Abstract: Abstract During aesthetic of art paintings, art experts perceive more information from the painting than novices do base on their specific art experience and knowledge. Previous studies have already been demonstrated obvious differences between art experts and novices when it comes to appreciating artistic works. However, to date, there has not yet been systematic research on whether art expertise modulates aesthetic processing of traditional Chinese paintings, especially the neural mechanisms was lacking. The current study set out to investigate whether the aesthetic evaluation of Chinese paintings was modulated by art expertise. The aesthetic consistency was used as a measure of aesthetic ability in the present study. To this end, thirty participants, 15 art major students and 15 non-art major students (mean age = 22.3 ± 2.46 years old) were enrolled in the experiment, to assess 20 Chinese paintings. The art major students were undergraduate or graduate students who receiving professional art education range from 5 to 10 years, appreciating and evaluating the art paintings is an important part of their professional training. In contrary, non-art major students were undergraduate or graduate students who were without any art training. The two groups were matched in age and education. Participants were asked to rate Chinese paintings on two dimensions of “Beauty” and “Liking”. Ratings were done on a 5-point Likert scale. The oxygenated hemoglobin concentration (HbO) responses were recorded in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and right temporo-parietal junction (r-TPJ) by functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS). The aesthetic rating consistency on behavior ratings as well as neural activity consistency (the inter-subject correlation, ISC) were calculated in the art major students and non-art major students in free appreciating the paintings. Behaviorally, although no significant differences on the evaluation of beauty and liking aesthetic ratings between the two groups, in aesthetic behavior rating consistency, the result showed the main effects of the level of expertise. Specially, the art major group showed significant higher rating consistency than non-art major students (p < 0.05). Furthermore, a significant interaction effect showed the higher rating consistency in the art major students group than non-art students group was only on the beauty rating (p < 0.05), but not on the liking rating (p > 0.05). In neural activity consistency, the art major group showed significant increased neural activity consistency than the non-art major group during the aesthetic processing of Chinese paintings, roughly in the right supramarginal gyrus (CH16) and right superior parietal gyrus (CH24) (all ps < 0.05). Notably, our results showed that the neural activity consistency negatively correlated with the art major group beauty ratings, however, this effect was not found in the non-art major group. These findings revealed that art major students’ neural activity consistency allows to judged the Chinese paintings as more aesthetic nor or as unaesthetic, but non-art major students’ neural activity consistency cannot. Together, our results further extend the art expertise knowledge helps to aesthetic of Chinese paintings and this finding was confirmed by the aesthetic consensus from behavior and neural indices of aesthetic processing. The present study provides energetic support for the popularization of Chinese traditional art knowledge which was necessity for understanding and appreciating the Chinese paintings.

Key words: Chinese painting, art and non-art major students, aesthetic consistency, neural activity consistency

摘要： 摘 要 本研究结合fNIRS技术，考察了美术训练学生和普通学生在中国画审美一致性上的差异。行为上，虽然两组被试在审美评分上没有显著差异，但在评分一致性上，美术训练学生相比普通学生在“好看”评分上更一致。脑活动上，美术训练学生右侧颞顶联合区的16通道和24通道的神经活动一致性显著高于普通学生，且美术训练学生的神经活动一致性与“好看”评分呈负相关。本研究揭示了艺术专业知识对中国画审美的重要性，且神经活动一致性可作为中国画审美判断的一项潜在神经标记。

关键词: 中国画, 美术训练学生和普通学生, 审美一致性, 神经活动一致性