Empirically Aesthetic? MPI Researchers Weigh In

It's fascinating to read about big concepts like philosophy and beauty, but what is it like to study them in your daily job? Malika Renz sat down with researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics to find out.

Pauline Larrouy-Maestri

Pauline Larrouy-Maestri, you have a very diverse background – can you tell us how you got into neuroaesthetics?
Yes, I studied music, psychology and pedagogy and worked as a musician and a speech therapist. My PhD was in cognitive psychology, on the singing voice which is of course linked to aesthetics. But aesthetics wasn't my main focus then – it's more of a means of looking at how people interact with their environment, at auditory perception and processing. I've been working on this as a post-doc here at the MPI for 3 years now.

How do you start with something as vague and mysterious as beauty and end up learning about perception and processing mechanisms?
Suppose you start with the question: what makes something beautiful? Is it the same as being somehow correct? Or interesting? Recently, we've been working on pitch accuracy, so let's take that as an example. Beautiful singing voices or melodies are often associated with being "correct". Everyone can hear if a performance is in or out of tune – musicians, non-musicians, male, female, young and old – people usually agree on this. So what is it that makes all of us feel that one tone is correct and the other is not? It's hard to put a label on this, it just sounds right or wrong. Somehow, people must become sensitive to the criteria for a correct melody without ever being aware of it! And we know this holds true not only for music but also for other domains – we learn rules and we apply them to make an aesthetic judgment without even noticing.

But if we don't even notice it – how are we learning those rules?
The brain is made for taking in stimuli and building rules, and thus knowledge from it. It's similar to how children learn a language, a totally implicit process. To understand language you have to parse the auditory signal – you need to cut it into sensible units and concatenate them in a meaningful way. The same parsing and integrating of course happens in music appreciation as well and it is this process which I am interested in. Aesthetics is my vehicle to study how we learn auditory processing, what the minimal units and the rules of meaningful integration are.

How can you research music appreciation in the lab?
Me, I am doing psychophysics: I manipulate stimuli, I invite people to the lab and ask them to listen to these stimuli. We change single features of tones and ask something like “Which of these sounds is more in tune?”. The resulting data can tell us what differences are perceived and what magnitude of change is needed. That alone reveals a lot about the structure of sounds, its components and their relative importance. This was how we found out that the smallest meaningful units are not single notes –  it's the beginning and the end of a a note that matters. Once you find these units and confirm their discerning value, you can play with them: find out how the changes influence the perceived agreeableness or pitch accuracy. And whether people even agree on the direction of effect of a specific parameter.

Pardon my impoliteness, but apart from being fascinating, what use is there in all this?
Aesthetic appreciation of course is very fundamental. Many things are related to what you see and hear, all around you. Interaction with people is about tastes, preferences, about your appreciation of the environment. We all function with that all the time. But we don't understand the processes behind it very well: we know that the pleasure circuitry is based on automatic processes. For perceiving something as beautiful, however, indirect pathways, such as mediation by thought, are needed. Simply knowing how perception works has a clinical application. If someone has a speech impairment or a difficulty to understand language, is it because they cannot parse? Cannot concatenate? Didn't learn the appropriate rules? As soon as we have a working model we can tick which box is malfunctioning and focus training or treatment there.

To save the best for last: what was your personal research highlight?
I showed that we are all musicians. Let me explain. For decades, we had in the scientific literature a separation between musicians and non-musicians. It is categorical, but the idea has been around for a while – and it's nonsense! Take an opera performance. Who goes to the opera? No one does! Only a very small part of the general population, mostly educated people with a musical background or interest. And musicians agree to a very great extent on their judgment of what makes a beautiful opera voice. But here is what I found: people who have no idea what an opera voice is or should be apply the same criteria and come to the same conclusions. So, without ever going to the opera, without any explicit input, we build a representation that creates a link – between you and me, between people who are privileged enough to enjoy operas and those who aren't. Our learning mechanisms are fundamentally the same and they take whatever they can get from the environment.


