Aesthetic experience models human learning

Abstract

Aesthetic experiences have the potential to promote learning and creativity by enhancing the ability to understand complexity and to integrate novel or disparate information. Offering a theoretical framework for understanding the cognitive benefits of aesthetic experiences, this paper argues they are the necessary outcome of human learning, in which natural objects or artworks are evaluated in a multi-dimensional preference space shaped by Bayesian prediction. In addition, it contends that the brain-states underlying aesthetic experiences harness configurations of the apex three transmodal neural systems—the default mode network, the central executive network, and the salience network—that may offer information-processing advantages by recruiting the brain’s high-power communication hubs, thus enhancing potential for learning gain.