Effects of emotional and cognitive changes on aesthetic evaluation of poetry based on subjective and physiological continuous responses with pupil diameter measurement

Abstract

Haiku poetry, a short poem with clear form, can potentially elucidate many unknown aspects of verbal art. Previous studies on haiku appreciation reported emotional and cognitive effects on aesthetic evaluation. Since both change during art appreciation, clarifying the processes of these change during haiku evaluation is beneficial. This study examined the temporal effects of emotional and cognitive changes on aesthetic evaluation from multiple perspectives and measured the ratings of each section of a haiku, continuous emotional reports, and physiological changes in pupil diameter. First, 112 participants rated a haiku at three time-points on various items, such as beauty, valence, and ambiguity. Subsequently, they rated the same haiku continuously for 20 seconds via a joystick for valence and arousal, during which their pupil diameter was measured. Emotional changes, such as increased positive emotions, arousal, and emotional ambiguity, and cognitive changes, such as decreased cognitive ambiguity, affected the haiku’s aesthetic evaluation. Regarding continuous emotion reports, positive and negative emotions gradually increased for positive and negative haikus, respectively, while arousal gradually increased for both. Additionally, increase in pupil diameter also explained the beauty. This study advances our understanding of verbal arts by empirically exploring conscious and unconscious emotional and cognitive responses to haikus.