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The Evolution of Aesthetics: A Review of Models

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Aesthetics and Neuroscience

Abstract

The evolution of aesthetics has become an increasingly popular topic over the last few years, both for evolutionary biologists and for scholars from other disciplines who want to broaden the historical perspective of their findings. Different models have been proposed to explain evolution of aesthetics, all inspired from research in sexual selection. In this chapter, I review three of these models: beauty as an indicator of quality, Fisher’s model of aesthetic coevolution, and the exploitation of efficient information processing. I argue that only the last model can simultaneously explain the ubiquity and universality of aesthetic experiences, and the diversity and extravagancy of beautiful stimuli. The model fits both to empirical results from psychology and image statistics showing that beautiful stimuli are efficiently processed by perceptual and cognitive systems, and to neurophysiological evidences supporting the concept of “disinterestedness” in philosophy of aesthetics. The exploitation of efficient processing uniquely offers a workable model for evolutionary biology that further articulates with concepts and results from other aesthetic sciences.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Throughout this review, beauty will refer to “the inherent property of a (visual) stimulus” and aesthetics to “the subjective experience elicited by beautiful stimuli” (Redies et al. 2015). Aesthetic valuation will describe the mind process of placing a stimulus on a scale from ugly to beautiful. Aesthetic appeal is the attractiveness of a stimulus due to its beauty, and aesthetic preference the aesthetic appeal of a stimulus relative to that of other stimuli.

  2. 2.

    In aesthetics, the expression “quality indicator” originally comes from research in sexual selection and refers to the quality of potential mates. Here, “quality” should be understood in the wide sense and can include quantitative aspects of the valuated stimulus.

  3. 3.

    Naturally, deceptive signalling does exist, and the system can maintain with traces of unreliability if the cost of cheating is low, explaining for example why women continue to put makeup on and men to wear epaulets.

  4. 4.

    In cognitive sciences, a domain describes a category of problems that are repeatedly encountered throughout the life of an individual, e.g., finding mates, foraging, escaping predators.

  5. 5.

    In Ryan and Cummings (2013), perception encompasses cognitive mechanisms. I added the expression «cognitive bias» to follow the distinction between perception and cognition I made throughout the review, in accordance with the dominant view in empirical aesthetics.

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  1. Institute of Arts Creations Theories and Aesthetics, CNRS-University Paris 1 Panthéon, Sorbonne, 47 r. des bergers, 75015, Paris, France

    Julien P. Renoult

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  1. Equipe IRIS, CNRS, University Paris-Descartes, Paris, France

    Zoï Kapoula

  2. Washington, District of Columbia, USA

    Marine Vernet

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Renoult, J.P. (2016). The Evolution of Aesthetics: A Review of Models. In: Kapoula, Z., Vernet, M. (eds) Aesthetics and Neuroscience. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46233-2_17

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