Emotional Responses to Art: From Collation and Arousal to Cognition and Emotion

Abstract

The study of emotional responses to art has remained curiously detached from the psychology of emotions. Historically, the leading tradition has been Daniel Berlyne's psychobiological model, embodied by the "new experimental aesthetics" movement of the 1970s. That theory explained hedonic qualities of art by referring to arousalmodifying "collative properties" of art, such as complexity, novelty, uncertainty, and conflict. Berlyne's influence on the experimental study of aesthetics has been enormous, largely for the better but also for the worse. Berlyne's suspicion of cognitive psychology led to an unproductive perseveration on arousal as the mechanism of "aesthetic responses." This article describes how appraisal theories of emotion inform the study of aesthetics. Appraisal theories make new predictions about emotional responses to art, expand the domain of aesthetic emotions beyond positive emotions such as interest and enjoyment, inform other theories (e.g., prototypicality models), and reinterpret past findings.

Media Entertainment as a Result of Recreation and Psychological Growth

“…Two explanations exist as to why humans are inclined nevertheless to engage in challenges. Firstly, such engagement is driven by pleasurable emotions such as interest and curiosity (Silvia, 2005;Tan, 2008;White, 1959), which may counterbalance simultaneous negative experiences (Cabanac, 1992). Secondly, people are frequently willing to forego pleasure for the sake of long-term goals (Blascovich, 2008;Tarnir, 2009).…”

Anger, disgust, and the negative aesthetic emotions: Expanding an appraisal model of aesthetic experience.

“…A recent model of aesthetic emotions (Silvia, 2005a(Silvia, , 2005b connects emotional responses to art to the cognitive processes that undergird emotions (see Robinson, 2005, for a similar approach). Appraisal theories of emotion propose that emotions come from people's evaluations of events, particularly evaluations of how events relate to important goals, values, and concerns (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003;Lazarus, 1991;Roseman & Smith, 2001).…”

On personality and piloerection: Individual differences in aesthetic chills and other unusual aesthetic experiences.

“…The first strand, based in the Berlyne (1971) tradition of experimental aesthetics, studies feelings of liking, preference, pleasure, and beauty ( Armstrong & Detweiler-Bedell, 2008;Leder, Belke, Oeberst, & Augustin, 2004). The second strand, based in emotion psychology, studies discrete emotional states, such as enjoyment, interest, anger, and disgust ( Silvia, 2005, Silvia, 2009. The third strand, and the one most relevant to the present research, studies a family of unusual states that includes aesthetic chills, feeling touched and moved, losing track of time, feeling like crying, and an experience of awe, absorption, and detachment from one's surroundings.…”