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By Aman Kidwai
Workplaces Editor
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In the business world, companies are trying to make their offices more attractive to employees. Now that hybrid and remote work remains an option in the broader working world, leaders have maintained an interest in encouraging, or mandating, office attendance, with mixed results.
On top of that, people are stressed when it comes to work—over volatile markets, global socioeconomic instability, and the rapid pace of change. Overall engagement is in decline and wellbeing is far worse off than it was in 2019, according to research shared by BetterUp CEO Alexi Robichaux at the company's Uplift conference in New York City in early April.
But in the field of neuroscience, an emerging sub-topic may offer some answers as employers look to encourage wellbeing and productivity in the workplace.
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"The field of neuroaesthetics has broad implications for the business community. The reality is, most of us are not connected to how our bodies are feeling all the time," Susan Magsamen, director at the center for applied neuroaesthetics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Pedersen Brain Institute, said onstage at the Uplift conference. "In a world where the work-life boundaries are increasingly blurred, the well-being of employees has emerged as a pivotal issue."
Ivy Ross, Google's chief design officer for consumer devices, joined Magsamen in a keynote address to share that engagement with art has a positive impact on motivation and self-awareness, based on studies measuring brain activity while experiencing different styles of décor and art.
"Human evolution would not have been possible without the arts," Ross said at Uplift. "Creative expression was essential to our development as a species and connecting us to one another. Biologically, we learn to make art by connecting to our senses using sight, sound, touch, smell and taste, to create visual art, tell stories, dance and so much more."
Ross pointed out that while our industrialized society has developed a tendency to view the arts as a luxury, engaging with art is quite accessible and "being a maker or a recipient of an art experience...can make you more productive based on how it affects your brain and body, regardless of your skill level or knowledge of the arts."
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Understanding Neuroaesthetics
Ross and Magsamen conducted an initial study exploring neuroaesthetics at a design conference in Milan in 2019. Participants walked into three different rooms for five minutes with no talking or photos, wearing sensors continuously collecting biological information.
Visitors were asked to report which space they felt most relaxed in, and received a personalized report letting them know in which space they felt most relaxed. Fifty-eight percent of people did not have a match, indicating a disconnect between mind and body for a majority of participants.
"Your entire body, not just your brain, takes in the outside world. Yet, much of it sits outside of your awareness. We're only conscious of about five percent of the mental activity that is happening all around us, and you couldn't possibly attempt all of the sensory stimulation that's actually even entering your body," Magsamen said at Uplift.
She continued: "You visually process 34,000 different pieces of information visually in a single hour. Your fingertips have over 3,000 touch receptors that rapidly change your neurophysiology by releasing a cascade of neurotransmitters. The nose can detect one trillion odors with over 400 types of receptors, and these cells renew themselves every 30 to 60 days."
Connecting with art, or participating in it, no matter how good or bad you are, can have a profound impact on brain chemistry.
"Engaging in the arts deepens empathy and emotional regulation, improving interpersonal connections, empathy and active listening," Ross said. "And they expose individuals and groups to diverse perspectives."
These benefits can play a role in wellbeing, creativity and camaraderie or culture at work.
"The arts encourage deep reflection through creation and observation, resilience, flexibility and agility," Ross said.
So, if you want happier, more productive employees, consider finding ways to increase their engagement with art, such as paintings on the walls, music in the bathrooms or team outings to experience new environments.
"The arts are some of the most salient experiences human beings actually have," Ross said. "The salient information that enters your body has this unlimited capacity to radically change your physiology, to radically change how cognition and emotion happens."
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How Office Design Can Incorporate Neuroaesthetics
Functionally, neuroaesthetics can also play a role in office design.
"We know curved spaces make us feel comfortable. Also, that natural light is really effective in work environments," Magsamen said. "There's amazing data on just having access to a window and what it will do for productivity."
As part of the push to create more inviting offices, employers should consider changing the way they frame the role of the office.
"We need to consider not only the function of different areas in space, but how employees want to feel in each of these in order to amplify impact, so interdisciplinary collaboration with neuroaesthetics, [between] designers and workforce, is really important," Magsamen said.
The researchers also found that there is no silver bullet when it comes to workplace design. It depends on the company, geography, team makeup and more.
"Successful spatial design isn't about adhering to a single concept. It's about embracing ambiguity and layering on different elements. An open mind needs an open space and the physical scale of space has different impacts on how people think it feels, so a free, unconstrained environment naturally encourages creativity," Ross said.
Ambiguity can also help leaders promote the spontaneous meeting and idea-sharing opportunities that come from working together in-person.
"The most engaging spaces in the future are going to embrace ambiguity, and they're going to allow for unexpected improvisational interactions," Ross said. "As technology advances and we become more immersed in intangible digital experiences, I believe that we will be exploring the untapped possibilities of physical spaces more and more, and even beginning to think about how do we blend these hybrid experiences, both in-person and immersive, together for full experiences for employees."
Neuroaesthetics Enhance What Makes Us Human
Neuroaesthetics is not just an answer to wellbeing or engagement, but also to future-proofing one's skillset. What makes us human will keep us employable as the capabilities of machine-learning and generative AI tools accelerate.
"With the evolution of AI, there could not be a more perfect time to bring the arts and aesthetic experience into our lives and into the workplace," Ross said.
At this time, in a rapidly changing world with mounting complications around recruiting, retention and management of large organizations, perhaps financial or operational goals are not painting the full picture of our workplace experience or performance.
"We've been optimizing for productivity since the Industrial Revolution, pushing the arts aside as something nice to have...thinking that focusing on productivity and efficiency would make us happy," Ross said. "But we're not, in fact, right now. Mental health issues are surpassing physical health issues, and it's never been the case before."
Declining engagement may be an urgent problem as mental health and wellbeing increasingly surface to the forefront of business challenges facing managers and workers.
"More than ever, we need to understand what it means to be human through the felt sense. We have something that machines will never have," Ross said. "We have senses, not sensors, and these two things function very differently."
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