It was a truth known to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell back in 1968, but now scientists have caught up with them: there really ain’t nothing like the real thing.
A neurological study in the Netherlands has revealed that real works of art in a museum stimulate the brain in a way that is 10 times stronger than looking at a poster.
Commissioned by the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, home to Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, the independent study used eye-tracking technology and MRI scans to record the brain activity of volunteers looking at genuine artworks and reproductions.
Scientists found the 20 volunteers had a response that was 10 times stronger when looking at the former.
“A factor of 10 is an enormous difference, and this is what happens when you look at a reproduction compared to a real work,” said Martine Gosselink, director of the Mauritshuis, on Wednesday. “You become [mentally] richer when you see things, whether you are conscious of it or not, because you make connections in your brain.”
Gosselink said she had been convinced of the power of the real before the study but had wanted her hunch to be formally investigated. “We all feel the difference – but is it measurable, is it real?” she said she had asked her colleagues a year ago. “Now, today we can really say that it is true.”
Martin de Munnik, a co-founder of Neurensics research institute, which carried out the research with other neurological specialists, said that the study had had two elements.
The volunteers, aged between 21 and 65, were attached to an electroencephalogram (EEG) brain scanner and eye-tracking equipment and asked to look at five paintings in the museum, plus posters of them in the museum shop.
Researchers also looked at the effects of images of real works versus reproductions flashed on to volunteers’ goggles, inside a University of Amsterdam functional MRI scanning machine. “If you want to know what people think, it is better to measure it than to ask them,” he said. “The results were extraordinary.”
The real artworks evoked a strong positive response in the precuneus, part of the brain involved with consciousness, self-reflection and personal memories, researchers said. Gerrit van Honthorst’s The Violin Player gave a positive “approach” stimulus of 0.41 out of 1 in real life, for instance, but just 0.05 in poster form.
The research also analysed Girl with a Pearl Earring. The popular work attracted most overall attention and drew the eye in what researchers described as a “sustained attention loop” – a triangle between the girl’s highlighted eye, mouth and pearl earring.
Erik Scherder, a professor in clinical neuropsychology invited to comment on the results, said the study underlined the importance of culture, particularly when the rightwing government in the Netherlands was imposing public cuts. “It shows what it does for your brain when you see an artwork,” he said. “This is a rich environment that really makes a difference … particularly for children in the growth phase.”
