Poster No:
1353
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Yingying Huang1, Cristina Denk-Florea1, Gujing Li1, Christina Konstantinou2, Stephen Forcer2, Frank Pollick1
Institutions:
1School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 2School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
First Author:
Yingying Huang
School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow
Glasgow, United Kingdom
Co-Author(s):
Cristina Denk-Florea
School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow
Glasgow, United Kingdom
Gujing Li
School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow
Glasgow, United Kingdom
Stephen Forcer
School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Glasgow
Glasgow, United Kingdom
Frank Pollick
School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow
Glasgow, United Kingdom
Introduction:
How does the brain process surreal artworks that depict objects or scenes that do not exist in reality? Surrealism, an artistic and literary movement that emerged in the early 20th century, aimed to reveal hidden parts of the mind that challenge conventional notions of reality. While surrealism is often claimed to have psychological significance, it has not been extensively studied from a neuroscientific perspective. Our study seeks to contribute to the dialogue between art and neuroscience by investigating the potential neural mechanisms underlying the perception of surrealistic art, specifically in relation to surprise, error prediction, and neural representation.
Methods:
We used 3T functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technique to examine the brain response to images of surrealistic objects and paintings, in comparison to images of naturalistic objects and paintings. To control for confounding factors, such as valence, arousal, familiarity, and luminance, a behavioural pre-test was included to select a set of images consisting of 64 surreal objects, 64 surreal paintings, 64 natural objects, and 64 natural paintings for fMRI experimental procedure. The experiment used a 2x2 factor design (condition: surreal and natural, category: object and painting). We conducted four functional experiment runs, one anatomy, and one retinotopic mapping run. In each experimental run, participants were required to view each image for 4s and press the button when the black fixation cross changed to red, which was used to monitor participants' attention. Each block (16s) consisted of four images from the same category and was followed by an 8s baseline. All image stimuli were presented only once. A total of 27 healthy participants attended the fMRI experiment. We used BrainVoayger 22.4 to do the fMRI data analysis with a F-test to indicate interaction and main factor effects. We then used Matlab to perform a whole brain searchlight decoding analysis and a multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) with linear support vector machine (SVM) classifier.
Results:
1) F-test results. Using cluster thresholding (p<0.05) with a cluster determining threshold of p<0.001, we revealed a significant interaction effect in multiple brain regions, including the superior and inferior frontal gyrus in both hemispheres, as well as cuneus, precuneus, and cingulate gyrus in the right hemisphere. This suggests that surrealistic images may engage unique neural mechanisms compared to naturalistic images, possibly related to the surprising and unexpected elements often present in surrealistic art. Additionally, the main effect of condition (surreal vs natural) involved the amygdala, as well as visual cortex and frontal cortex in both hemispheres. The main effect of category (object vs painting) was found to be significant mainly in the visual cortex and frontal cortex in both hemispheres. 2) Whole-brain searchlight MVPA decoding results showed that decoding accuracy in the visual cortex was significant (p<0.01 after the false discovery rate (FDR) q <0.05 correction). 3) We further conducted MVPA decoding specifically for the brain activity patterns in the early visual cortex (EVC). The results demonstrated that voxel activity patterns between surrealism and naturalism conditions were different in the EVC and that the patterns between object and painting category were also notably distinct. This implies that the early visual cortex is sensitive to these distinctions between surreal and natural art.
Conclusions:
These findings provide preliminary evidence for the neuroscientific relevance of surrealism and contribute to our understanding of how the brain processes artistic stimuli, emphasising distinct neural signatures associated with surrealism and naturalism.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Emotional Perception
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Higher Cognitive Functions Other 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI) 1
Classification and Predictive Modeling
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Perception: Visual
Keywords:
Cognition
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Vision
Other - surrealism
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Silveira, S., Graupmann, V., Frey, D., Blautzik, J., Meindl, T., Reiser, M., Chen, C., Wang, Y., Bao, Y., Pöppel, E., & Gutyrchik, E. (2012). Matching Reality in the Arts: Self-Referential Neural Processing of Naturalistic Compared to Surrealistic Images. Perception, 41(5), 569-576. https://doi.org/10.1068/p7191
Carr, A. N., & Zanetti, L. A. (2000). The Emergence of a Surrealist Movement and its Vital `Estrangement-Effect’ in Organization Studies. Human Relations, 53(7), 891-921. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726700537001
Frank, D., Kafkas, A., & Montaldi, D. (2022). Experiencing surprise: The temporal dynamics of its impact on memory. Journal of Neuroscience, 42(33), 6435-6444.