Absorption and Appreciation of Visual Art

Combs, Allan; Black, Julia; O'Donnell, Alan; Pope, Ruth; Buckner, Jerry; Crow, Lisa; Ray, Karen; Vandermeer, Josef A.

doi:10.2466/pms.1988.67.2.453

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Absorption has been linked to female gender, heightened creativity, hypnotisability, imagery-vividness, fantasy-proneness, and day-dreaming [ 49 – 51 ]. Artistic and aesthetic minded people seem to score higher on this questionnaire as well [ 52 – 54 ]. Individuals high in hypnotic susceptibility may be particularly sensitive to the automatic activation of cognitive and behavioral schemata by internal and external events [ 55 ], which could increase their vulnerability to developing somatoform symptoms [ 1 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unraveling the Relationship between Trait Negative Affectivity and Habitual Symptom Reporting

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ObjectiveIn two studies, we aimed at further elucidating the relationship between trait negative affectivity (NA) and habitual symptom reporting (HSR) by relating these variables to measures of executive function, trait questionnaires, and effects of emotion induction.MethodsHealthy female participants (N = 75) were selected on their scores for trait NA and for the Checklist for Symptoms in Daily Life. Three groups were compared: (1) low NA-low HSR; (2) high NA-low HSR; and (3) high NA-high HSR (low NA-high HSR did not occur). In study 1, participants underwent a Parametric Go/No-go Task and a Stroop Color-Word test, and trait questionnaires measured alexithymia and absorption. Forty-five participants (N = 15 in each group) were further engaged in study 2 to induce state NA using an affective picture paradigm.ResultsImpaired inhibition on the Stroop and Go/No go Task characterized high trait NA, but not high HSR, whereas alexithymia and absorption were elevated in HSR, regardless of trait NA. Negative picture viewing induced elevated state NA in all groups, but only high HSR also reported more bodily symptoms. This effect was moderated, but not mediated by state NA.ConclusionHigh trait NA is a vulnerability factor but not a sufficient condition to develop HSR. Deficient inhibition is related to the broad trait of NA, whereas the moderating effect of state NA on symptom reporting is specific for high HSR. Understanding processes related to alexithymia and absorption may specifically help to explain elevated HSR.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unraveling the Relationship between Trait Negative Affectivity and Habitual Symptom Reporting

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Nell also argued that absorption should determine in part the desire and readiness of individuals for the attentional commitment of lucid reading. Similarly, the findings that absorption correlates with music enjoyment (Rhodes, David, & Combs, 1988;Snodgrass & Lynn, 1989) and art appreciation (Combs et al, 1988) point to the role of personal involvement of a cognitive or an emotional kind with the attentional object. Moreover, Fellows and Armstrong reported that subjects who scored low on absorption did not become involved in reading material provided by the experimenter but did become involved in reading material they chose themselves.…”

Section: Hypnosis and Hypnotizabilitymentioning

confidence: 93%

Absorption: Nature, assessment, and correlates.

Roche

McConkey²

1990

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

300

208

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article reviews theoretical and empirical work on absorption and the relationship of absorption with selected variables. Absorption is denned as a characteristic that involves an openness to experience emotional and cognitive alterations across a variety of situations. The nature and assessment of absorption, and the relationship of absorption with (a) hypnosis and hypnotizability, (b) imagery, daydreaming, and consciousness, and (c) attentional processing and psychophysiological responding is considered. Conceptual and methodological issues are examined, and directions for future research are specified. Absorption is argued to be central to an understanding of the nature of subjective experience as well as to aspects of cognition and behavior.We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments on an earlier version of this article. Final preparation of this article occurred when Kevin M. McConkey was visiting the University of Arizona.

show abstract

“…The psychiatrist Josephine Hilgard’s investigation of the associated construct of imaginative involvement (1970, 1974, 1979), which she linked with a tendency to become involved with some, but not other pastimes, was an important catalyst for the creation of the Tellegen Absorption scale (henceforth TAS, Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974). Using that measurement tool (a forced-choice, dichotomously-scored questionnaire containing 34 items), studies across a range of disciplines have correlated high levels of absorption with a selective yet diverse range of activities: these include religion (Levin, Wickramasekera, & Hirschberg, 1998), nature (Brown & Katcher, 1997; Kaplan, 1995), dancing (Bachner-Melman et al, 2005), reading (Nell, 1988), and art appreciation (Combs et al, 1988). Although some published studies claim that certain activities are inherently more absorbing than others, this appears a misguided assumption.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…No studies of the experience of non-musical absorption in naturalistic settings have yet been attempted, and efforts to induce absorption in laboratory settings have tended to be rather artificial. For example, Combs et al (1988) used a 5-point Likert scale to assess liking of 20 slides of representational and abstract art, each of which was shown to participants for 10 seconds. Likert-scale scores were compared with TAS scores (completed before the slideshow), leading to the conclusion that high trait absorption scores “significantly correlated” with a preference for abstract art.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Musical and non-musical involvement in daily life: The case of absorption

Herbert

2011

Musicae Scientiae

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The construct of absorption (effortless engagement) has been the subject of a small number of discipline-specific studies of involvement, including music. This paper reports the results of an empirical project that compared psychological qualities of absorption in everyday music listening scenarios with characteristics of non-music-related involvement. Absorption was located in “real-world” settings, and experiences across different activities in a variety of contexts were tapped as soon as possible after they occurred. The inquiry was designed to test two assumptions that have underpinned previous absorption research: first, that certain activities are inherently particularly absorbing; second, that absorption is best conceptualized primarily as a trait as opposed to a state. Twenty participants kept diaries for two weeks, recording descriptions of involving experiences of any kind. Eight weeks after submitting descriptive reports they completed the Modified Tellegen Absorption Scale ( Jamieson, 2005 ). Diaries indicated that different activities shared a subset of involving features, and confirmed the importance of multi-sensory perception and the imaginative faculty to absorbed experiences. Music may be a particularly effective agent in the facilitation of absorption because it affords multiple potential entry points to involvement (acoustic attributes, source specification, entrainment, emotion, fusion of modalities) and because its semantic malleability makes it adaptable to a variety of circumstances. The MODTAS provided insufficient evidence for establishing correlations between state and trait absorption. It is argued that state and trait divisions are constructs that are inherently problematic.

show abstract

Absorption and Appreciation of Visual Art

Cited by 7 publications

References 6 publications

Unraveling the Relationship between Trait Negative Affectivity and Habitual Symptom Reporting

Unraveling the Relationship between Trait Negative Affectivity and Habitual Symptom Reporting

Absorption: Nature, assessment, and correlates.

Musical and non-musical involvement in daily life: The case of absorption

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About