[LUM#7] Beauty Revealed

[LUM Magazine] - Published on March 27, 2018 in Science and 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 beautiful what is easy for our brains to process.

The sheer pleasure of contemplation… We experience it so often that it seems obvious to us. Yet the sense of beauty is truly astonishing. When faced with an object, a face, or a scene, we find ourselves feeling a sense of satisfaction. But what triggers this release of opioids and cannabinoids—the molecules of pleasure—within us? 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 sense of beauty?

Universal Beauty

One thing is certain: beauty has a universal dimension. We humans share many visual preferences.“Since the early^20th century, experimental psychology and neuroscience have consistently demonstrated commonalities in what humans perceive as beautiful,” explains Julien Renoult, a biologist specializing in evolutionary aesthetics (The Evolution of Aesthetics: A Review of Models, in Aesthetics and Neuroscience, 2016). Thus, there is a strong link between the amount of time newborns spend staring at faces or paintings and the level of beauty perceived by adults when viewing these same objects. And this holds true regardless of cultural background.

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

So much for the “objective” criteria. But how do we explain the fact that beauty can be perceived differently by different people? It is because other, more subtle aspects of beauty draw upon each person’s cognitive system and memory. Thus, “prototypes” delight our eyes: if a robin is more beautiful than an ostrich to most of us, it is because it represents our mental category of “bird”—a category that 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 this is what makes contemplation so enjoyable. At first glance, these factors may seem disparate. Yet they share a common thread. “They are easy for our brains to process, allowing for rapid information processing. Beauty is the smooth flow of information through the brain,” summarizes Julien Renoult (Beauty lies in the viewer’s efficient processing, in The Royal Society, 2016).

This would explain the appeal of symmetry and fractals: redundant information requires little mental effort to process. “A curve is a shape that offers high predictability, with its continuous line. As for designs reminiscent of nature, they align with 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 into 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 release of pleasure neurotransmitters? It’s easy to imagine the evolutionary advantage of such a surge of well-being.“Appreciating that information is easy to process encourages us to thrive in an environment with fewer surprises—and thus one 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: Is there a universal concept of beauty across species? “It’s conceivable. We are often charmed by communication signals that have evolved to be attractive to other species: birdsong, the peacock’s tail. 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 shouldn’t work in animals… since even invertebrates release opioids and cannabinoids when their neural activity is rapid. A “general theory of beauty” that would in no way, of course, diminish the grace of the experience.

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