment drat!!!! Applied research I wonder if this mold would kill other bacteria and not hurt people? At this point all I see is mold ; ) Evidently they are looking for an objective test to determine if something is art or just profane ... Good Luck! On the other hand... pictures of Marilyn Monroe (now dead ) seem to be turning into art? Maybe there is a linear relationship?...the longer dead the more artistic? That might be interesting. While if she were still alive...porn? Necromancy aside that is... 

I agree with all your points, Simon.

Christopher,

"Perhaps the difference is between applied research and basic research? "

I would say not. This 'experiment' is riddled with unexamined faulty assumptions. The question of what makes something aesthetic is a cultural question, and not a neuroscience question. The goals of this work are in the same dubious category as seeking the gay gene or the god neuron.

Most neuroaesthetic research is stuck in a C20th internalist/cogntivist frame, and it was this frame that caused the demise of first generation artificial intelligence, in the 1980s. Hence my reference to FAI. Brains (if you follow Edelman), and certainly minds, are formed by cultures.

Long ago, I used to like bluegrass music, now I hate it. Did my bluegrass neuron die? As a kid I did not like olives. Now i like them - did I grow an olive neuron? Without doubt, there are useful questions to ask about the behavior of the brain under different stimuli,

The question of what makes something aesthetic is a cultural question, and not a neuroscience question.... interesting.  A matter of perspective perhaps Nature vs. Nurture etc. whereas the reductionist would argue that we are nothing more than our neuronal circuits firing (D.O. Hebb) and when they stop we stop. From this perspective then... everything reduces to the brain. As the brain learns it's physical morphology does alter and these alterations can be recorded on MRI's and fMRIs. This might indicate that the foot prints of culture leave indelible tracks across our cerebrums and perhaps this is what the investigators were looking for.... in a premature manner hence more basic than applied.  Regardless, I agree human history is full of premature faulty assumptions....and I don't see this changing anytime soon ; ) Enjoyed the chat.

@ Napoleon

"Neuroaesthetics deals with collective examination and experiencing of aspect of an object"

according to whom?

Napoleon

I find you interjection ill conceived, and your "definition of neuroaesthetics  incoherent, ungrammatical and simply worthless - clipped as it was from the wikipedia definition.

And by the way, your statement "... both Neuroaesthetics and Fundamental Attribution Error are forms of assessment and judgement in aesthetics. " is also simply wrong. I suggest you look up "Fundamental Attribution Error"

A quick search reveals this paper which seems to do a better job describing what the field really is -

http://impulse.appstate.edu/sites/impulse.appstate.edu/files/McClure%20and%20Siegel_0.pdf

For that matter, the paper discussed in the question starting this thread seems to describe the methods and goals of the field. I should, of course, have linked to that paper - you can find it here

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22121344

and here

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51838063_Specificity_of_Esthetic_Experience_for_Artworks_An_fMRI_Study

Article Specificity of Esthetic Experience for Artworks: An fMRI Study

Simon,

Your response to Di Dio et al, "Specificity of Esthetic Experience for Artworks: An fMRI Study", is understandable and makes valid points along a certain path, but I'm afraid that path has nothing to do with what Di Dio et al are presenting in their very narrow fMRI finding.  They are, in an extremely restricted experiment, reporting a "hedonic response" to photos of sculpture vs. human male subject photos. Their finding is that there is a difference in hedonic response.  That is all.  Unless you are very familiar with the literature surrounding psychological research in esthetic experience, Di Dio et al 's findings aren't going to make much sense or fit into the path (paradigm) that you are following in your presented argument/response. I might suggest as a beginning, in the hope of beginning to clear up the dissonance, a paper such as Paul Silvia's "Emotional responses to art: from collation and arousal to cognition and emotion," where he talks about processing fluency and the the appraisal method, which will give some idea of where Di Dio et al are coming from.  The nature of hedonic response and of esthetics is greatly contested, as aspects of human response to stimuli are precisely or discreetly detectable in a direct, linear causal fashion or in any universal manner (you touch on this problem in your own way in your objections). In any event, discussions about esthetics is really an impossible task, because any definition of esthetics is beyond a broad acceptance. It reminds me of the saying, "The idea of God is too big for one religion"--there are too many people (from philosophers to psychologists to artists, etc.), each of whom has their own ideas, in their own historical time, to find any consensus on Art, taste, beauty, and so on.  In that sense, at least, Di Dio et al are only suggesting, in a very simple and precise fMRI way, that black and white photos of sculpture evoked a different hedonistic response than black and white photos of human subjects.  And, that when the proportions of the sculptures and the human subjects were altered, the hedonistic response was measurably lower.  That is, the hedonic "positive" or "pleasurable" fMRI signal was lower.  I would only caution that this finding is very specific regarding neural signalling within the experiment's parameters, and  doesn't say much of anything about esthetics, per se.

(I feel it's perhaps necessary to add that I have an MFA, with a major in sculpture, and an Interdisciplinary PhD in a social science consortium, and the MFA did not prepare me in any way for the questions or research that scientists like Di Dio et al are pursuing.  It was only when I did the PhD that I was forced to enter that particular science paradigm and had to adapt over a number of years to a very different mindset, which is not one natural to the art world in general. There has also evolved a consensus in the contemporary and avant garde art community that beauty and esthetics are no longer relevant directives.  I would argue that an esthetic is a person's Weltanschauung, or worldview, that reflects everything in what Bourdieu calls our habitus, and therefore modulates or directs every aspect of our intake and agency, and is clearly not restricted to whatever Art with a capital A is about.)

Best in thought,

Stephen

Stephen

 thanks for your note, I appreciate it.

"Di Dio et al are only suggesting, in a very simple and precise fMRI way, that black and white photos of sculpture evoked a different hedonistic response than black and white photos of human subjects."

"They are, in an extremely restricted experiment, reporting a "hedonic response" to photos of sculpture vs. human male subject photos. Their finding is that there is a difference in hedonic response. "

So nice, you said it twice. And my response, without intending any insult to you, is 'whoopi do!'

"That is all."

In my opinion that is  very small 'all'. You might as well use fMRI to detect if people like chocolate. Or if I feel pain when I put my finger in a flame. Science, no doubt, often proceeds incrementally, and precision and clarity are required. My point, like yours, is that the responses of the  experimental subjects must be so thoroughly culturally constructed and various, that such research tells us close to nothing.

Yes, we might agree that they have found brain activity differences between subject viewing B+W reproductions of classical greek sculptures and B+W photos of two dudes in underwear. My response is" so what?

"I would only caution that this finding is very specific regarding neural signalling within the experiment's parameters, and doesn't say much of anything about esthetics, per se."

amen.

"Unless you are very familiar with the literature surrounding psychological research in esthetic experience,..." The general point of my post was to make the observation that research like this, good science though it might be, and contributing to 'knowledge' as one might assert, in fact does not contribute anything useful to conversations about the nature of aesthetic experience, because, from the point of view of sophisticated critical analysis, its fundamental premises are faulty in that there are too many variables, and any scientist knows that, within the scientific paradigm, one needs to constrain one's variables if one hopes to derive 'knowledge'.