Neuroesthetics
Neuroesthetics is a relatively new field of research that postulates that certain qualities of art act as neurological and biological indicators for the level of a viewer’s aesthetic pleasure. This study aims to engage with these theories by specifically assessing whether color, contrast, and/or composition are predictive indicators of aesthetic experience using thirty-two paintings by artists of the nineteenth-century Hudson River Valley school. The works vary as to color distribution, average contrast, and composition, all qualities measured using Adobe Photoshop, MATLAB, and other computer programs. A survey on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk gives subjects a comparison of two random paintings from this dataset, and the subject is prompted to select which one he or she prefers. Upon completion of the survey, the resulting data is analyzed for the presence of any correlations between preferred artworks and the measured characteristics. The study does not aim to make any overall conclusions concerning neuroesthetics theories, but rather further the discussion through identifying possible correlations.