Why do we like what we like? A quest for the neural underpinnings of embodied aesthetic experience.

The creation of an artwork requires motor activity. To what extent is art appreciation divorced from that activity and to what extent is it linked to it? That is the question which I will set out to answer. In particular, I will discuss new evidence supporting the idea that involuntary action simulation causally contributes to subjective preference. I will also consider the implications of these results in the wider field of research on the brain correlates of aesthetic appreciation.