 The interview was conducted by Malika Renz, MSc Student MedNeuro

Does Beauty Lie in the Face?

As the saying goes, ‘beauty is only skin-deep’. However, many times we cannot help but fall for an attractive face: the first impressions of a person do create an impact on our minds. What is considered ‘beautiful’? Are there features of faces across cultures that people find more attractive?

Facial Symmetry

According to researchers, a face is perceived as beautiful if it is symmetrical and represents the average traits of the population. Our eyes recognize symmetrical faces with similar proportions on left and right side of the face. The quest to define a golden standard for a facial feature - for example, the size or shape of the eyes or lips - dates back to antiquity. The Ancient Greeks believed that the essence of beauty lied in the golden ratio of 1:1.618. More recently, researchers have discovered that people find a female face attractive when the distance between the eyes is just under half of the width of the face. They also found that the eye-to-mouth distance should be just over one-third of the height of the face. These two ratios have been termed as the ‘golden ratios’, which correspond to that of an average face [1].

Example of faces with different length and width ratios. Boxes mark the optimal length and width ratios that people found attractive [1].

 

What is the reason behind the choice of such features? This can be explained by two existing theories: one is an evolutionary aspect where humans tend to choose healthy mates with physical characteristics resembling the average population. The other is a cognitive aspect where, due to repeated exposures, we tend to prefer prototypical facial features which are easier to process.

Golden ratio: can beauty be quantified? 

So, are facial preferences based on nature or nurture? Do we have a preference for certain faces as babies? The answer seems to be: yes! Babies of 2-3 months tend to look at attractive faces for longer time than unattractive ones [2]. The perception of attractiveness is also affected by familiarity: Hazda people, hunter-gatherers from Tanzania who have not been exposed to European faces, found the average face of a Hazda more attractive than an European face [3]. But spatial aspects of the face are not the only determinants of attractiveness - sexually dimorphic features like full lips and longer eyelashes also influence what people find attractive [1 ].

The Power of a Smile

A smile has more powerful influence on people’s perception than facial features or makeup, according to psychologists. People with genuine smiles were seen as healthier and more attractive by virtue of being optimistic and cheerful than people with blank expressions [4,5]. Thus, the secret to healthy appearance and being attractive? Smile!

For the evolutionary basis of beauty, check out Helge's article on page 5. Given the fact that there is an innate bias inside all of us towards 'beautiful' faces, it is even more important for us to think twice before making judgements on other people based just on their appearances!

How an average American woman will look like in 50 years
(Courtesy: National Geographic)

What will future humans look like?

It has been predicted that globalization, cultural diffusion and interracial marriages will eventually homogenize the human population, averaging out more and more people's traits such as hair, eye color, facial features, and eye shape. Dominant traits will be expressed more than recessive traits (which need not one but two copies of the gene to be expressed). In other words, we are going to become a huge amalgamated race!

by Aarti Swaminathan, PhD Student AG Schmitz

 [1] Pallett P.M, Link S, and Lee K. Vision Res. 2010.
 [2] Hoss R.A. and Langlois J.H. The Development of Face Processing in Infancy and Early Childhood: Current Perspectives. 2003.
 [3] Apicella C.L et al. Perception, 2007.
 [4] Golle et al. Cognition and Emotion, 2013
 [5] Jones A.L et al. Visual Cognition, 2017.

The Weird and Wonderful World of Body Modifications

Body modification is the deliberate alteration of one's physical appearance. It is the wilful action that produces a permanent or semi-permanent modification to the body that is not normally found in nature. 

