Daniel Kaiser^1,2, Philipp A. Schumann¹, Rico Stecher¹, Martin N. Hebart^2,3; ¹Justus Liebig University Giessen, ²Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior, Philipps University Marburg, Justus Liebig University Giessen, and Technical University Darmstadt, ³Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig

The category of an object influences whether or not we find it beautiful. Across many exemplars, some object categories are simply more beautiful than others: we like butterflies and roses more than maggots and potatoes. We hypothesized that such categorical differences in beauty judgments are related to differences in perceptual representations in the visual system. To test this hypothesis, we combined EEG (n=10) and fMRI (n=3) data from the THINGS initiative, which provide spatially and temporally resolved neural responses for 634 visual object categories (12 exemplars each) recorded during oddball detection tasks. We additionally collected beauty ratings from online observers (n=3750) for all object categories (6 exemplars each). To determine how brain responses across space and time covaried with beauty ratings, we performed a model-based EEG-fMRI fusion analysis. Specifically, representational similarity between object categories (collapsed across exemplars) in the EEG was modelled by representational similarity in the fMRI, while determining how much the model fit is predicted by the similarity in beauty ratings. Beauty ratings predicted rapid activations in early visual cortex, with best predictions shortly after 100ms. Predictions for higher-level visual activations were weaker but more temporally sustained. Critically, beauty ratings predicted visual responses even when other properties (e.g., naturalness, arousal, and pleasantness) were controlled for. Our findings suggest that category-level beauty is first assessed during perceptual analysis, even in the absence of a beauty-related task. Besides all semantic associations we have with these object categories, butterflies are thus liked more than maggots because of how they look.

Acknowledgements: D.K. is supported by the DFG (KA4683/5-1, KA4683/6-1, SFB/TRR 135), an ERC starting grant (ERC-2022-STG 101076057), and “The Adaptive Mind”, funded by the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Art.