Arioli Maria, Canessa Nicola, Gargiulo Alessandra, Zardin Matteo, Falini Andrea, Sanna Alberto
Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, 24129, Italy.
IUSS Cognitive Neuroscience (ICoN) Center, Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS, Pavia, 27100, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2025 Apr 15;15(1):12971. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-97945-w.
While visual ambiguity is known to play a central role in modern art, the neural correlates of its processing remain substantially unexplored in the case of aesthetic stimuli. To fill this gap, we combined eye-tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate both visual exploration, and the associated brain activity and connectivity, when observing (WO) or evaluating (WE) either ambiguous (AMB+) or non-ambiguous (AMB-) artistic photographic stimuli. These manipulations highlighted more fixations (suggestive of higher loading on exploratory processes) when evaluating compared with observing, and stronger right fronto-parietal and occipito-temporal activity (possibly supporting the resolution of visual ambiguity through attentional reorienting to global vs. local aspects) when processing ambiguous compared with non-ambiguous stimuli. Task-by-stimulus type interaction analyses showed that evaluating ambiguous stimuli was specifically associated with stronger fixation-related activity in the left medial prefrontal cortex, as well as decreased connectivity from this region to its right-hemispheric homologue, possibly supporting in-depth visuospatial analyses of complex visual images. These findings pave the way for future studies addressing the role of visual ambiguity in aesthetic appreciation, as well as the factors that might ease vs. hamper its processing and resolution, and their neural correlates.
虽然视觉模糊性在现代艺术中起着核心作用，但在审美刺激的情况下，其处理的神经相关性仍基本未被探索。为了填补这一空白，我们结合了眼动追踪和功能磁共振成像（fMRI），以研究在观察（WO）或评估（WE）模糊（AMB+）或非模糊（AMB-）艺术摄影刺激时的视觉探索以及相关的大脑活动和连通性。这些操作突出显示，与观察相比，评估时的注视更多（表明在探索过程中的负荷更高），并且与处理非模糊刺激相比，处理模糊刺激时右额顶叶和枕颞叶的活动更强（可能通过将注意力重新定向到全局与局部方面来支持视觉模糊性的解决）。任务与刺激类型的交互分析表明，评估模糊刺激与左内侧前额叶皮层中更强的与注视相关的活动以及该区域与其右半球同源区域之间连接性的降低特别相关，这可能支持对复杂视觉图像进行深入的视觉空间分析。这些发现为未来研究视觉模糊性在审美欣赏中的作用以及可能促进或阻碍其处理和解决的因素及其神经相关性铺平了道路。
