Your Brain on Art: The Complexities of Aesthetic Experience
Psych 🧠- 388/500
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What is it?
This research explores the nature of aesthetic experiences evoked by visual art. It challenges the traditional notion that aesthetic experience is primarily about simple pleasure or liking/disliking.
Instead, the findings reveal that such experiences are complex and multi-faceted, encompassing a wide range of emotions, imaginative states, and perceptual qualities attributed to the artwork.
Major Findings:
Aesthetic experiences are high-dimensional: Participants viewing diverse artworks reported experiencing a wide range of feelings, which were computationally mapped onto 25 distinct dimensions of aesthetic experience.
Emotions and perceived qualities are both crucial: Aesthetic experience is shaped both by the emotions felt in response to the artwork and the qualities perceived in the artwork itself (e.g., intricate, whimsical, dynamic).
Aesthetic experiences are blended, not discrete: Rather than falling into neat categories, aesthetic experiences lie along continuous gradients, creating a rich and varied emotional palette. People often experience mixed emotions and perceptions in response to art.
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What do I need to know:
Aesthetic experience is more than just pleasure: It encompasses a much broader spectrum of emotions, imaginative states, and perceptions than previously acknowledged.
Artwork qualities matter: How we perceive the artwork itself—its style, composition, subject matter—plays a crucial role in shaping our overall aesthetic experience.
Mixed emotions are common in art: People often experience a blend of different emotions and perceptions when engaging with visual art.
The "cultural archive" hypothesis: The findings support the idea that visual art serves as a cultural archive of emotions, allowing individuals to explore and understand a wide range of human experiences.
Source:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-69686-9