Ricerc@Sapienza

Neuroaesthetics, the science studying the biological underpinnings of aesthetic experience,
recently extended its area of investigation to literary art; this was the humus where neurocognitive
poetics blossomed. Divina Commedia represents one of the most important, famous and studied
poems worldwide. Poetry stimuli are characterized by elements (meter and rhyme) promoting
the processing fluency, a core aspect of neuroaesthetics theories. In addition, given the evidence

Several affective and cognitive processes have been found to be pivotal in affecting aesthetic experience of artworks and both neuropsychological as well as psychiatric symptoms have been found to affect artistic production. However, there is a paucity of studies directly investigating effects of brain lesions on aesthetic judgment. Here, we assessed the effects of unilateral brain damage on aesthetic judgment of artworks showing part/whole ambiguity.