Poster No:
973
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Dominika Grygarova1, Petr Adámek1, Ladislav Kesner1, Jiri Horacek2
Institutions:
1National Institute of Mental Health, Klecany, Czech Republic, 23rt Medical faculty of Charles Univ., Prague, Praha
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Petr Adámek
National Institute of Mental Health
Klecany, Czech Republic
Ladislav Kesner
National Institute of Mental Health
Klecany, Czech Republic
Jiri Horacek
3rt Medical faculty of Charles Univ.
Prague, Praha
Introduction:
While one may be immediately captivated by a visual artwork, the profound experience typically unfolds through an intentional process of meaning-making, extending over minutes, days, or even weeks and months. As Gadamer (1977) aptly notes, 'the artwork demands to be understood as what it 'means,' what it says.' Such insights align with contemporary neuro-cognitive models of art experience, emphasizing reflection and knowledge assimilation (Pelowski et al. 2017). Recent studies investigating neural processes in the comprehension of symbolic cultural forms, such as narratives in texts or movies (Simony et al. 2016), have highlighted the crucial role of the default mode network (DMN). However, no neuroimaging study has explored the impact of repeated encounters with artwork accompanied by intentional and effortful meaning-making activities. Our study aims to investigate the effects of intentional meaning-making of artworks through (1) self-driven reflection and (2) absorption of new information conveyed by texts.
Methods:
We conducted an fMRI experiment (n=35) employing a novel experimental paradigm, prompting participants to engage in a repeated dialogue with artworks. Initially, participants were scanned while freely viewing 85 figural paintings with affective content. Post-scanning, they rated the images based on perceived affective impact, resulting in two personalized sets of stimuli for home study: 10 paintings strongly affecting them (SA) and 10 not affecting them (NA). Over two weeks, participants repeatedly observed these paintings, and (1) reflected on the personal meaning of half the paintings and (2) read art-historical commentaries on the other half. After this home intervention, participants underwent a second scanning session while viewing the same set of stimuli as in the first scanning. We conducted a whole-brain analysis using a full-factorial model. We considered as significant the results with semi-conservative cluster-level family-wise error (pFWE, p≤0.05) correction for all grey matter voxels.
Results:
(1) In the second scanning, stimuli exposed to reflection intervention compared to stimuli without any intervention elicited increased activation in the precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, inferior parietal lobule, as well as the medial and superior frontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex. Additionally, large clusters of activations were observed in the left inferior frontal gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, and bilateral insula. (2) During the second scanning, stimuli exposed to the text-reading intervention, compared to stimuli without any intervention, exhibited a similar pattern of brain activations as the reflection intervention. Unlike reflection, text-reading intervention resulted in a strong left lateralization of the activation pattern and stronger activations in the left middle posterior temporal gyrus.
Conclusions:
Both the reflective and information-absorption effects of intentional meaning-making processing of artworks reflected a combination of self-related and semantic processing. Regions implicated in the DMN, together with temporal regions connected to semantic processing, were identified in both forms of intervention. Our results support the conceptualization of the DMN as a "sense-making network", integrating external information with pre-existing intrinsic knowledge (Yeshurun et al., 2021).
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Self Processes 2
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Higher Cognitive Functions Other 1
Keywords:
Cognition
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Other - neuroaesthetics; meaning-making; default mode network
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Gadamer HG (1977). Philosophical Hermeneutics, University of California Press
Pelowski M, Markey PS, Forster M, Gerger G, Leder H. (2017). Move me, astonish me… delight my eyes and brain: The Vienna Integrated Model of top-down and bottom-up processes in Art Perception (VIMAP) and corresponding affective, evaluative, and neurophysiological correlates. Phys Life Rev 21, 80-125
Simony E, Honey C, Chen J, Lositsky O, Yeshurun Y, Wiesel A, Hasson U (2016). Dynamic reconfiguration of the default mode network during narrative comprehension. Nature Communications 7, 12141. 10.1038/ncomms12141
Yeshurun, Y., Nguyen, M, Hasson, U (2021). The default mode network: where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world. Nat Rev Neurosci 22, 181–192