ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a summary and discussion of the effects of context on aesthetic experiences. First, we discuss how the study of pleasure and its underlying neurobiology has often required taking them in isolation of context. This isolation enables experimental control but at the cost of disregarding essential features of aesthetics, such as deeply moving or even transformative outcomes. In empirical aesthetics, context is mainly studied in two ways. Context is either provided through background information about the work and creator of an artwork or manipulated in the sense of spatial environment in which the aesthetic experience takes place, usually contrasting the research laboratory with a museum. We also review neuroscientific findings on the brain’s reward system, such as opioid-based hedonic hotspots, and how these might be sensitive to variation in contexts. Specifically, we discuss the role of higher order-cognitive processes, such as finding meaning in artworks (or beauty) that regulate the interaction between top-down and bottom-up processes, and information integration.
