How art can change the way you think

by Terry Robson November 20, 2015

For some reason humans have always had a tendency to dabble in art. Even 34,000 years ago after a hard day’s sprinting after deer and away from the local carnivore, a human took the time to paint a picture of a pig on a cave wall. Other cave wall artworks pre-date this by around 6,000 years or so and we can presume that prior to this people scrawled more ephemeral artworks in the dirt that is now the dust of prehistory. The big question is: why? Why did humans bother with art and why do we still do so? The answer is, even if the practitioners and viewers aren’t fully aware of it, art changes us.

The changes in brain activity were such that the researchers could predict with 55 per cent accuracy whether the subjects were looking at a moderately complex or complex artwork.

This was shown in a new study where hundreds of subjects wore EEG headsets that allowed their brain activity to be measured as they moved around an art exhibition. To begin with the subjects were asked to look at a blank wall to provide some baseline data and then they looked at artworks that had been categorised as “moderately complex” or “complex” by the researchers.

Results showed that compared to looking at a blank wall when subjects looked at a piece of art there were increases in functional connectivity within localised brain networks, especially when the art was subjectively judged to be aesthetically pleasing. Additionally, the changes in brain activity were such that the researchers could predict with 55 per cent accuracy whether the subjects were looking at a moderately complex or complex artwork. This compares to a 33 per cent accuracy for random prediction.

So that means art changes the connectivity within your brain in measurable and predictable ways. In case you should ever run across someone questioning the value of art, and mostly those people will be advocates of “science”, there’s your scientific answer. The bleeding obvious answer is because it feels elevating to view art, but to some people the bleeding obvious isn’t so obvious, which just leaves it bleeding.