The neural foundations of aesthetic appreciation

The study of the cognitive and neural underpinnings of aesthetic appreciation by means of neuroimaging techniques has yielded a wealth of fascinating information. Although the results of these studies have been somewhat divergent, here we provide an integrative view of the early approaches, which identified some of the core mechanisms involved in aesthetic preference. Then, a number of more specific issues under the perspective of recent work are addressed. Finally, we propose a framework to accommodate these findings and we explore future prospects for the emerging field of neuroaesthetics. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.