Dear Dr. Tomasetig,

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?-->?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: This is an important study both for the questions asked and the methodology used, namely fMRI. The study investigated brain activity in professional artists with regards to their own artworks and those by others. The results are a contribution to the field of brain and art. The manuscript is well written in its present version and no special revisions are recommended.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript addresses an original and theoretically well-motivated research question, investigating the neurocognitive bases of aesthetic experience and artistic creation in professional painters by contrasting the Embodied Hypothesis with the Perceptual Learning and Inhibitory Hypothesis using fMRI. The experimental design is sophisticated, the stimulus preparation is careful and individualized, and the manuscript is clearly written. Overall, the work has solid scientific merit and makes a meaningful contribution to the emerging field of empirical neuroaesthetics. The revisions requested concern primarily the transparency in the presentation of certain results, a more balanced treatment of the two competing theoretical frameworks, and a more explicit discussion of the methodological limitations inherent to this line of research.

Major Comments

1. Theoretical framing of the hypotheses

I am not entirely convinced that the study hypotheses are formulated in a way that fully respects the theoretical frameworks they aim to test. Based on the original formulation of the Perceptual Learning and Inhibitory Hypothesis, I would expect greater motor inhibition and enhanced perceptual recruitment specifically for paintings that are aesthetically preferred, regardless of whether they are self-authored or made by others, since the theory is fundamentally grounded in the phenomenology of aesthetic pleasure, also with auditory stimuli (Sarasso, P., Barbieri, P., Del Fante, E., Bechis, L., Neppi-Modona, M., Sacco, K., & Ronga, I. (2022). Preferred music listening is associated with perceptual learning enhancement at the expense of self-focused attention. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 29(6), 2108-2121. ). Furthermore, I could not identify in the original theoretical sources a clear account of the creative process per se within this framework. I would therefore be cautious about advancing directional hypotheses in this regard. This does not diminish the value of the empirical findings: the results can certainly be discussed in light of this theoretical framework, but the authors should be more explicit about the assumptions and potential limitations involved in operationalizing these theories within the current experimental design.

3. Clusters not surviving correction for multiple comparisons

I agree that also non significant results has their value (Chen, G., Taylor, P. A., & Cox, R. W. (2017). Is the statistic value all we should care about in neuroimaging?. NeuroImage, 147, 952-959. ). However, several key results discussed in the Main Text and illustrated in Figure 2 do not reach significance after FWER correction. Although the authors flag these with footnotes, they receive equal narrative emphasis throughout the text and are displayed in the main figures without sufficiently prominent caveats. I recommend that the Discussion explicitly distinguish between statistically supported findings and exploratory trends, and that the main conclusions be anchored accordingly.

4. MRI data preprocessing

(Line 281) The data matrix was interpolated to produce voxels with 2 × 2 × 2 mm dimensions. What was the native acquisition? (4 × 3 × 3 mm?). It should be explicitly acknowledged that upsampling artificially estimates signal values between measured points and may inflate the apparent spatial extent of activation clusters. This limitation should be acknowledged in the Preprocessing section.

5. Aesthetic appreciation independently of authorship

(Line 501) A question that arises from the current design is whether the authors examined the neural correlates of aesthetic appreciation independently of authorship collapsing across self-authored and others' paintings to identify brain regions that track aesthetic liking regardless of who produced the artwork. It should also be noted that what was measured in the scanner during the appreciation task was an aesthetic judgment, not aesthetic appreciation per se. It would be informative to know whether neural responses differ as a function of liked versus less-liked paintings across both categories. In this light, I would suggest either modeling four regressors of interest (own liked, own less-liked, others' liked, others' less-liked) or, alternatively, correlating the Day 1 liking ratings with the beta estimates from the own > others contrast. What the current data most compellingly support is the statement at line 526 that observing their own paintings automatically triggers internal mental representations of the actions previously performed, while conclusion on aesthetic pleasure would be strengthened by the analyses suggested above.

