Through curation, museums shape the way visitors engage with exhibitions. An essential aspect of curation is arranging artworks to convey meaning, therefore, we aimed to understand how visitors may pick up on these interrelations by focusing on gaze behavior, and, specifically, alternating gazes. The present preregistered study (N = 104) aimed at investigating whether alternating gazes (as a measure of visual exploration) improve the understanding of a museum exhibition (an indicator of museum learning). Overall, results showed that alternating gazes did not improve art understanding. Despite that, participants were able to correctly identify the themes of the exhibition (i.e., objective understanding, d = 2.86). But, this was not related to alternating gaze behavior nor subjective understanding (felt understanding). Instead, a lower proportional time spent alternating gazes was related to a higher subjective understanding, suggesting that visual exploration, may reflect initial uncertainty/confusion, offering preliminary insight into the role of viewing behavior in museum learning.
We devised a novel version of a sacrificial ‘trolley’ dilemma to assess how people make moral decisions about art. In an online survey, 210 undergraduates responded to 26 scenarios involving a forced choice between saving a person or saving an artwork, with characteristics of the person or the artwork varying across scenarios. Participants also provided information on their valuation of art and human life, choices in non-art-related ‘lifeboat ethics’ scenarios, difficulty answering the dilemmas, and other information. In a scenario involving saving a generic person versus the Sistine Chapel, one-sixth of participants chose to save the artwork. Modifying characteristics of the person or the artwork led to substantial shifts in choices. Propensity to choose the Sistine Chapel over a human life was predicted by similar responses to other sacrificial dilemmas (both art- and non-art-related), ratings of difficulty in answering dilemmas, and self-reported valuation of human life.
In a world of deepfakes, generative AI, and ongoing debates over cultural appropriation, questions about what makes art “authentic” are newly urgent. We build on work from science and the humanities to offer a unified psychological account of perceived art authenticity . Across six studies, we find that people see art as more authentic when it appears to reveal a mind—a creator's lived experience, emotions, and intentions. The importance of “revealed mind” helps clarify central debates surrounding authenticity, explaining why replicas can sometimes feel authentic, and why audiences celebrate art that reflects an artist's lived experience and grow outraged when an artist tells someone else's story. Perceptions of revealed mind are especially important in the age of AI, explaining why AI-generated art feels inauthentic even when technically impressive. Together, our findings suggest that art feels most authentic when it evokes a sense of connection to the artist's mind.
This study investigates how curatorial attribution (AI versus human) influences audience perception across Narrative Coherence, legitimacy, and Aesthetic-Emotional Engagement. Utilizing a 2 & times; 2 factorial design (N = 281), participants evaluated identical artworks under varying provenance labels. Results from PLS-SEM indicate that while Narrative Coherence was not statistically significant, a marginal trend suggests a possible influence of attribution. The "Human" label significantly enhances perceived legitimacy and Aesthetic-Emotional Engagement. Notably, Signal Detection Theory (SDT) analysis indicates limited discrimination ability, suggesting that participants were generally unable to reliably distinguish between AI and human authored texts. However, Aesthetic-Emotional Engagement emerged as the primary significant mediator of Overall Evaluation. These findings demonstrate an attribution-based asymmetry, where evaluations appear to be shaped more by attribution cues than by accurate source identification. This research extends the Model of Aesthetic Experience, offering strategic implications for galleries regarding the integration of AI efficiency with human expertise.
How does art expertise through creation and appreciation relate to perceptual and cognitive skills? Previous research suggests that visual arts training may improve attention and observational skills. Little research has investigated whether visual arts appreciation similarly facilitates perceptual skill development. We administered a study (N = 132) containing online and in-person samples assessing how art expertise and engagement relate to a battery of measures, including visual attention, working memory, creativity, mental rotation, emotion recognition, empathy, and mental imagery. Additionally, we assessed art expertise and knowledge with questionnaires and two drawing tasks measuring skill and creativity. Drawing skill was positively correlated to mental rotation, performance on the out-of-focus-images (OOFI) task, and creativity. Art knowledge was also correlated to the OOFI-task, but was additionally related to emotion recognition skills, and to vividness of imagery. These results suggest that both art creation and appreciation may be differentially linked to enhanced perceptual and cognitive skills.
