Can art promote understanding? A review of the psychology and neuroscience of aesthetic cognitivism

Christensen, Alexander P.; Cardillo, Eileen R.; Chatterjee, Anjan

doi:10.31234/osf.io/t8c47

Cited by 4 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 134 publications

(215 reference statements)

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“…Evaluating whether museums or other natural art environments (e.g., murals on the street, dance or musical performance in a theatre) increase the impact artworks have on people will clarify their role in promoting new knowledge and understanding from art (Christensen, Cardillo, & Chatterjee, 2022).…”

Section: Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understanding how people gain new understanding can be elaborated in the dynamics of these experiences, allowing for more targeted investigations into specific outcomes (e.g., confusion-interest). Fundamental to investigating aesthetic cognitivism is the assessment of the knowledge content or conceptual understanding that is reportedly gained (Christensen, Cardillo, & Chatterjee, 2022). Our taxonomy provides a common language for researchers and laypeople to use and express their experiences when engaging with art, providing a basis to communicate factors contributing to knowledge acquisition.…”

Section: Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What kind of impacts can artwork have on viewers? Establishing a taxonomy for aesthetic impacts

Christensen

Cardillo

Chatterjee

2022

British J of Psychology

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What kinds of impacts can visual art have on a viewer? To identify potential art impacts, we recruited five aesthetics experts from different academic disciplines: art history, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and theology. Together, the group curated a set of terms that corresponded to descriptive features (124 terms) and cognitive-affective impacts (69 terms) of artworks. Using these terms as prompts, participants (n = 899) were given one minute to generate words for each term related to how an artwork looked (descriptive features) or made them think or feel (cognitive-affective impacts). Using network psychometric approaches, we identified terms that were semantically similar based on participants' responses and applied hierarchical exploratory graph analysis to map the relationships between the terms. Our analyses identified 17 descriptive dimensions which could be further reduced to 5, and 11 impact dimensions which could be further reduced to 4. The resulting taxonomy demonstrated overlap between the descriptive and impact networks as well as consistency with empirical evidence. This taxonomy could serve as the foundation to empirically evaluate art's impacts on viewers.

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Section: Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

What kind of impacts can artwork have on viewers? Establishing a taxonomy for aesthetic impacts

Christensen

Cardillo

Chatterjee

2022

British J of Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The beliefs, knowledge, and expertise that people bring to art encounters are central to developmental [1] and cognitive [2][3][4] theories of how people view, think about, and experience the arts. Beyond basic research, understanding how people gain and use art knowledge is central to the applied and translational goals of advancing art education and the public appreciation of the arts [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Updating the Aesthetic Fluency Scale: Revised long and short forms for research in the psychology of the arts

et al. 2023

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People’s knowledge about the arts shapes how they experience and engage with art. Since its introduction, the 10-item Aesthetic Fluency Scale has been widely used to measure self-reported art knowledge. Drawing from findings and researchers’ experience since then, the present work develops and evaluates a Revised Aesthetic Fluency Scale using item response theory to broaden its scope (36 items) and refine its response scale. In a large sample (n = 2,089 English-speaking adults), Study 1 found strong evidence for unidimensionality, good item fit, and a difficulty level suitable for its targeted population; Study 2 (n = 392) provided initial evidence for score validity via relationships with art engagement, Openness to Experience, and aesthetic responsiveness; and Study 3 derived a brief, 10-item form for time-constrained projects. Taken together, the revised scales build upon lessons learned from the original and appear promising for the next generation of research.

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“…Establishing a common vocabulary that can be used by experts and laypeople alike would be a useful step toward studying the impact of engaging with art, with the assumption that emotionally impactful engagements likely index the acquisition of new knowledge and understanding. Such a vocabulary could be used to identify artworks that vary on specific descriptors or impacts and could lay the foundation for investigations of how and what knowledge can be gained by engaging with artworks (Christensen, Cardillo, & Chatterjee, 2022).…”

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confidence: 99%

What kind of impacts can artwork have on viewers? Establishing a taxonomy for aesthetic impacts

Christensen¹,

Cardillo²,

Chatterjee³

2022

Preprint

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Aesthetic cognitivism is the philosophical position that art can advance knowledge and understanding. Operationalizing the claim of aesthetic cognitivism is necessary to put this philosophical view to test empirically. In pursuit of this goal, we recruited five aesthetics experts from different academic disciplines: art history, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and theology. Together, the group curated a set of terms that corresponded to descriptive features (124 terms) and cognitive-affective impacts (69 terms) of artworks. Using these terms as prompts, participants (n = 899) were given one minute to generate words for each term related to how an artwork looked (descriptive features) or made them think or feel (cognitive-affective impacts). Using network psychometric approaches, we identified terms that were semantically similar based on participants’ responses and applied hierarchical exploratory graph analysis to map the relationships between the terms. Our analyses identified 17 descriptive dimensions which could be further reduced to 5, and 11 impact dimensions which could be further reduced to 4. The resulting taxonomy demonstrated overlap between the descriptive and impact networks as well as consistency with previous reports. Terms directly relevant to aesthetic cognitivism were centrally positioned relative to other terms in the networks. This taxonomy could serve as the foundation to empirically evaluate aesthetic cognitivism’s claim.

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Can art promote understanding? A review of the psychology and neuroscience of aesthetic cognitivism

Cited by 4 publications

References 134 publications

What kind of impacts can artwork have on viewers? Establishing a taxonomy for aesthetic impacts

What kind of impacts can artwork have on viewers? Establishing a taxonomy for aesthetic impacts

Updating the Aesthetic Fluency Scale: Revised long and short forms for research in the psychology of the arts

What kind of impacts can artwork have on viewers? Establishing a taxonomy for aesthetic impacts

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