On the etiology of aesthetic chills: a behavioral genetic study

Bignardi, Giacomo; Chamberlain, Rebecca; Kevenaar, Sofieke T.; Tamimy, Zenab; Boomsma, Dorret I.

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-07161-z

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Personality factors also predict aesthetic ratings ( Chamorro-Premuzic, 2009 ). For instance, they explain a large proportion of the variance associated with aesthetic chills in response to art ( Silvia and Nusbaum, 2011 ; Bignardi et al, 2022 ). A comprehensive model on how these diverse factors interact remains elusive at present.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical image properties predict aesthetic ratings in abstract paintings created by neural style transfer

et al. 2022

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Artificial intelligence has emerged as a powerful computational tool to create artworks. One application is Neural Style Transfer, which allows to transfer the style of one image, such as a painting, onto the content of another image, such as a photograph. In the present study, we ask how Neural Style Transfer affects objective image properties and how beholders perceive the novel (style-transferred) stimuli. In order to focus on the subjective perception of artistic style, we minimized the confounding effect of cognitive processing by eliminating all representational content from the input images. To this aim, we transferred the styles of 25 diverse abstract paintings onto 150 colored random-phase patterns with six different Fourier spectral slopes. This procedure resulted in 150 style-transferred stimuli. We then computed eight statistical image properties (complexity, self-similarity, edge-orientation entropy, variances of neural network features, and color statistics) for each image. In a rating study, we asked participants to evaluate the images along three aesthetic dimensions (Pleasing, Harmonious, and Interesting). Results demonstrate that not only objective image properties, but also subjective aesthetic preferences transferred from the original artworks onto the style-transferred images. The image properties of the style-transferred images explain 50 – 69% of the variance in the ratings. In the multidimensional space of statistical image properties, participants considered style-transferred images to be more Pleasing and Interesting if they were closer to a “sweet spot” where traditional Western paintings (JenAesthetics dataset) are represented. We conclude that NST is a useful tool to create novel artistic stimuli that preserve the image properties of the input style images. In the novel stimuli, we found a strong relationship between statistical image properties and subjective ratings, suggesting a prominent role of perceptual processing in the aesthetic evaluation of abstract images.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical image properties predict aesthetic ratings in abstract paintings created by neural style transfer

et al. 2022

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“…However, we also acknowledge that our residualisation, or any residualisation in general 63 , cannot remove all possible confounders. It is, therefore, possible that some of the h 2 estimated in this study is partially shared with the well-known heritability of general traits such as personality, especially the (moderately heritable) part of openness-to-experience related to aesthetic processes 43 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…However, complementary evidence challenges the idea that the environment alone is the only source of variation. For example, evidence from behavioural genetic studies shows that genetic predispositions make substantial contributions to variation in attitudes, interests and engagement toward music and arts 39 – 42 , proneness to instances of aesthetic experiences, such as aesthetic chills 43 , and even major dimensions of cultural taste and participation 44 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic effects on variability in visual aesthetic evaluations are partially shared across visual domains

Bignardi,

Smit,

Vessel

et al. 2024

Commun Biol

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The aesthetic values that individuals place on visual images are formed and shaped over a lifetime. However, whether the formation of visual aesthetic value is solely influenced by environmental exposure is still a matter of debate. Here, we considered differences in aesthetic value emerging across three visual domains: abstract images, scenes, and faces. We examined variability in two major dimensions of ordinary aesthetic experiences: taste-typicality and evaluation-bias. We build on two samples from the Australian Twin Registry where 1547 and 1231 monozygotic and dizygotic twins originally rated visual images belonging to the three domains. Genetic influences explained 26% to 41% of the variance in taste-typicality and evaluation-bias. Multivariate analyses showed that genetic effects were partially shared across visual domains. Results indicate that the heritability of major dimensions of aesthetic evaluations is comparable to that of other complex social traits, albeit lower than for other complex cognitive traits. The exception was taste-typicality for abstract images, for which we found only shared and unique environmental influences. Our study reveals that diverse sources of genetic and environmental variation influence the formation of aesthetic value across distinct visual domains and provides improved metrics to assess inter-individual differences in aesthetic value.

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“…This finding is important as some degree of genetic overlap across facets of music reward sensitivity is needed to better understand the biology of music enjoyment as a whole. Further studies could test whether these genetic effects underlie other auditory phenomena, such as pleasure derived by timbre in sounds, which has been shown to correlate homogenously across facets of music reward 29 or other broader aspects related to human affect, such as aesthetic sensitivity 58 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct genetic pathways to music enjoyment

Bignardi,

Wesseldijk,

Mas-Herrero

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Humans engage with music for various reasons that range from emotional regulation and relaxation to social bonding. While there are large inter-individual differences in how much humans enjoy music, little is known about the origins of those differences. Here, we disentangled the genetic factors underlying such variation. We collected behavioural data on several facets of music reward sensitivity, music perceptual ability, and general reward sensitivity from a large sample of Swedish twins (N = 9,169). We found that genetic factors substantially explain variance in music reward sensitivity above and beyond genetic influences shared with music perception and general reward sensitivity. Furthermore, multivariate analyses showed that genetic influences on the different facets of music reward sensitivity are partly distinct, uncovering distinct pathways to music enjoyment and different patterns of genetic associations with objectively assessed music perceptual abilities. These results paint a complex picture in which partially distinct sources of genetic variation contribute to different aspects of musical enjoyment and open up new possibilities for using inter-individual differences to gain insights into the biology of a key aspect of human behaviour.

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On the etiology of aesthetic chills: a behavioral genetic study

Cited by 9 publications

References 65 publications

Statistical image properties predict aesthetic ratings in abstract paintings created by neural style transfer

Statistical image properties predict aesthetic ratings in abstract paintings created by neural style transfer

Genetic effects on variability in visual aesthetic evaluations are partially shared across visual domains

Distinct genetic pathways to music enjoyment

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