Your unique brain decides what you see and interpret in art

When you look at an abstract painting, study it for a time, what do you see and what do you feel? Does it conjure an old memory, a sense of spirituality, or confusion? 

Artists and philosophers have long tried to answer such questions, including what art means. Now, scientists are having a go. 

A new study has analyzed what happens in people's brains when they look at abstract art.

Published in the journal PNAS, the study provides insight into how the brain engages with different forms of art and constructs subjective experiences.

The researchers say their findings support the concept of the 'Beholder's Share,' in which works of art are said to be completed by the viewer — all your personal memories, emotions, and peccadillos imbue the piece of art with meaning, at least, that is, in your mind.

"Our findings revealed more person-specific responses to abstract paintings, indicating that individuals contribute more personal associations to abstract art than to representational art," write the researchers in their study.

How our brains react to art

It's in the different ways we interpret art that gives scientists clues about our individual minds, and how the brain constructs subjective experiences.

For the study, the researchers measured the brain activity of 59 people, using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The participants were placed in a brain scanner while they viewed both abstract and realistic art paintings.

"Kosmos Kandinsky" — geometric abstractions — reflected, in part, the 20th Century's technological and scientific advancements. Is that what you see?Image: Soeren Stache/dpa/picture alliance

Before we get to the findings, here are some basics:

When we view art, the flow of visual information goes from the eye to a part of the brain known as the visual cortex. That's where the visual information is first processed. To give that information meaning, it is then sent to "higher orders" of the brain.

Now to the findings: The study revealed that there were no real differences between the participants' brain activity in the visual cortex.

In other words, their brains likely created similar visual perceptions of the artwork — they saw the same thing.

But there were differences between the people's brain activity in higher-order regions, which are important for subjective experience. In particular, there were differences in brain activity in the default mode network — a brain network involved in imagination, memory recall, and self-referential thought.

This suggests that subjective variability arises from higher cognitive processes rather than differences in early sensory processing (in the visual cortex).

The researchers say their study generates new questions about why people interpret pieces of art differently.

For instance, are differences in interpretive responses due to differences in people's capacity to generate representations of art from ambiguous stimuli? Or might they instead stem from differences in emotional responses or aesthetic taste?

How would you interpret this painting by Jackson Pollock? Researchers think that processing the image in higher orders of the brain is what gives it your unique meaning.Image: Sabine Glaubitz/dpa/picture alliance

Looking at art benefits your brain

Research shows that viewing art has beneficial effects on your brain and psychology.

For one, viewing art a proven stress-reliever. Researchers in 2003 had London City workers spit into a tube before and after spending a lunch break in an art gallery. Lab analysis found their cortisol levels had dropped after viewing art, which indicated their stress levels had normalized. 

That's why abstract art is used in therapy for stress-related conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, and has been shown to help patients process emotions and reduce stress.

Art is also an incredibly effective tool for learning — something well known to our ancient ancestors, who used cave art to educate people over posterity.

When you look at art, the concepts or stories it depicts stick to your mind like pollen on bee legs. Research suggests that stopping to appreciate the aesthetics of something facilitates learning about it. This idea of "stopping for knowledge" is driven by pleasure and curiosity — it drives you to ask questions and seek information.

Making sense of the world through art and neuroscience

In a certain sense, both art and science attempt to understand and describe the world around us. What differs is their methods and ways of communicating.

Art creates experiences that are more memorable by evoking emotions or understanding, whereas science provides the tools for empirical observation and reason.

One of the biggest questions spanning both fields is why our conscious experiences and perceptual worlds differ between one another — in other words, what makes our minds unique.

Poets and artists have been exploring this theme for millennia, but only now are neuroscientific research tools getting sophisticated enough to probe the human mind and find any answers.

The research is beginning to tackle and answer questions such as why some people get depression and others don't, or how pregnancy rewires mothers' brains. But scientists are a long way away from understanding how the brain creates consciousness and how to recreate human thinking in machines .

Edited by: Zulfikar Abbany

Sources

The Beholder's Share: Bridging art and neuroscience to study individual differences in subjective experience, PNAS, April 2025 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2413871122

Normalisation of salivary cortisol levels and self-report stress by a brief lunchtime visit to an art gallery by London City workers, University of Westminster, 2006 https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/924vz/normalisation-of-salivary-cortisol-levels-and-self-report-stress-by-a-brief-lunchtime-visit-to-an-art-gallery-by-london-city-workers