Our brains respond differently to 'fake' art
Being told that a work of art is fake alters your response to it, researchers at Oxford University have found.
Human guinea pigs underwent brain scans whilst being shown images of artwork - both genuine and fake. Despite being unable to distinguish between the two, advice given on the authenticity of a given piece was shown to alter the brain’s response to it. The fourteen participants were shown a variety of portraits by 17th Century Dutch Painter, Rembrandt.
When they were told that a work was genuine, it raised activity in the part of the brain that deals with rewarding events, such as tasting pleasant food or winning a gamble. When the participants were told a work was a supposed fake, however, they tried to work out why the experts regarded it as such.
The new study published this week in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience suggests that when we make aesthetic judgements on things like art, we are influenced by many different parts our brain- including what others have told us.
Professor Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University, and one of the conductors of the experiment said: “It is always better to think we are seeing the genuine article. Our study shows that the way we view art is not rational, that even when we cannot distinguish between two works, the knowledge that one was painted by a renowned artist makes us respond to it very differently.”
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