This study investigated the structural dimensions and profile patterns of artistic expression in student visual works using expert ratings on seven evaluative indicators. Exploratory factor analysis revealed two latent constructs - Authorial Meaning Integration (symbolic saturation, narrative integration, emotional expressiveness, authorial presence, aesthetic intentionality) and Harmony of Stylistic Form (stylistic coherence, aesthetic orientation) - explaining 72.7% of total variance. The results indicate that youth artistic creativity is organized around interrelated but distinguishable meaning-oriented and stylistic-formal dimensions, rather than a single undifferentiated construct. The prominence of meaning integration highlights the central role of symbolic, narrative, and emotional processes in youth artistic expression, while stylistic harmony reflects the developing organization of formal and perceptual aspects of visual work. Together, the findings provide an empirically grounded and developmentally sensitive framework for understanding youth artistic creativity, emphasizing the dynamic interplay between meaning-making and stylistic organization in visual expression.
This study investigates the impact of narrative voice (first-person vs third-person) and reception mode (reading vs listening) on empathy, identification, and parasocial interaction in literary engagement. It is motivated by contradictory findings regarding how narrative voice influences readers’ emotional and cognitive responses to literary texts, as well as the question of whether audiobooks condition the impact of narrative voice. In an experiment, participants engaged with a novella with first- or third-person narration presented in either written or audiobook format. Although the results indicate that narrative voice does not affect social emotions, listening to an audiobook reduced self-oriented emotions, such as empathic stress and emotional involvement, relative to reading print. No significant effects were observed for all other subdimensions related to empathy, identification, and parasocial interaction. It thus appears that by introducing an audiobook performance as a layer of distance, participants were prevented from experiencing strong self-oriented emotions.
This study examined the associations between structured rhythmic movement performed at fixed tempos and independent learning and decision-making skills in children within physical education lessons. Over a 14-week intervention, children participated in rhythmic motor activities delivered at a slower structured tempo (30 BPM) or a faster structured tempo (60BPM), while a control group followed standard physical education practices. Both tempo conditions were associated with improvements in independent learning skills at the metacognitive, affective, and cognitive dimension levels. The slower tempo condition showed relatively greater improvements in affective and self-regulatory learning dimensions, whereas the faster tempo condition was associated with comparatively greater gains in cognitive learning dimensions. In decision-making, both tempo conditions were associated with reductions in dependent decision-making and increases in ability-based decision-making tendencies. These findings indicate that tempo-structured rhythmic movement may be associated with learning- and decision-related skill dimensions that are conceptually linked to executive-function-related processes in children.Trial registration: NCT07147686
This study presents the first investigation of aesthetic evaluation in ikebana, Japanese art of flower arrangement characterised by asymmetry. While symmetry has been central in empirical aesthetics, we examined how subjective and objective symmetry relate to beauty and liking in this significant art form. A total of 245 Japanese adults evaluated 75 professional ikebana images on beauty, liking, and perceived symmetry. Objective symmetry was assessed with computer vision analysis. Contrary to expectations, objective and subjective symmetry were uncorrelated. Subjective symmetry predicted both beauty and liking, with a shallow U-shaped relation for beauty. Ikebana experience moderated this effect, as less experienced participants preferred symmetry more strongly, consistent with cognitive mastering theory. These findings suggest that perceived balance, rather than pixel-level symmetry, drives aesthetic evaluation in ikebana. More broadly, the study shows how cultural expertise shapes aesthetic judgement and highlights the value of examining culturally situated practices for cross-cultural empirical aesthetics.
The purpose of the present study was to specify the underlying structure of the subjective experience of beauty in different object categories. In the Main study participants rated 120 stimuli (24 images X 5 object categories) on 64 descriptors. A principal component analysis extracted nine basic dimensions (6-8 per category). Component structures are similar cross-category. Fantastic, Striking, and Harmonious beauty are common to all categories, Elegant, Cute, Relaxing, Magical and Grandiose beauty are common to most categories, whereas Erotic beauty is specific only for Humans. We proposed a functional model hypothesizing that different dimensions of beauty reflect the satisfaction of the different needs of subject related to different psychobiological domains ranging from the reward system (Fantastic beauty) through the information processing (Harmonious, Elegant, Striking, and Magical beauty) to instinctive functions, such as protection (Cute beauty), security (Relaxing beauty), submission (Grandiose beauty), and sex (Erotic beauty).
Aesthetic experience, viewed in positive and educational psychology as a source of pleasure and a regulator of emotion and social adaptation through flow, may protect adolescents from social anxiety. Using data from 1,541 junior high students in Yunnan Province, this study employed Bayesian network pseudo-causal modeling to explore links between aesthetic experience and social anxiety. Results showed a hierarchical structure of aesthetic experience ("culture -> perception -> understanding -> flow") with emotion as a downstream outcome; social interaction as the central node in the anxiety network; and a negative pseudo-causal path between flow and social interaction anxiety. Moderation analyses indicated that moderate and sustained program participation (13-24 months) and low-frequency, regular extracurricular training (<= 2 h/week) strengthened flow's protective effect, whereas excessive or brief participation reduced it. Findings highlight balanced aesthetic education as a feasible path for promoting adolescent mental health.
