Experiencing the Beautiful and the Sublime: Cultural and Neurobiological Factors

For a long time, mainstream psychological research on aesthetic processing has been focused on the investigation of one specific dimension of the aesthetic experience, that is, beauty. In the past decade, however, there has been a surge of interest in both psychology and neuroscience toward another aesthetic dimension, that is, the sublime. The sublime represents a very important aspect in decorum theory, which has remained influential for many decades in the arts and is today being applied to modern design. In architecture, decorum theory suggests that buildings designed to be “sublime” (high ranking) according to Western notions are more prominent and, therefore, more memorable than low-ranking buildings. This article offers a brief review of neurocognitive research that have tested this hypothesis and provided important insights into the role played by both cultural and neurobiological factors in the experience of the sublime.