6. Motor versus visual familiarity

(Lines 538–540 and 547–552) The authors draw on the Calvo-Merino studies to argue that differential motor activations for self-authored versus others' paintings reflect motor rather than visual familiarity. However, the claim at lines 538–540 that this inference "is supported by the distribution of activations" involves circular reasoning: the distribution of activations is precisely what needs to be explained, and invoking it as supporting evidence assumes the conclusion. The activation pattern is equally consistent with the interpretation that motor-like responses reflect motor familiarity specifically, which is in fact the most parsimonious account, but this cannot be dissociated from visual familiarity on the basis of the current data alone. The ideal design to address this question would have included art historians or art critics (i.e. individuals with extensive visual familiarity with the stimuli but no motor experience in producing them) to determine whether motor-like activations arise from visual familiarity alone or require prior motor engagement. Furthermore, the authors state at line 102 that they ensured a high degree of familiarity with others' paintings. It is unclear how this was formally assessed.

7. Discussion (Lines 563 ff. — Reconstruction by imagery task) In my view, this section presents the most compelling and original contribution of the entire manuscript. The finding that mental reconstruction of the creative process recruits a fronto-parietal network associated with motor cognition provides the most innovative evidence in favor of an embodied account of artistic experience, particularly with respect to creativity. I would encourage the authors to give this result greater prominence in the Abstract and conclusions. As a constructive suggestion, I recommend correlating the individual beta estimates from the regions identified in this contrast with the aesthetic liking ratings collected on Day 1. Such an analysis could reveal whether the degree of motor recruitment during creative reconstruction is modulated by how much the artists valued their own works aesthetically, a theoretically meaningful finding that would add an important individual-differences dimension to the current results.

Minor Comments

8. Inaccurate claim regarding previous studies on expertise

(Lines 76–78) The statement that "all previous studies on aesthetic appreciation tried to bypass the effect of artistic education, including only participants naïve to the history or practice of visual art" is inaccurate as written. Several studies have specifically investigated the role of artistic expertise in aesthetic appreciation, including Leder et al. (2011, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts), Bimler et al. (2019, Acta Psychologica), and Darda & Cross (2022, Scientific Reports). At the neuroimaging level, Kirk et al. (2009, Brain and Cognition) investigated brain correlates of aesthetic expertise using fMRI. If the authors intend to restrict their claim specifically to fMRI studies on professional artists, they should say so explicitly. In either case, the statement should be moderated.

9. Task instructions

(Lines 93 and 192) The authors describe asking participants to reconstruct "what they thought and felt when they conceived their own pieces of art." Were these the exact instructions given to participants? The precise wording of task instructions should be reported, as subtle differences in framing (e.g., emphasizing conception vs. physical execution) could meaningfully influence the cognitive and neural strategies employed.

10. Attention-check question

(Lines 188 and 317–334) The random question used to maintain participants' attention during the aesthetic appreciation task is mentioned but not described in sufficient detail. What was the exact content of this question? How frequently was it presented? Critically, how was it modeled in the first-level GLM?

11. Effect sizes

(Line 376) The authors report test statistics and p-values for all behavioral analyses, but effect sizes are not provided. In line with current best practices and guidelines, I recommend including appropriate effect size measures alongside each inferential test (for instance, Cohen's d for pairwise t-tests and partial/η²p for ANOVA and linear mixed-effects models)

12. Missing table for Figure 2b

While Tables 1 and 2 report the activations corresponding to Figures 2a and 2c respectively, no table appears to be provided for Figure 2b (lines 408–413), which reports the liking-related modulation within the aesthetic appreciation task. This should be added for completeness.

13. Missing reference to Figure S1

(Line 236) A reference to Figure S1 appears to be missing at this point in the text.

14. Figure 1 — experimental design

The trial timeline figure would benefit from a clearer schematic of the overall experimental design, explicitly indicating the two contrasts of interest (own vs. others' paintings; recall of art creation vs. recall of places) and the number of stimuli per condition (if I understand correctly, 10 liked and 10 less-liked items per category).

15. line 348

The phrase "liking had an effect on aesthetic appreciation" is potentially confusing. The authors presumably mean that aesthetic appreciation (liking) modulated neural responses?.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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How artists experience their own art

PONE-D-25-42801R1

Dear Dr. Tomasetig,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Federico Giove, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #2: I thank the authors for their careful consideration of my comments. I hope that the revisions have improved the manuscript and that my suggestions have contributed constructively to the discussion and overall quality of the work.

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what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?  For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy

Reviewer #2: No

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