The Neurocognitive Mechanism Of Chinese Calligraphy Character Recognition And Its Aesthetic Appreciation

The present study aims to explore the neurocognitive mechanism of recognition and aesthetic appreciation of Chinese calligraphy characters.Previous studies have shown that long-term experience in calligraphy practice is associated with the better psychological and physical health of the calligraphy practitioners,and therefore calligraphy therapy has been used as an effective treatment to cognitively impaired patients.In recent years,more research has shown that long-term calligraphy training can improve some executive functions and enhance the resting-state functional connectivity in related brain regions of the practitioners,even changing the gray matter structure of the brain.However,the neurocognitive mechanism underlying the recognition and aesthetic appreciation of Chinese calligraphy characters is still unclear.Forty participants(half were practitioners with rich experience in calligraphy learning and the other half were controls)in a functional magnetic resonance imaging(f MRI)study,and they were required to complete the aesthetic judgment task,the verb judgment task and the Chinese character structure judgment task with calligraphy characters and printed characters.The results showed that both groups activated a number of brain regions associated with visual processing,memory,and emotions.In addition,the professional participants showed more activation when aesthetically evaluating calligraphy characters,while controls engaged more brain activation in semantic processing of calligraphy characters.This study provided neurocognitive evidence that long-term calligraphy training contributes to better efficiency in recognition of calligraphy characters and a more extended brain network in aesthetic appreciation of calligraphy characters.