英国牛津大学的学者在新一期的《人类神经科学前沿》（Frontiers in Human Neuroscience）杂志上发布了他们最新的研究成果"Human cortical activity evoked by the assignment of authenticity when viewing works of art"，其研究结果表明当被告知一件艺术品是真品或是仿造品时，大脑对艺术品的视觉感官反应会被改变。
研究人员为十四位参与者佩戴了脑部扫描装置，并向他们展示了荷兰画家伦勃朗（Rembrandt）的画作，其中一部分为真迹，而其他的则是由不同的艺术家仿造的。参与者自身无法区分出画作的真伪，然而，告知画作的真实性信息将改变大脑做出的反应，无论艺术品本身究竟是真是假，这些信息都同样生效。
在研究过程中，当参与者被告知画作为真迹时，他们脑部有关奖赏事件（比如品尝美食或赢得赌注）区域的活性将被提高。而被告知这并非出自大师之手则会触发他们脑部涉及寻求新策略的区域的一系列反应。参与者反应，当他们看到被告知为仿制的艺术品时，他们会试图去找出专家认为它不是真迹的原因。
论文作者、牛津大学的生理学教授安得烈-派克表示：“这项研究证明了一点，当我们作出审美判断时，我们其实受到了各种因素的影响，而并非所有的影响都会立即表达出来。这表明当一个复杂的判断形成时，大脑的不同区域是相互影响的，而不是只有单一区域参与其中。”（生物谷Bioon.com）
doi:10.3389/fnhum.2011.00134
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Human cortical activity evoked by the assignment of authenticity when viewing works of art
Mengfei Huang, Holly Bridge, Martin J. Kemp and Andrew J. Parker
The expertise of others is a major social influence on our everyday decisions and actions. Many viewers of art, whether expert or naïve, are convinced that the full esthetic appreciation of an artwork depends upon the assurance that the work is genuine rather than fake. Rembrandt portraits provide an interesting image set for testing this idea, as there is a large number of them and recent scholarship has determined that quite a few fakes and copies exist. Use of this image set allowed us to separate the brain’s response to images of genuine and fake pictures from the brain’s response to external advice about the authenticity of the paintings. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, viewing of artworks assigned as “copy,” rather than “authentic,” evoked stronger responses in frontopolar cortex (FPC), and right precuneus, regardless of whether the portrait was actually genuine. Advice about authenticity had no direct effect on the cortical visual areas responsive to the paintings, but there was a significant psycho-physiological interaction between the FPC and the lateral occipital area, which suggests that these visual areas may be modulated by FPC. We propose that the activation of brain networks rather than a single cortical area in this paradigm supports the art scholars’ view that esthetic judgments are multi-faceted and multi-dimensional in nature.
