ArticleFrontiers in human neuroscience2014
A neurobiological enquiry into the origins of our experience of the sublime and beautiful.
Article in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The posterior crus II cerebellum is specialized for social mentalizing and emotional self-experiences: a meta-analysis.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2020Pooled it
- Bringing the museum into the hospital to promote cultural wellness in patients undergoing haemodialysis through a virtual reality tour.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Whole-Brain Fractional Anisotropy, Centered on the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus, Is Positively Correlated With Urban Aesthetic Perception.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Article
- The neurobiological basis of the awe experience in affective disorders: an exploratory EEG study.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2026Article
- Toward a neuroaesthetics of interactions: Insights from dance on the aesthetics of individual and interacting bodies.iScience · 2025Review
- Editorial: Beauty and the mind: cognitive science of the sublime.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Article
- Threefold relationship between ideal humanity and sublime beauty in Chinese art forms.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- The intrinsic variance of beauty judgment.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2023Article
- Amygdala-frontoparietal effective connectivity in creativity and humor processing.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- The Cerebellum and Beauty: The Impact of the Cerebellum in Art Experience and Creativity.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2022Article
- Music Listening and Homeostatic Regulation: Surviving and Flourishing in a Sonic World.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Visceromotor roots of aesthetic evaluation of pain in art: an fMRI study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Article
- From Visual Perception to Aesthetic Appeal: Brain Responses to Aesthetically Appealing Natural Landscape Movies.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
- Article
- Awe and the Experience of the Sublime: A Complex Relationship.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Review
- Beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness compared.PloS one · 2019Article
- The experience of beauty derived from sorrow.Human brain mapping · 2017Article
- Music and Its Inductive Power: A Psychobiological and Evolutionary Approach to Musical Emotions.Frontiers in psychology · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
Philosophies of aesthetics have posited that experience of the sublime-commonly but not exclusively derived from scenes of natural grandeur-is distinct from that of beauty and is a counterpoint to it. We wanted to chart the pattern of brain activity which correlates with the declared intensity of experience of the sublime, and to learn whether it differs from the pattern that correlates with the experience of beauty, reported in our previous studies (e.g., Ishizu and Zeki, 2011). 21 subjects participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment. Prior to the experiment, they viewed pictures of landscapes, which they rated on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the most sublime and 1 being the least. This allowed us to select, for each subject, five sets of stimuli-from ones experienced as very sublime to those experienced as not at all sublime-which subjects viewed and re-rated in the scanner while their brain activity was imaged. The results revealed a distinctly different pattern of brain activity from that obtained with the experience of beauty, with none of the areas active with the latter experience also active during experience of the sublime. Sublime and beautiful experiences thus appear to engage separate and distinct brain systems.
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