AUTHOR=Starr G. Gabrielle 

TITLE=Aesthetic experience models human learning

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 17 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1146083

DOI=10.3389/fnhum.2023.1146083

ISSN=1662-5161

ABSTRACT=Aesthetic experiences may promote and enable learning and creativity by enhancing the ability to understand complexity and integrate novel information. Offering a theoretical framework for understanding the cognitive benefits of aesthetics, this paper argues aesthetic experiences are the necessary outcome of human learning, in which natural objects or artworks are evaluated in a multi-dimensional preference space. The brain-states underlying these experiences harness configurations of the apex transmodal neural systems, the default mode network, the central executive network, and the salience network, that may give information-processing advantages by recruiting high-power communication hubs.