This research examined how perceived emotions in music influence social connectedness through music-induced narrative imagining across three studies in China. Using mixed-effects linear models, Study 1 (N = 47) showed that perceived emotional valence, but not arousal, significantly predicted social connectedness. Study 2 (N = 70) found that negative and high-arousal music increased the likelihood of vivid narrative imagining; music with similar valence elicited more consistent imagining across listeners, and low-arousal music produced higher similarity than high-arousal music. Study 3 (N = 242) examined a serial mediation model, indicating that narrative imagining was reliably associated with social connectedness and partially account for the association between perceived emotional arousal and social connectedness. These findings provide empirical evidence from a collectivist cultural context, extending models of how emotional response and imaginative engagement in music jointly shape social connectedness.
Through the provision of realistic, simulated performance settings, this study explores the use of virtual reality (VR) as an innovative tool for managing performance anxiety in pianists. Assessing the efficacy of VR-based exposure treatment in lowering pianists' psychological and physiological indicators of anxiety was the main goal of the study. A quasi-experimental research design was used, with 50 pianists randomly assigned to either a VR intervention group or a control group practicing traditional relaxation techniques. This study explores the use of VR as an innovative tool for managing performance anxiety in pianists by providing immersive, simulated performance environments. The primary objective of the study is to assess the effectiveness of VR-based exposure therapy in reducing both psychological and physiological markers of anxiety. The VR group's performance anxiety was significantly reduced, as evidenced by a 23.4% increase in HRV and a 26.9% drop in self-reported anxiety levels.
Despite its ubiquity within research and society, the study of AI-mediated art and its perception remain superficial and lacks depth. This study offers valuable perspectives for the fields of psychology and art history regarding the perception of AI-mediated art. It establishes a foundation for future investigations into the implications of art mediated by artificial intelligence, featuring nine artworks by contemporary artists: Alexandra Crouwers, Canek Zapata, Daan Couzijn, Estelle Flores, Mathias Mu, Marnix van Soom and Rodell Warner. The artworks utilize AI in diverse ways, employing different media, including paintings, sculpture, screens and projections. As the works were curated by an art historian and displayed in a gallery setting, this study provides a distinctive contribution. In contrast to the numerous existent studies that compare AI-generated images with reproductions of analog paintings in online settings, this study examines authentic works created by early and mid-career artists.The study comprised a total of 39 participants. 26 of these were able to visit the exhibition on their own, without context or time constraints. They then took part in an in-depth interview and completed a questionnaire, aimed at gaining insights into how participants perceive the use of AI in art. The remaining 13 participants were able to visit the exhibition with context and only completed the questionnaire. We focused on how they experienced such a multimedia exhibition and what it meant to them that the artworks were mediated by AI. Additionally, we examined the role of different kinds of screens, and the presence of new digital technologies in art.The results show a marked discrepancy between the critical openness to understanding the role of AI and other digital technologies in art, and their appreciation of the specific artworks in the context of this exhibition. The predominant explanation for this discrepancy is probably the lack of a framework for viewing this type of art.
This study investigates how auditory, visual, and lyrical features in music videos shape emotional responses, using EEG data from 26 participants. Five widely viewed music videos were selected based on their global popularity and cross-cultural appeal. A CNN-LSTM model classified emotional states with 97.67% accuracy, and complementary regression results showed strong generalization (best model RMSE = 0.15, MAE = 0.10). Feature selection reduced 27 candidates to a sparse set dominated by auditory and visual cues, and SHAP interpretation revealed a clear modality hierarchy: pitch- and dynamics-related auditory features accounted for the largest share of predictive importance, visual color properties (hue, saturation) provided secondary influence, and lyrical sentiment contributed least. These findings support neuroaesthetic accounts in which low-level sensory structure drives rapid affective appraisal, with visual tone refining emotional meaning. Practically, the results suggest that deliberate control of pitch/dynamics can reliably steer emotional engagement in music-video creation for diverse audiences.
