The experience of art: insights from neuroimaging

The experience of art is a complex one. It emerges from the interaction of multiple cognitive and affective processes. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies are revealing the broadly distributed network of brain regions upon which it relies. This network can be divided into three functional components: (i) prefrontal, parietal, and temporal cortical regions support evaluative judgment, attentional processing, and memory retrieval; (ii) the reward circuit, including cortical, subcortical regions, and some of its regulators, is involved in the generation of pleasurable feelings and emotions, and the valuation and anticipation of reward; and (iii) attentional modulation of activity in low-, mid-, and high-level cortical sensory regions enhances the perceptual processing of certain features, relations, locations, or objects. Understanding how these regions act in concert to produce unique and moving art experiences and determining the impact of personal and cultural meaning and context on this network the biological foundation of the experience of art--remain future challenges.