# Beauty and Paintings: Aesthetic Experience in Patients with Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia When Viewing Abstract and Concrete Paintings

## TL;DR

Patients with a type of dementia experience less emotional impact and have a bias toward judging paintings as ugly compared to healthy people.

## Contribution

This study reveals how patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia have altered aesthetic experiences and emotional responses to paintings.

## Key findings

- bvFTD patients reported being less moved by both abstract and concrete paintings than controls.
- bvFTD patients gave more 'ugly' and fewer 'beautiful' responses compared to controls for both painting types.
- No significant differences were found between abstract and concrete paintings in either group.

## Abstract

We assessed the aesthetic experience of patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) to understand their ability to experience feelings of the sublime and to be moved when viewing paintings. We exposed patients with bvFTD and control participants to concrete and abstract paintings and asked them how moved they were by these paintings and whether the latter were beautiful or ugly. Patients with bvFTD declared being less moved than control participants by both abstract and concrete paintings. No significant differences were observed between abstract and concrete paintings in both patients with bvFTD and control participants. Patients with bvFTD provided fewer “beautiful” and more “ugly” responses than controls for both abstract and concrete paintings. No significant differences in terms of “beautiful” and “ugly” responses were observed between abstract and concrete paintings in both patients with bvFTD and control participants. These findings suggest disturbances in the basic affective experience of patients with bvFTD when they are exposed to paintings, as well as a bias in their ability to judge the aesthetic quality of paintings.