Abduction in Art Appreciation (original) (raw)

Psychophysiological and behavioral responses to descriptive labels in modern art museums

PLOS ONE

Educational tools in art exhibitions seem crucial to improve the cultural and aesthetic experience, particularly of non-expert visitors, thus becoming a strategic goal for museums. However, there has not been much research regarding the impact of labels on the quality of visitors’ aesthetic experience. Therefore, here we compared the impact on the cognitive and emotional experience of naïve visitors between essential and descriptive labels, through multiple objective and subjective measurements, focusing on the controversial modern art museum context. We found that, after detailed descriptions, observers spend more time inspecting artworks, their eyes wander more looking for the described elements, their skin conductance and pupil size increase, and overall, they find the content less complex and more arousing. Our findings show that people do receive important benefits from reading detailed information about artworks. This suggests that elaborating effective labels should be a prim...

The Impact of Accompanying Text on Visual Processing and Hedonic Evaluation of Art Empirical Studies of the Arts

Empirical Studies of the Arts, 2017

This study explores how accompanying text affects the way an individual views and interprets a painting. We randomly assigned participants to view 20 paintings from the classical era with factual information, contextualized background information, or no information displayed next to them. We then recorded their visual gaze using an eye-tracking device and asked them to evaluate the paintings. The results show that how people view a painting and how they evaluate a painting are two distinct cog-nitive processes. The contextual information serves to orient the viewing process. The accompanying text influences the visual attention and gaze pattern but has limited impact on the hedonic evaluation of paintings. Instead, hedonic evaluation is more of a taste acquired through education and socialization. This study offers an empirical footnote to discussions on the cognitive assumptions in sociological studies of art and cultural phenomena.

The Impact of Accompanying Text on Visual Processing and Hedonic Evaluation of Art

Empirical Studies of the Arts, 2017

This study explores how accompanying text affects the way an individual views and interprets a painting. We randomly assigned participants to view 20 paintings from the classical era with factual information, contextualized background information, or no information displayed next to them. We then recorded their visual gaze using an eye-tracking device and asked them to evaluate the paintings. The results show that how people view a painting and how they evaluate a painting are two distinct cognitive processes. The contextual information serves to orient the viewing process. The accompanying text influences the visual attention and gaze pattern but has limited impact on the hedonic evaluation of paintings. Instead, hedonic evaluation is more of a taste acquired through education and socialization. This study offers an empirical footnote to discussions on the cognitive assumptions in sociological studies of art and cultural phenomena.

Bullot & Reber 2013 The artful mind meets art history: Toward a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation BBS [complete version, with response to commentaries]

Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework.

How Will Sense of Values and Preference Change during Art Appreciation?

Information, 2020

We have conducted several experiments where various types of information offering strategies were performed. We obtained interesting phenomena from the results. The participants seemed to be able to gradually understand the artwork by offering information of the artwork. Of course, for an abstract art, the information of the artworks functions better understanding of artworks. Even for a representational painting, the quality and quantity of understanding was gradually changing. Thus, the information of art sometimes influences the art appreciation. In this paper, we will discuss how the value and preference of art will change according to offered information? In addition, we will discuss determining which factor (information) will change the viewers’ value and preference of art in the art appreciation. For that, we conducted two experiments, where information of the artwork was offered randomly (each person may obtain different information for the artswork). Additionally, for all t...