On the Role of Mentalizing Processes in Aesthetic Appreciation: An ERP Study.

ABSTRACT: We used event-related brain potentials to explore the impact of mental perspective taking on processes of aesthetic appreciation of visual art. Participants (non-experts) were first presented with information about the life and attitudes of a fictitious artist. Subsequently, they were cued trial-wise to make an aesthetic judgment regarding an image depicting a piece of abstract art either from their own perspective or from the imagined perspective of the fictitious artist [i.e., theory of mind (ToM) condition]. Positive self-referential judgments were made more quickly and negative self-referential judgments were made more slowly than the corresponding judgments from the imagined perspective. Event-related potential analyses revealed significant differences between the two tasks both withi

SUBMITTER: Beudt S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4643139 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature