Abstract Abstract art poses a special challenge for young viewers: without recognizable objects to anchor attention, it is unclear what guides children’s gaze and aesthetic responses. Museums increasingly use interactive tools to support such encounters, yet their effects remain poorly understood. Combining mobile eye tracking with self-reported measures, this study examined whether interactive viewing conditions alter children’s visual inspection and aesthetic experience of abstract art. Twenty-eight children (ages 6–8) viewed three paintings from Josef Albers’s Homage to the Square series under three conditions: Free Viewing, Colored Glasses, and Color Choosing. Aesthetic emotions were assessed using a child-adapted questionnaire measuring pleasedness, captivation, affinity, and aversion. Interactive conditions did not change gaze patterns. Instead, gaze allocation remained stable across conditions and followed the geometric structure of the artworks rather than the interactive context. Viewers distributed fixations according to the nested-square layout, and area-normalized analyses confirmed disproportionate inspection of the central region. Subjective experience depended on the alignment between viewing conditions and individual preference. Captivation increased and aversion decreased when children engaged with their preferred condition. Exploratory analyses suggested that emotional engagement may modulate temporal viewing dynamics. Higher captivation was associated with shorter fixation durations, and higher aversion with fewer saccades. These findings reveal a dissociation between visual inspection and aesthetic experience. The geometric structure of the artworks was closely associated with where children looked, whereas interactive context and preference influenced emotional responses. This dissociation carries practical implications for museum education, suggesting that interactive interventions shape emotional engagement rather than visual exploration.
Abstract Paintings do not encode lived experience but rather evoke it through structured configurations of perceptual ‘cues’. The paper’s main thesis is that given their unique shared conceptual space of modalities, multimodal large language models (mLLMs) may provide a computational framework for modeling these configurations and the experiential fields they evoke. The paper presents and illustrates a well-structured prompting methodology materializing this thesis. Using Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks as a single case study, I illustrate the methodology with three probes. The preliminary findings suggest that mLLMs offer a methodologically tractable, procedurally reproducible approach for studying the relations between visual structure and aesthetic experience. While the prompting protocol can be reproduced exactly, model outputs may vary across model versions, parameter settings, and future system updates.
Abstract Extensive research has been undertaken on the evolution of the design of monumental staircases in European palace architecture, as well as the viceregal residences built in Spain’s imperial territories. Despite the significant evidence on the visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic dimensions and variables of these architectural spaces, these closely related aspects remain to be studied in depth. The aim of this study is to analyse the visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic dimensions of the principal staircases of three palaces: the Alcázar, the Royal Palace in Madrid, and the Viceregal Palaces of Naples and Mexico City, the Palazzo Reale and Palacio Nacional. To assess the impact of the sensory factors of these three spaces digital twins were created for each case, using photogrammetry and manual CAD reconstructions, and these were analysed using simulations created with the DIAlux and Odeon specialised software. To attain a comprehensive understanding of how each of the three spaces were lit, different dates and times of the day were considered. Regarding their acoustic dimensions the analysis focuses on how the siting of trumpeters and drummers would have affected the perception of these spaces. In each case the analysis of quantitative data on the illuminance and acoustics of the selected staircases is cross-referenced with descriptions provided in historical sources in order to corroborate the accuracy of the interpretation.
Tactile exploration has been proposed to offer a more intimate and active way of engaging with art than visual exploration alone. This study investigated the added value of touch by comparing aesthetic evaluation, feelings of intimacy, and embodied experience across three conditions: visual-only exploration, guided tactile exploration, and free tactile exploration. Using a between-subjects design, participants interacted with a series of artworks under one of the three conditions. Results showed that tactile exploration did not enhance overall aesthetic experience compared to visual exploration. Prior experience with tactile art and other individual differences had limited effects. Instead, aesthetic evaluations were most strongly predicted by the inherent properties of the artworks themselves, regardless of the mode of exploration. Contrary to expectations, reported intimacy and embodied engagement did not significantly differ across conditions, though substantial variability between individuals was observed. Interestingly, connectedness was found to influence aesthetic evaluations regardless of the exploration condition. Within the free tactile condition, participants who spent more time exploring an artwork rated it as more beautiful, although this effect did not extend to ratings of pleasure or interest. Additionally, no consistent relationships were found between specific tactile features and aesthetic responses. These findings suggest that the value of multisensory art experiences lies less in the sensory modality of engagement and more in individual subjective differences and the tactile properties of the artwork.
This exploratory study demonstrates how to assess whether individual differences in visuo-tactile preferences are better predicted by predefined personal categories or by the bottom-up perspective offered by Q-methodology. Preferences were assessed using Reactive Objects (ROs), three-dimensional artefacts that exhibit autonomous behaviour when handled. As a predefined personality trait, we examined alexithymia, which reflects difficulties in recognising and describing emotions. Participants' evaluations of ROs were captured along two dimensions: preference (choice between variable levels, e.g., red vs. green) and dominance (relative importance of variables in aesthetic judgements, e.g., colour vs. shape). Q-methodology was applied to identify emergent factors in aesthetic judgements. Results revealed a clear distinction between preference and dominance but showed no significant relationship between alexithymia and the Q-factors. These findings suggest that predefined traits such as alexithymia may not predict visuo-tactile preferences for ROs. Instead, Q-methodology provided richer insights into individual differences, underscoring the value of post-hoc data analysis. Given the small sample size (N = 22; 17 females, 5 males; M age = 23 years, SD = 3.5, range = 18-34), the study's contribution is primarily methodological. Future research should further explore the complex interplay between personality traits and visuo-tactile judgements of reactive artefacts.
