P3-26: The “Perceptual Novelty” and the Education Effect: A Neuroaesthetic Study

Recently, neuroaesthetic studies have focused on surrealism and abstract arts using techniques that reflect ‘perceptual novelty’ or ‘depaysment’. These researches, however, did not control several factors that could elicit the perceptual novelty. This study was conducted to examine the changes of the brain activities when the participants appreciate the indoor pictures with only an object was magnified. Meanwhile, under the assumption that a brief education about the modern art could have an educational effect on the participants' brain activities enjoying the perceptual novelty, the differences in their brain activities between the education group and the control group were compared. The stimuli were made by superimposing a photo of an object onto image of indoor background (24 images). Each stimulus was one of two conditions: ‘big-size object condition’; ‘normal-size object condition’. Participants were randomly divided into two groups and we briefed the education group on contemporary arts including the depaysment. Using fMRI, all the 21 participants' brain activities were measured while performing the following tasks: thinking about feelings elicited by the pictures of the two conditions, judging the pragmatic aspect about the pictures of the two conditions. Data on the brain images were acquired with an ISOL 3.0T MR scanner, using an EPI sequence and analyzed using SPM8. The parametric analysis demonstrated the following areas were activated when education group thought about the feelings elicited by the ‘big-size object’ pictures: right parahippocampal area, which was related to memory, the right precentral gyrus, involved in self-agency or selfhood and basal ganglia, related to reward