[LUM#7] Beauty Revealed

[LUM Magazine] - Published on March 27, 2018 in Science-Society

Faces, landscapes, works of art... Both universal and relative, beauty holds many mysteries. To unravel them, cognitive science offers an illuminating theory: we find beauty in things that are easy for our brains to process.

The pure pleasure of contemplation... We experience it so often that it seems obvious to us. Yet the feeling of beauty is something to marvel at. When faced with an object, a face, or a scene, we feel satisfaction. But what triggers the release of opioids and cannabinoids, the molecules of pleasure, in our bodies? Philosophers, art historians, psychologists, and neuroscientists have explored this mystery. Today, biologists specializing in the evolution of species are taking up the question. Could the mechanisms of natural selection explain the feeling of beauty?

Universal beauty

One thing is certain: beauty has a universal dimension. We humans share many visual preferences. "Since the beginning of^{the 20th} century, experimental psychology and neuroscience have largely demonstrated constants in what humans consider beautiful," explains Julien Renoult, a biologist specializing in evolutionary aesthetics (The Evolution of Aesthetics: A Review of Models, in Aesthetics and Neuroscience, 2016). For example, there is a strong link between the amount of time newborns spend staring at faces or paintings and the level of beauty adults perceive in these same objects. This is true regardless of cultural background.

What do we all tend to enjoy looking at? First, certain design elements. We prefer symmetry and curves. "We also find visual scenes with spatial statistics similar to those found in nature more beautiful , " explains the researcher from the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology. This is the case with fractals, patterns that are identical regardless of the scale at which they are viewed. Mountains, trees, ferns, river networks, and clouds are examples of this. "Artists tend to create beauty in their works by mimicking the level of fractality found in nature," says Julien Renoult.

So much for the "objective" criteria. But how can we explain that beauty can be perceived differently by different individuals? The answer lies in other, more subtle constants of beauty that appeal to each person's cognitive system and memory. Thus, "prototypes" delight our eyes: if a robin surpasses an ostrich in beauty for most of us, it is because it is representative of our mental category of "bird"... which varies from person to person. What is familiar also seems more beautiful. "This works visually but also auditorily: having already been exposed to a melody increases our chances of finding it beautiful , " notes Julien Renoult.

Information flow

So that is what makes contemplation so enjoyable. At first glance, these parameters may seem disparate. However, they share a common feature. " They are easy for our brains to encode, allowing information to be processed quickly. Beauty is the fluid circulation of information in the brain," summarizes Julien Renoult (Beauty lies in the efficient coding of the viewer, in The Royal Society, 2016).

This would explain the success of symmetry and fractals: redundant information requires little energy for the brain to process. "Rounding is a shape that offers high predictability, with its continuity in the line. As for designs reminiscent of those found in nature, they correspond to ecological expectations: there is no conflict between what the brain expects and what it sees, " explains Julien Renoult. Similarly , the fact that an object resembles the mental category in which we classify it makes it easy to categorize. This theory of "efficient coding" offers us a comprehensive and coherent explanation of beauty.

Fewer surprises

One question remains: why does rapid neural processing trigger the secretion of pleasure neurotransmitters? We can imagine the evolutionary advantage of such a rush of well-being. "Appreciating that information is easy to process encourages us to evolve in an environment that offers fewer surprises. And therefore one that is more conducive to survival and reproduction," explains Julien Renoult. Especially since the brain's processing of information is very energy-intensive.

The next question for evolutionary aesthetics: is there a universal concept of beauty across species? "We can imagine so. We are often charmed by communication signals that have evolved to be attractive to other species: birdsong, peacock tails. Human aesthetic preferences appeal to other animals: chickens, like us, prefer rounded shapes," says Julien Renoult. And while the theory of efficient coding is convincing in humans, there is no reason why it should not work in animals... since even invertebrates release opioids and cannabinoids when their neural flow is rapid. A "general theory of beauty" that would in no way diminish the grace of the experience, of course.

Keywords: LUM#7, LUM Magazine, Science, Company