How Does our Brain Transform Images into Emotions? Neurosciences and the Perception of Visual Art

A recent activity in the Tlatelolco University Cultural Center’s museum made neurosciences available to any visitor. While you attended the exhibition to learn more about the brain and its functions regarding perception, you also became research data: an exploration of cutting-edge research in neuroscience led by the community itself. These were its main components and characteristics:

RESEARCH 
          To study basic aspects of human visual perception, especially in response to contradictory artistic images (e.g. beauty and violence).
          
          Analyze how the brain processes emotions from visual art.

SCIENCE DISSEMINATION
          To allow those attending the exhibition to participate in the study, bringing them closer to experimental neuroscience.
          
          To show research methods used in neurosciences.

ORIGIN AND CONTEXT
          It began with an invitation from UNAM’s Institute of Aesthetic Research, by María Teresa Uriarte, asking to incorporate neurosciences in the Tlatelolco University Cultural Center’s museum.

STUDY FOCUS
          Visual perception of images of Mesoamerican mural paintings—Batalla de Cacaxtla mural—taking advantage of knowledge about how the brain processes vision to explore the emotional perception of art.
          
          Contradictory content: a combination of beauty and violence.
          
          Use of a contrasting color palette.

          Absence of chiaroscuro and depth or perspective.

TECHNIQUES
          Semantic networks for evaluating image content

          Electroencephalography (EEG) in museums.

          Simultaneous analysis of 20 brain regions.

          Mathematical analysis of information; intensive computing use.

          Expansion of the study during the pandemic with artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition.

          AI distinguishes faces from different cultures with less than 10 percent error.

          Cultures analyzed: Cacaxtla, Teotihuacan, Mixtec, Zapotec, Tajín, Japan, Egypt.

          Identification of mathematical patterns in the internal structure of images.

KEY FINDINGS
          Influence of background perception variables.
          
          Blue background: reduces the perception of violence, unlike a black background that increases the perception of violence and decreases the perception of beauty (figure 2).
          
          Women show more reproducible brain responses to violence.
          
          Greater activity in the frontal cortex in the face of violent images (associated with attention).

          Aesthetic characteristics in Mesoamerican art.

          Identification of golden patterns (spirals, triangles, circles) identified in murals from Cacaxtla, Teotihuacan, Tajín, and Mixtec and Zapotec cultures.

          Possible Maya-Teotihuacan mathematical influence.

IMPACT AND REFLECTIONS
          Multidisciplinary collaboration between UNAM students of arts, biology, psicology, engineering, actuary, computing, history, physics, mathematics and neurosciences.

VALUE
          Diversity and academic freedom at UNAM enrich research.