As with many other research fields, much of the work in empirical aesthetics has emerged from the West (e.g., Jacobsen, 2006). While this body of research is highly valuable—given that the concepts of beauty and art were born and have been deeply explored in this region—it is crucial to recognize that the environments where people develop—including education, language, and social norms—shape their cognitive schemas and aesthetic processing (Jacobsen & Beudt, 2017). Therefore, the horizons of empirical aesthetics could be further expanded by incorporating the aesthetic traditions and experiences of different cultures. In this presentation, we will introduce a range of our comparative experimental studies between Japan and Germany, including haiku poetry (Hitsuwari & Nomura, 2022), gagaku dance (Hitsuwari et al., 2024), and Japanese calligraphy (Sprengel et al., in preparation). For example, Hitsuwari & Nomura (2022) showed that while both Japanese and German participants lowered their aesthetic evaluation of haiku as ambiguity increased, this decrease was more gradual among Japanese participants. This suggested that Japanese people are more familiar with ambiguity in language and communication, and are more accustomed to appreciating artworks that offer multiple interpretations. Thus, we provide an overview of the cultural comparative research conducted in empirical aesthetics to date. This overview will not only cover various topics (stimuli) mentioned above, but will also integrate theoretical perspectives such as perceptual (e.g., symmetry and asymmetry; Leder et al., 2024) and social (e.g., national/cultural identity; Darda & Cross, 2022) viewpoints, as well as aesthetic qualities like wabi-sabi.