Positive fEMG Patterns with Ambiguity in Paintings

Jakesch, Martina; Goller, Juergen; Leder, Helmut

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00785

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…For example, a flying pot in a kitchen or a bar of soap on a laptop screen are unexpected in everyday life; however, in art they might actually be anticipated and therefore perceived as less challenging in comparison to violations in natural scenes. Jakesch, Goller, and Leder (2017) stress that non-fluent stimuli classified as art provoke more positive reactions (measured by facial electromyography) than non-fluent stimuli in everyday life. Thus, the context of art may attenuate reactions to difficult stimuli by, amongst others, providing a secure state of so-called psychical distance or detached aesthetic processing mode (Cupchik, 2002(Cupchik, , 2013.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Perceived cognitive challenge predicts eye movements while viewing contemporary paintings

2020

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Contemporary art is often challenging for the viewer, especially when it violates classic rules of representation. Also, viewers usually have little knowledge about this type of art, making its reception even more difficult. Our main research question was how the cognitive challenge associated with contemporary art affects eye movement. In particular, we aimed to assess the impact on eye movements of (a) object‐related cognitive challenge in terms of image properties (syntactic and semantic violations) and (b) subject‐related cognitive challenge (composite subjective estimate of image inconsistency, ambiguity, and complexity). The eye movements of expert and naive participants were recorded while they freely viewed digital copies of contemporary paintings (four groups of five paintings each, differing in presence of semantic and syntactic violations). We found that neither violations nor art expertise alone predicted eye movements, although perceived, subjectively experienced cognitive challenge did. In particular, subject‐related cognitive challenge was associated with an increase in visual exploration (longer and more numerous fixations, bigger area of exploration, longer viewing time). The roles of object‐related and subject‐related indicators of cognitive challenge in perception of contemporary art are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Perceived cognitive challenge predicts eye movements while viewing contemporary paintings

2020

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“…Moreover, contemporary art introduces disfluency as a method of expression in which various forms of uncertainty, indeterminacy or strangeness are expected and appreciated (Bullot and Rolf, 2013). Art scientists are trying to capture some aspects of this complex phenomenon, appreciating the fact that ambiguity is a broad category, by using terms as semantic instability (Muth and Carbon, 2016), ambiguity (Jakesch et al, 2017), semantic inconsistencies (Markey et al, 2019) or semantic violations (Pietras and Ganczarek, 2018;Ganczarek et al, 2020;Szubielska et al, 2021a) to address the challenge which artworks present to viewers. In the present study we use the latter term, i.e., semantic violations to name a case in which a visual scene contains atypical objects (with no reference to the global meaning of the scene) or there are unusual relationships between objects in the scene.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This leads to the conclusion that semantic violations in paintings might be perceived differently than in regular life probably due to specific expectations viewers formulate toward art (i.e., people expect rules to be violated; Markey et al, 2019). Moreover, art might create a safe environment to experience ambiguity with positive affect, contrary to real life situations, in which ambiguity is often perceived as more threatening (see Jakesch et al, 2017). In fact, it seems that ambiguity in art may be expected and guide perception thus causing intense processing of semantic violations that are often appreciated by the viewers (e.g., Muth and Carbon, 2013;Jakesch et al, 2017;Ganczarek et al, 2020, but see Szubielska et al, 2021a.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, art might create a safe environment to experience ambiguity with positive affect, contrary to real life situations, in which ambiguity is often perceived as more threatening (see Jakesch et al, 2017). In fact, it seems that ambiguity in art may be expected and guide perception thus causing intense processing of semantic violations that are often appreciated by the viewers (e.g., Muth and Carbon, 2013;Jakesch et al, 2017;Ganczarek et al, 2020, but see Szubielska et al, 2021a.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Titles and Semantic Violations Affect Eye Movements When Viewing Contemporary Paintings

Ganczarek

Pietras

Stolińska

et al. 2022

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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The role of titles in perception of visual art is a topic of interesting discussions that brings together artists, curators, and researchers. Titles provide contextual cues and guide perception. They can be particularly useful when paintings include semantic violations that make them challenging for viewers, especially viewers lacking expert knowledge. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of titles and semantic violations on eye movements. A total of 127 participants without expertise in visual art viewed 40 paintings with and without semantic violations (20 each) in one of three conditions: untitled, consistent titles and inconsistent titles. After each painting was viewed participants also rated liking and understanding. Our results suggest that titles affect the way paintings are viewed: both titled conditions were associated with shorter first fixation duration, longer saccade durations, and amplitudes and higher dynamic entropy than the untitled conditions. Titles were fixated on more frequently (but only in the time window between 1,200 and 2,800 ms) when presented alongside paintings with semantic violations than paintings without violations, and the percentage of fixations to titles was particularly high in the case of paintings with double inconsistencies (inconsistent titles and semantic violations). Also, we found that semantic violations attracted attention early on (300–900 ms), whereas titles received attention later (average first fixation on title was at 936.28 ms) and inconsistencies in titles were processed even later (after 4,000 ms). Finally, semantic violations were associated with higher dynamic entropy than paintings without violations. Our results demonstrate the importance of titles for processing of artworks, especially artworks that present a challenge for the viewers.

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“…However, it is not high fluency, but rather a certain level of ambiguity in the artwork (cf. Jakesch et al, 2017 ; Jakesch & Leder, 2009 ) that is desirable in the aesthetic experience. Therefore, perhaps in the case of sculptures, which were characterised by an intermediate degree of ambiguity (between drawings and photographs), the viewers did not want to engage their thinking to better interpret them.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Does Knowledge About an Artist’s Disability Change the Aesthetic Experience?

Szubielska

Imbir

Fudali-Czyż

et al. 2020

ACP

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Based on concepts of cognitive mastering and the rewarding effect of making sense of challenging visual art (taken from a psychological model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments of Leder et al., 2004 ), we hypothesised that viewers who have knowledge about an artist’s disability will appreciate their ambiguous works more than viewers who do not have such knowledge. Additionally, we aimed to explore how information about the artist’s disability changes the viewer’s aesthetic emotions. We investigated the effect of information on the creator’s visual disability on aesthetic experience in relation to three categories of visual art: photos, sculptures, and drawings. We showed digital reproductions of artworks ( N = 32) produced by amateur artists with severe visual impairment to nonexperts in art ( N = 145). Viewers assessed their aesthetic appreciation (understood as liking and value) and aesthetic emotions on the Self-Assessment Manikin scales for valence, arousal, dominance, origin, and significance. In accordance with our hypothesis, knowledge of the artists' disability had a positive influence on appreciation, but the effect of information was moderated by artwork category and was significant only in the case of sculptures and drawings (works created using these techniques were assessed in the preliminary study as more difficult to interpret than photos). A similar pattern of results was found for the dependent variables of arousal and significance. Therefore, the positive influence of information about the artists' disabilities on aesthetic experience is mainly revealed when the artworks are characterised by low detectability (defined as the difficulty in interpreting an artwork due to difficulty in recognizing what it depicts).

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Positive fEMG Patterns with Ambiguity in Paintings

Cited by 7 publications

References 25 publications

Perceived cognitive challenge predicts eye movements while viewing contemporary paintings

Perceived cognitive challenge predicts eye movements while viewing contemporary paintings

Titles and Semantic Violations Affect Eye Movements When Viewing Contemporary Paintings

How Does Knowledge About an Artist’s Disability Change the Aesthetic Experience?

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