Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 4thFloor, Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada.
Human Evolution and Cognition Group, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2024 Nov 3;14(1):26529. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-76931-8.
There is substantial evidence to suggest that preference for visual curvature is a reliable phenomenon. Yet, little is known about the ways in which the encoding of curvature in the brain contributes to hedonic evaluation while participants are actively engaged in making choices about objects varying in curvature. To address this question, we reanalyzed fMRI data collected while participants made aesthetic judgments (beautiful vs. not beautiful) and approach-avoidance decisions (enter vs. exit) in relation to measures of (a) computational curvature, (b) perceived curvature, (c) perceived angularity, and (d) aesthetic pleasure in the domain of architecture. Our results show that a region in early visual cortex (BA 17) encompassing largely areas V2-V3 is sensitive to variation in computational curvature across both beauty judgments and approach-avoidance decisions, whereas a region encompassing the fusiform gyrus (BA 37) exhibits sensitivity to perceived curvature only when participants made beauty judgments. These results contribute to our understanding of the neurobiological basis of curvature preference by demonstrating that the sensitivity of the visual cortex to computational curvature is context invariant, whereas the sensitivity of the fusiform gyrus to perceived curvature varies by context.
有大量证据表明，对视觉曲率的偏好是一种可靠的现象。然而，人们对大脑中曲率的编码如何在参与者积极参与对曲率变化的物体进行选择时，对愉悦感的评估做出贡献知之甚少。为了解决这个问题，我们重新分析了 fMRI 数据，这些数据是在参与者对建筑领域的（a）计算曲率、（b）感知曲率、（c）感知角度和（d）美学愉悦进行审美判断（美丽与不美丽）和接近回避决策（进入与退出）时收集的。我们的结果表明，早期视觉皮层（BA17）中的一个区域，主要包括 V2-V3 区域，对美感判断和接近回避决策中的计算曲率变化都很敏感，而包括梭状回（BA37）的一个区域仅在参与者进行美感判断时对感知曲率敏感。这些结果通过证明视觉皮层对计算曲率的敏感性是上下文不变的，而梭状回对感知曲率的敏感性因上下文而异，为我们理解曲率偏好的神经生物学基础做出了贡献。
