Over the last decade, researchers have sought to understand the brain mechanisms involved in the appreciation of art. Previous studies reported an increased activity in sensory processing regions for artworks that participants find more appealing. Here we investigated the intriguing possibility that activity in cortical area V5-a region in the occipital cortex mediating physical and implied mot...

The relevance of deionized water as a control treatment in vase life experiments and the effects of major tap water components on cut flower water balance were investigated. Chrysanthemum (Dendranthema x grandiflorum Tzvelev cv. Cassa) was used in all experiments. Deionized water gave a sharp decrease in fresh weight of the cut flowers after 1–3 days. This decrease was absent in tap water. Afte...

Citation: Francuz P, Zaniewski I, Augustynowicz P, Kopiś N and Jankowski T (2018) Eye Movement Correlates of Expertise in Visual Arts. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 12:87. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00087 The aim of this study was to search for oculomotor correlates of expertise in visual arts, in particular with regard to paintings. Achieving this goal was possible by gathering data on eye movements of t...

This paper discusses the visual algebraic speciication (vas) formalism and its supporting interactive environment (vase). The vas formalism is intended for the deenition of visual syntax and semantics and is aimed at generating language speciic environments. The collection construct of vas is emphasized in that it supports the convenient speciication of language constructs involving arbitrarily...

Frames provide a visual link between artworks and their surround. We asked how image properties change as an observer zooms out from viewing a painting alone, to viewing the painting with its frame and, finally, the framed painting in its museum environment (museum scene). To address this question, we determined three higher-order image properties that are based on histograms of oriented lumina...

We examined the hypothesis that rejection automatically elicits defensive physiological reactions in people with low self-esteem (SE) but that attentional control moderates this effect. Undergraduates (N= 67) completed questionnaire measures of SE and attentional control. Their eye-blink responses to startle probes were measured while they viewed paintings related to rejection and acceptance th...

Computational algorithms for measuring thread counts from scanned x-rays produce warp and weft thread count “maps” across entire paintings. Within the database of over 300 van Gogh paintings, we found a clique of 44 warp-weave-matched paintings. By reconstructing the smallest canvas section that could have produced this match, they must span the entire width of a commercial canvas roll (2+ mete...