Neural correlates of appreciating natural landscape and landscape garden: Evidence from an fMRI study
June 1st, 2019
Wei Zhang, Xianyou He, Sizhe Liu, Ting Li, Jinhui Li, Xiaoxiang Tang, Shuxian Lai
This article examines the effect of viewing photographs of natural landscapes and landscape gardens and performing scene type judgement tasks on brain regions.
Brain and Behavior
Posted byCherry Ng
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Abstract/Description
Introduction
Rambling natural landscapes or landscape gardens may invoke positive emotions. However, the manner in which people experience landscape gardens and the cortical differences in the appreciation of the naturalness and artificiality of landscapes remain unknown.
Methods
This study scanned participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they viewed photographs of natural landscapes and landscape gardens and performed scene type judgment task.
Results
As predicted, we identified brain regions that were associated with perceptual process, cognitive process, and rewarding experience when appreciating natural landscapes and landscape gardens without color preference. Meanwhile, the contrast between the appreciation of landscape gardens and natural landscapes was characterized by stronger activations of the inferior occipital lobe, the left superior parietal lobule (SPL), the right fusiform gyrus, the right cuneus, and the right hippocampus.
Conclusions
Responses in these regions indicate that the appreciation of landscape gardens and natural landscapes relies on common cortical regions, and suggest the possibility that the inferior occipital lobe, the SPL, the fusiform gyrus, and the cuneus may be specifically associated with the appreciation of landscape gardens.
Rambling natural landscapes or landscape gardens may invoke positive emotions. However, the manner in which people experience landscape gardens and the cortical differences in the appreciation of the naturalness and artificiality of landscapes remain unknown.
Methods
This study scanned participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they viewed photographs of natural landscapes and landscape gardens and performed scene type judgment task.
Results
As predicted, we identified brain regions that were associated with perceptual process, cognitive process, and rewarding experience when appreciating natural landscapes and landscape gardens without color preference. Meanwhile, the contrast between the appreciation of landscape gardens and natural landscapes was characterized by stronger activations of the inferior occipital lobe, the left superior parietal lobule (SPL), the right fusiform gyrus, the right cuneus, and the right hippocampus.
Conclusions
Responses in these regions indicate that the appreciation of landscape gardens and natural landscapes relies on common cortical regions, and suggest the possibility that the inferior occipital lobe, the SPL, the fusiform gyrus, and the cuneus may be specifically associated with the appreciation of landscape gardens.
