British scientists at the University College London have recently discovered that when people see or feel beauty in a piece of art or music a specific area of their brain “lights up.”
This beauty spot, known as the medial orbito-frontal cortex, is located at the front of the brain just a few centimetres above our eyes.
Participants in the study lied in a MRI scanner so that their brain activity could be measured while being shown pictures and music. Then they were asked to rate their experiences on a scale of 1 to beautiful. When participants saw something they thought was ugly there was little brain activity seen. When they experienced something that they rated as beautiful more activity was triggered.
While some pieces of music and art triggered similar reactions, for the most part, each volunteer perceived different things as attractive or unattractive. It just goes to show that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder….
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