In the last 30 years, body modifications have experienced a resurgence and increase in popularity, spanning a wider range of social classes and including a long list of practices. From the simple haircut and earrings to the piercing of lips, nipples and genitals, from eyeball bleaching to subdermal horns or bars, or implantation of bio-polymers to augment the size of breast and buttocks; from anabolic steroid injections for bodybuilding, to extreme fasting- all are examples of altering one's appearance over time [1]. Importantly, many of these practices are no longer related to cultural traditions and have become commercialized and legitimized by society. They are especially influenced by media that dictates the current ideals of beauty and fashion. The perception of beauty and morphing the body to obtain it, however, has evolved over time; and with it have also evolved the techniques and tastes for how to modify the body [2].

A Brief History of Body Modifications

History abounds with examples of body modification. Culturally imposed body alterations have been performed for centuries with strong religious or socio-economical belief. The aristocratic class of Mayan civilisation used to compress the skulls of new born babies. Their cranium would be elongated into a shape believed to resemble that of the gods. In China, the feet of young girls were bound together tightly to reshape them into petit stubs to mimic a lotus flower. These women could hardly walk or work, and as such belonged to the privileged high-classes. Many other cultures, from Japan to the islands of Samoa, have empowered their sense of tribal community by tattooing their bodies and faces with symbols of affiliation. While many of these practices were supposed to enhance beauty or infuse power to the beholder, other alteration included the forceful branding, tattooing or scarification of slaves and war prisoners to symbolise their diminished identity or their status as objectified property [3].

While many of these practices have disappeared, other dehumanising and disfiguring operations, such as female genital mutilation, are still conducted to date. Although all the above examples can be considered forms of body modifications, today the term encompasses a different and largely less harmful set of transformative practices.

A collection of bodymodifications, source: Wikimedia Commons

What Drives Body Modification Today?

The definition of body modification today is based firstly on the concept of voluntarism. It is a practice undertaken by active subjects, often after long consideration of the results and side effects. A second distinction must also be made between voluntary body modification and that due to medical purposes. These include all operations that are required and performed by the medical establishment. Prosthetic fittings, gender reassignment and cosmetic surgery, therefore, while broadly falling under the idea of a physical modification, should not be considered as such [4].

Tattoos and piercings: a style statement

 

Body modification, according to the community that endorses and promotes it today, means piercing, tattooing and cutting - in its extreme forms. Simply piercing one's ears is considered ornamental rather than transformative. Bearers of body modifications sit through hours of excruciatingly painful procedures to obtain what they want. The reasons behind extensive remodelling of the self have been the subject of much investigation - and are, indeed, most fascinating to understand from a psychological point of view. A sense of belonging to subcultural or religious groups or a demonstration of resistance against society are strong motivations driving body alteration. However, the primary force driving the desire to modify some part of the body is embellishment. The transformation is seen as a work of art, a novel quality that renders one more beautiful. Through this piece, the bearer also establishes their identity. They are special and exhibit their distinctive and unique trait to prove it. Reshaping some part of the body may also involve an act of catharsis: either to forget something or to never forget it, and it becomes part of one´s personal narrative of life. The pain felt during the actual operations is another common reason to undergo transformative operations. Testing one's limit, enduring the hardness, feeling the endorphins rush: all generate a sense of pleasure and reward alongside the physical pain, and a potential sense of atonement. Finally, reckless impulsivity also often leads to body modification [5]. But would you not regret waking up with the Chinese symbol for ‘soup’ tattooed on your arm?

Body Modification of the Future?

Body modification today is enjoying a rise in popularity, promoted by tattoo conferences and websites dedicated exclusively to body alteration (for those adventurous, check out BME.com). But what could be the body modifications of the future? Some college students are experimenting with subdermal implants of magnets to perceive the energy fields of metal objects - a sort of sixth sense [6]. But while the power to feel when a mobile phone is charged might be more useful than attractive, will the body modification community accept other forms of aesthetic transformation or enhancement? For example those that could be moulded by genetic modification? It's a brave new world.

by Maria Lucia Pigazzini, PhD Student AG Kirstein

[1] Featherstone, Body and Society, 1999

[2] Adams, Sociologial Prespectives, 2009

[3] Rubin, Marks of civilization, 1988

[4] Lane, Sociology Compass, 2017

[5] Wohlrab et al., Body Image, 2007

[6] Wired Gear http://bit.ly/2soFHnh, 2006

Beauty and the Art of Perception

Confucius once said wisely “Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it”. It is interesting how Confucius thought beauty is perceived: with the eyes. What are people's most common answers when asked about what beauty means to them? 

