If you're having trouble understanding a particular piece of art, new research reveals that a zap to your brain may put things in perspective.
Researchers from the University of Milan Bicocca in Italy showed a number of paintings to 12 people and asked them to rate the images before and after they were given a transcranial direct current stimulation, in which an electrode delivers "a small current to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) - a brain area involved in processing emotion - or a mock treatment in which no current was used," New Scientist reports.
After receiving the direct current stimulation, participants rated the classical images more highly than they had before which depicted real-world scenarios such as landscapes and images of people, though there was no difference to the ratings of abstract art. The researchers suspect that the brain processes abstract images using areas other than the DLPFC.
"The effect of stimulation was subtle, but still pretty remarkable considering the participants were basically just putting a battery on their head," Anjan Chatterjee, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told New Scientist. "Stimulating the DLPFC may improve your mood - like looking through rose-colored glasses."
Chatterjee hopes that DLPFC stimulation can help people suffering from anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure.
"The study of art and aesthetic experience involves difficult and contested concepts," John Hyman, professor of aesthetics at the University of Oxford, said to New Scientist. "Neuroscience can't help us to understand these things unless it is combined with philosophy, in other words, with the study of these concepts."
The latest study was published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
