The Cerebellum and Beauty: The Impact of the Cerebellum in Art Experience and Creativity

There is growing interest in the cerebellum’s contributions to higher order functions of the human brain. When considering specific activities of the human cerebellum related to art, we differentiate two broad areas. Neural activity within different locations of the cerebellum is involved in art perception and in artistic creativity. The cerebellum plays an underappreciated role in neuroaesthetics, including the perception and evaluation of art objects, their appreciation and affective aesthetic experience. Certain areas of the cerebellum presumably are of particular relevance, incorporating cognitive and affective issues within large-scaled neural networks in perceiving and appraising artworks. For art creativity, many investigations report cerebellar implementations. Important areas in these domains are evolutionary younger parts of the cerebellar hemispheres, in particular the lobule VII with its Crus I and II, influencing crucial networks such as the Default Mode Network in optimizing creativity. These structures help guide pattern recognition and in art appreciation as they may play a role in predicting ongoing neural network activities through a crucial frontoparietal axis. In this chapter, we consider how our current neuroscientific understanding of cerebellar functions point to a likely role of the cerebellum in art appreciation and creativity.