The Conundrum of Modern Art

Abstract

Two major mechanisms of aesthetic evolution have been suggested. One focuses on naturally selected preferences (Evolutionary Aesthetics), while the other describes a process of evaluative coevolution whereby preferences coevolve with signals. Signaling theory suggests that expertise moderates these mechanisms. In this article we set out to verify this hypothesis in the domain of art and use it to elucidate Western modern art's deviation from naturally selected preferences. We argue that this deviation is consistent with a Coevolutionary Aesthetics mechanism driven by prestige-biased social learning among art experts. In order to test this hypothesis, we conducted two studies in which we assessed the effects on lay and expert appreciation of both the biological relevance of the given artwork's depicted content, viz., facial beauty, and the prestige specific to the artwork's associated context (MoMA). We found that laypeople appreciate artworks based on their depictions of facial beauty, mediated by aesthetic pleasure, which is consistent with previous studies. In contrast, experts appreciate the artworks based on the prestige of the associated context, mediated by admiration for the artist. Moreover, experts appreciate artworks depicting neutral faces to a greater degree than artworks depicting attractive faces. These findings thus corroborate our contention that expertise moderates the Evolutionary and Coevolutionary Aesthetics mechanisms in the art domain. Furthermore, our findings provide initial support for our proposal that prestige-driven coevolution with expert evaluations plays a decisive role in modern art's deviation from naturally selected preferences. After discussing the limitations of our research as well as the relation that our results bear on cultural evolution theory, we provide a number of suggestions for further research into the potential functions of expert appreciation that deviates from naturally selected preferences, on the one hand, and expertise as a moderator of these mechanisms in other cultural domains, on the other.

Prestige-biased social learning: current evidence and outstanding questions

“…However, the opposite can also be true, i.e., prestige bias is used more by those with high expertise, when the domain is more relevant for experts than non-experts, and when the task is more difficult for experts than non-experts. This is what Verpooten and Dewitte (2017) found for the appreciation of modern art. Like Acerbi and Tehrani, they used a subjective task in which there was no objective correct or incorrect answer.…”

“…The greater the expertise of the participants, the less the participants appreciated the animate over the inanimate artworks, to the extent the preferences reversed in the top experts. Verpooten and Dewitte (2017), inspired by previous work (Boyd and Richerson, 1985;Prum, 2013), argue that the experts' deviations in artwork preferences from evolved aesthetic preferences might be due to a runaway process analogous to a runway sexual selection in which the trait (here, artworks) coevolves with preferences within a population of art experts.…”

“…Other factors taken into account in the literature, such as experience and age (Little et al, 2015) seem to be important when they affect task difficulty, the relevance of the domain for the participants and potential gains or costs of the task for the participants. For instance, expertise leads to a greater use of prestige-biased social learning when the task is more relevant for the experts but the task is still difficult for them (Verpooten and Dewitte, 2017). Similarly, younger individuals use more prestige-biased social learning than older individuals when the task is more relevant for them (Little et al, 2015).…”

“…Content bias was stronger than prestige bias in another study (Acerbi and Tehrani, 2018), but this might depend on the domain and the factors mentioned above (i.e., task difficulty, relevance for the individual, and benefits and costs associated with the task). Variation in some of these factors (e.g., the relevance for the participants) might lead some participants (e.g., non-experts) to make use of content biases, while other participants (e.g., experts) to employ prestige-biased social learning (Verpooten and Dewitte, 2017).…”

What Experts Appreciate in Patterns: Art Expertise Modulates Preference for Asymmetric and Face-Like Patterns

“…While some of the differences involve the interplay of cognitive and emotional processing [67], we also assume another distinction that is more related to visual and contextual processing. For instance, some authors [72] suggested that the aesthetic preferences of laypersons evolved from direct natural selection, while the aesthetic preferences of art experts are also indirectly selected via an ongoing process of coevolution based on prestige-driven social learning. Thus, experts' appreciation of artworks is more based on the prestige of the associated context and the admiration of the artist.…”