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16:30 - 18:00
Parallel sessions 6
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16:30 - 18:00
Room: HSZ - N9
Chair/s:
Thomas Jacobsen, Bettina Rolke
Our aesthetic experience of external stimuli is shaped by our cultural and individual backgrounds, as well as by various perceptual, cognitive and emotional processes. Empirical research has identified numerous factors that influence our aesthetic perception of stimuli, including their characteristics and the context in which stimuli are perceived. Recently, the question has also been raised about the impact of engaging with art on other areas of life. This symposium will present various approaches to empirical aesthetics research. In the first talk, Barbara Mühlbauer will ask whether two evaluation methods — rating and pairwise comparison — produce comparable aesthetic judgements and how stable these judgements remain over time. Claudia Muth's second talk will address how specific stimulus characteristics, such as the complexity of visual matrix patterns and ambivalence in artistic photographs, influence various components of aesthetic perception. She will also report results concerning the relationship between these characteristics and eye movements. In the third talk, Ronald Hübner will explore potential causes of individual preferences for different visual spiral patterns, attributing them to individual creative dispositions. In the fourth talk, Gemma Schino will explore the affective and cognitive changes that arise from engaging with meaningful artwork through interactive analysis and interaction with others. She will present a model that considers the interactive contribution of affect and cognitive strategies, drawing a connection to the general influence of emotional processes on cognition. In the final talk, Jan-Filip Tameling will present a cognitive network model mapping the concepts relevant to experiencing art. He will propose a visual art schema that could help identify the cognitive mechanisms involved in aesthetic experiences. Overall, the symposium provides a comprehensive insight into the multifaceted world of empirical aesthetics research, offering an overview of the various approaches, models, and perspectives employed.
Submission 124
Sense-Making and Emotion in Art and Meaningful Objects: Exploring the Interplay Between Cognition and Affect
SymposiumTalk-04
Presented by: Gemma Schino
Gemma Schino 1, 2, Lisa-Maria van Klaveren 3, 2, Theisje van Dorsten 2, Barend van Heusden 2, Ralf Cox 2
1 Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien Tübingen, Germany
2 University of Groningen, Netherlands
3 Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Netherlands
Art fosters self-reflection and interpersonal understanding through emotional and cognitive engagement. This interdisciplinary study explores the interaction between epistemic emotions and sense-making during art reflection. Eighteen dyads of adults (N = 36) participated in a study where each brought a personally meaningful artwork and discussed it with a peer in a recorded, semi-structured conversation. Emotional responses were measured through pre- and post-conversation self-reports, and a sentiment analysis of the conversation provided dynamic affective data. Sense-making strategies were qualitatively coded using perception, imagination, conceptualization, and analysis (based on van Heusden, 2015).

Results showed that conceptualization evoked the most intense emotional responses, while sentiment analysis revealed distinct affective patterns across sense-making strategies. Emotional engagement was integral to all strategies, suggesting that epistemic emotions are essential to sense-making in art experiences. A Multinomial Log-linear Model demonstrated that affect and cognitive strategies interact to shape perceived emotional responses to art.

Crucially, interaction with another person led to measurable affective changes, highlighting the socially situated and intersubjective nature of understanding of, during and with art experiences. These findings support the 4E approach (where the four E's stand for Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, and Extended cognition) and potentially extend it to incorporate Emotions as part of any cognitive process.