Initially, they think about physical attributes, especially of other humans. This probably is a consequence of the media’s focus on what a perfect body or face should look like. This especially seems to resonate with teenagers. Ideally, the older you get, the more beauty is also seen in subtle and, as many would probably agree, more valuable things of life. Beauty can mean a warm hot chocolate after a full day of skiing, the rewarding view from the top of a mountain after an energy-sapping five-hour hike or merely the joy a mother feels when she sees her child smile at her while going crazy on a trampoline. Beauty is conveyed by all different modes of perception: looking at something, but also touching, tasting or listening to it.

The “Aesthetic System”
In the early phase, research in neuroaesthetics restricted itself to visual perception. For example, scientists tried to assess the physical properties of human faces in order to find the basic neural mechanisms underlying our brain's decision that something is beautiful [1, 2]. Key features are average, symmetry and hormones. The first factor that contributes to beauty is average, because it harbors greater genetic diversity and adaptability to the environment. The second factor is symmetry, because developmental abnormalities are often associated with asymmetry, while symmetry is an indicator for health. And the third factor are hormones, because high level of estrogen and testosterone play important roles in shaping features that people find attractive (when we confine ourselves to heterosexual norms).

Picture: By Hector Salazar

I personally think that these features are what describes attractiveness and are partly evolutionary pre-determinations of how we subconsciously choose our life partners. Anyway, let us have a look what happens in the brain: Attractive faces activate a network of areas that range from the back of our brain to the frontal lobes. An area called fusiform gyrus, which is part of our visual cortex and temporal lobe, as well as the lateral occipital complex in the back of the brain are activated. The fusiform gyrus is especially attuned to process faces, while the occipital complex is especially attuned to process objects. In addition, attractive faces activate parts of our reward and pleasure center located in the front and deep in the brain. These areas are the ventral striatum, the orbifrontal cortex and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex [3].

Beauty is in the brain of the beholder

Since the field of neuroaesthetics is a new but rapidly expanding area, recent studies cover also other art forms, like music and performing art [4], as well as other senses, like smell, taste, hearing and touch. One consistently activated region in response to beautiful stimuli in neuroimaging studies was the anterior insula [5]. This small neural area that sits deep within the lateral sulcus of the cerebral cortex is implicated in a wide range of subjective feelings based on interoception, from cigarette craving to maternal love and, as the term interoception implies, integrates bodily sensations. Since tasting a favorite meal, listening to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 or looking at visually appealing art have all effects on the body, it is not surprising that a region that is meant to give feedback on how much an experience satisfies the physiological needs can also be part of an “aesthetic system” in the brain.

Things that Matter
Interestingly, the sense of beauty seems to require activation in the brain’s reward system. Thus, the brain’s output is a pleased feeling that we sense when we perceive beauty. Sadly, we choose quite often to be blind to beauty because of distraction, worry and daily stress. But it would be very beneficial for each of us to actively predispose ourselves to embrace beauty. Whatever it means for the individual, beauty means happiness at the end. And the good thing is, you decide what’s beautiful, because - if you allow me to adjust the popular saying - beauty is in the brain of the beholder.


[1] Rhodes, Annu. Rev. Psychol., 2006
[2] http://bit.ly/2lYvDJe
[3] Kocsor et. al, Socioaffect Neurosci Psychol, 2013
[4] Cinzia & Vittorio,Curr Opin Neurobiol, 2009
[5] http://bit.ly/2lYvDJe

by Anahita Poshtiban, PhD Student, AG Plested
This article originally appeared March 2018 in Vol 11, Issue 01, "Beauty and the Brain"