Silveri Maria Caterina, Ferrante Ilaria, Brita Anna Clelia, Rossi Paola, Liperoti Rosa, Mammarella Federica, Bernabei Roberto, Marini Chiarelli Maria Vittoria, De Luca Martina
Centre for Alzheimer's Disease and Cognitive Disorders, Department of Geriatrics, Neurosciences and Orthopedics, Catholic University, Rome, Italy.
Medicine of the Aging, Department of Geriatrics, Neurosciences and Orthopedics, Catholic University, Rome, Italy.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2015;45(2):483-94. doi: 10.3233/JAD-141434.
The aesthetic experience, in particular the experience of beauty in the visual arts, should have neural correlates in the human brain. Neuroesthetics is principally implemented by functional studies in normal subjects, but the neuropsychology of the aesthetic experience, that is, the impact of brain damage on the appreciation of works of art, is a neglected field. Here, 16 mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease patients and 15 caregivers expressed their preference on 16 works of art (eight representational and eight abstract) during programmed visits to an art gallery. A week later, all subjects expressed a preference rate on reproductions of the same works presented in the gallery. Both patients and caregivers were consistent in assigning preference ratings, and in patients consistency was independent of the ability to recognize the works on which the preference rate had been given in an explicit memory task. Caregivers performed at ceiling in the memory task. Both patients and caregivers assigned higher preference ratings for representational than for abstract works and preference consistency was comparable in representational and abstract works. Furthermore, in the memory task, patients did not recognize better artworks they had assigned higher preference ratings to, suggesting that emotional stimuli (as presumably visual works of art are) cannot enhance declarative memory in this pathology. Our data, which were gathered in an ecological context and with real-world stimuli, confirm previous findings on the stability of aesthetic preference in patients with Alzheimer's disease and on the independence of aesthetic preference from cognitive abilities such as memory.
审美体验，尤其是视觉艺术中的美感体验，在人类大脑中应该有神经关联。神经美学主要通过对正常受试者的功能研究来实现，但审美体验的神经心理学，即脑损伤对艺术作品鉴赏的影响，却是一个被忽视的领域。在此，16名轻度至中度阿尔茨海默病患者和15名照料者在按计划参观艺术画廊期间，对16件艺术作品（8件具象作品和8件抽象作品）表达了他们的偏好。一周后，所有受试者对画廊中展示的相同作品的复制品给出了偏好率。患者和照料者在给出偏好评分时是一致的，并且在患者中，一致性与在明确记忆任务中识别给出偏好率的作品的能力无关。照料者在记忆任务中表现出色。患者和照料者对具象作品的偏好评分均高于抽象作品，并且具象作品和抽象作品的偏好一致性相当。此外，在记忆任务中，患者并没有更好地识别他们给出较高偏好评分的艺术作品，这表明情感刺激（推测视觉艺术作品就是如此）在这种病症中并不能增强陈述性记忆。我们在生态环境中并使用现实世界刺激收集的数据，证实了先前关于阿尔茨海默病患者审美偏好稳定性以及审美偏好与记忆等认知能力独立性的研究结果。