This study investigates how external semantic cues and the internal narrative structure of artworks jointly influence the aesthetic experience of non-expert viewers towards complex narrative art. Utilizing Chinese Dunhuang murals as unique cross-cultural visual materials, the inquiry was conducted through two experiments. Experiment 1 employed a behavioral method to collect participants' subjective ratings of aesthetic comprehension, interest, and liking. Experiment 2 used eye-tracking technology to objectively record metrics such as fixation patterns and gaze entropy during viewing to measure attentional processing and cognitive load. The results indicated that providing semantic cues significantly enhanced viewers' aesthetic comprehension and interest and guided more efficient, goal-directed visual search patterns (indicated by lower gaze entropy). However, the effect of semantic cues on average fixation durations did not reach statistical significance after correction. A main effect of narrative structure was also found, with continuous narrative murals receiving the highest comprehension ratings. Crucially, a significant interaction was revealed: semantic cues primarily facilitated meaning construction for segmented murals and visual navigation strategy for continuous murals, whereas their impact was negligible for the structurally clear central-subject murals. This study supports that art appreciation is a constructive process driven by schema theory, involving an interplay between top-down cognitive guidance and bottom-up visual information. The findings may offer insights for museum exhibition design and art education practices.
Previous research has often relied on passive observation of external phenomena when exploring technology-mediated self-transcendent experiences, overlooking co-creative, embodied interactivity. This study addresses this gap by investigating how aesthetic awe can be intentionally designed for using a novel Generative AI enabled interactive installation that augments a participant's self-reflection in real-timeWe conducted a within-subjects experiment (N = 40) with four scenarios, each employing a distinct artistic design strategy. Experiences were evaluated using psychometric instruments for awe, self-immersion, and individual traits, alongside subjective impact ratings.Findings suggested two psychological pathways to awe: a 'Connection-Driven' pathway, utilising realistic, narrative-led stimuli, fostered higher self-immersion and activated the Connectedness facet of awe; and a 'Vastness-Driven' pathway, employing abstract and unpredictable stimuli, activated the perceived Vastness and Accommodation facets of awe, despite lower self-immersion. Furthermore, individual traits were significant predictors of the experience, with Self-Transcendence, Engagement with Beauty, and Neuroticism all positively correlating with reported awe experience.
Priming - exposure to a stimulus that influences responses to a subsequent, related stimulus - has been widely studied in laboratory settings but rarely examined in ecological cultural contexts such as museums. This exploratory study investigated whether different priming modalities influence museum experiences across learning, affect, and pro-environmental attitudes. At the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, 161 visitors were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: visual, semantic, visuo-semantic priming or a no priming control condition. One-way ANOVA revealed no overall effect of priming condition on learning; however, exploratory pairwise comparisons indicated that the visuo-semantic condition produced higher learning scores than the visual condition alone (Cohen's d = 0.54, 95% CI [0.13, 0.95]). Unexpectedly, the control condition reported higher recycling intentions and intrinsic motivation than the visual priming condition. Overall, the findings suggest selective differences between priming modalities and underscore both the potential and the limits of applying cognitive principles in cultural settings.
Research on how affective priming influences art appreciation remains limited and contradictory. This study examined how unpleasant versus neutral primes affect beauty ratings and eye-movement patterns across abstract, landscape, and portrait paintings, comparing conscious (1000 ms) and preconscious (50 ms) prime presentations. Fifty-two participants rated 120 AI-generated paintings at baseline, then re-evaluated them two weeks later following affective primes while eye movements were recorded. Results revealed that painting category independently influenced rating changes, with abstract paintings showing larger decreases than landscapes and portraits. Critically, unpleasant primes reduced beauty ratings only under conscious presentation (p = .006), with no effect during preconscious viewing. Eye-tracking data (N = 48) showed the conscious group displayed less exploratory viewing behavior-fewer fixations, saccades, and shorter scan-paths-regardless of prime valence. Painting type also modulated scan-path length. These findings demonstrate that conscious awareness is necessary for negative affect to bias aesthetic judgments, while awareness level independently constrains visual exploration patterns.
Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) can now produce exquisite artworks, evidence suggests that people hold biases against AI-generated art. Previous studies have primarily relied on self-report measures to examine the effects of creator labels and the actual source of artworks, with limited attention to viewers' visual processing (e.g., fixation duration, pupil size, etc.) during art perception. Through three studies, the present study extends this literature by integrating eye-tracking with self-reports to investigate how top-down processing and bottom-up processing influence aesthetic judgments among lay participants. The results showed that a preference for paintings labeled as human-created under conditions in which participants could not reliably distinguish the artworks' actual sources. Although the eye-tracking data indicated that artworks labeled as AI led to more dispersed gaze patterns, the overall results were mixed. These findings highlight the role of contextual and labeling information in aesthetic evaluations. Future research should promote transparency to reduce AI-label bias.
