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PHILADELPHIA-- Art appreciation is considered essential to human experience. While taste in art varies depending on the individual, cognitive neuroscience can provide clues about how viewing art affects our neural systems, and evaluate how these systems inform our valuation of art. For instance, one study shows that viewing art activates motor areas, both in clear representations of movement, like Adam and Eve in Michelangelo's Expulsion from Paradise, and in implied movement through brush strokes, like in Franz Kline's gestural paintings.
Altered neural functioning, like that experienced in patients with Parkinson's disease, changes the way art is both perceived and valued, according to a study published recently in The