Scans show real art stimulates brain 10 times as much as reproductions

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.

- Senay Boztas

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.

Scientists found the 20 volunteers had a response that was 10 times stronger when looking at genuine artworks than at reproductions.

Martine Gosselink, director of the Mauritshuis, said: "A factor of 10 is an enormous difference, and this is what happens when you look at a reproduction compared to a real work. 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 reported asking colleagues a year ago. "Now, today we can really say that it is true."