The Palace of Versailles is probably one of the top must see places for anyone visiting France. Its intricate design and rich French history appeals to the millions of tourists visiting Versailles each year. On Friday June 1st, my neuroscience class and I added to the millions and took a trip to the glorious palace. We were guided through the palace learning about all the King Louis’ of France and how the ginormous palace started off merely as a small hunting lodge. We saw ceiling painting after ceiling painting and I was in awe of all of its elegance. We passed through the Hall of Mirrors and were even taught a line dance that people used to do in the hall. We ended the tour outside of the palace but still inside the gates and we were all free to roam the massive gardens outside.
As I was eating my lunch overlooking only a small portion of the beautiful gardens of Versailles, I couldn’t help but admire its symmetry. I realized that I always seem to enjoy anything that’s perfectly symmetrical and decided to look into the neuroscience behind it. I found a study that shows how our human visual cortex processes visual symmetry in a particular way (Sasaki et. Al., 2005). Functional MRI’s were taken of humans looking at visual stimuli of symmetric versus random dot stimuli and were able to identify parts of the brain that were more related to symmetrical visual stimulation. They also compared the results to macaque’s fMRI for the same symmetrical vs random visual stimuli and found that there was a weaker response in the symmetrical visual activation areas of the brain which suggests that “visual symmetry is specifically enhanced in the human brain” (Sasaki et. Al., 2005). So, our human brains are actually programmed to recognize symmetry more easily. Studies have also shown that humans seem to be more attracted to symmetrical faces as opposed to asymmetrical faces (Little et. Al, 2011).
I have always known that I, along with many other people, in general seem to enjoy symmetry. There are even Instagram and Youtube accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers and subscribers merely posting symmetrically pleasing pictures and videos. There is obviously a draw to things that are perfectly balanced, but little did I know that there was a significant neurological difference when viewing symmetry as well. I am unsure whether or not the architects and gardeners of Versailles knew this when designing the palace, but they sure knew how to aesthetically please the eye.
Sources:
Little, A. C., Jones, B. C., & DeBruine, L. M. (2011). Facial attractiveness: evolutionary based research. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1571), 1638–1659. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0404
Sasaki, Y., Vanduffel, W., Knutsen, T., Tyler, C., & Tootell, R. (2005). Symmetry activates extrastriate visual cortex in human and nonhuman primates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(8), 3159–3163. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0500319102