A Neuroaesthetic Study of the Cerebral Perception and Appreciation of Paintings by Titian Using EEG and Eyetracker Measurements

摘要

The neuroelectrical and the eye-movements activities were collected in a group of 27 healthy subjects during their visit of a fine arts gallery displaying twenty paintings of Titian. Evaluation of the appreciation of the paintings was performed by using the neuroelectrical approach-withdrawal index (AW). AW index was estimated for two groups of ten paintings of Titian: one group was related to religious matter while the second was related to portraits. In addition, it was compared the population AW indexes estimated in the first 10 seconds of the observation across all the selected paintings with the AW index estimated in the last 40 seconds of the observation. The number and the total duration (in seconds) spent on the eye fixations performed by the subjects during the observation of the paintings was also analyzed. Results showed that the AW index was significantly higher during the observation of portraits than during the observation of the religious subjects (p<0.007). Interestingly, the grand average AW index estimated in the first 20 seconds of the observation of the paintings remains highly correlated with the AW index evaluated for the second part of the data (from 20 s to one minute) for all the 20 paintings examined (r = 0.82, p<0.0001). The number of eye fixations in the first 10 seconds of observation of the paintings that were most appreciated are significantly higher than the number of eye fixations for paintings that subjects did not like (p<0.019). Moreover, the total time spent on fixations for paintings that were liked by the subjects was significantly higher than the time spent on paintings that were not liked (p<0.036). Taken together, such results seem to suggest that the neuroelectrical correlates of the perception of "good" or "bad" paintings are generated in our brain within the first 10-20 seconds from the initial exposition of the subject to the painting.