The Effect of Painting Beauty on Eye Movements

Abstract

The current study aimed to determine relationships between oculomotor behavior and aesthetical evaluation of paintings. We hypothesized that paintings evaluated as beautiful compared to nonbeautiful would be associated with different oculomotor behavior in terms of fixation duration, viewing time, and temporal and spatial distribution of attention. To verify these hypotheses, we examined forty participants that looked at and evaluated 140 figurative paintings while their eye movements were recorded. To analyze data, we used divergence point analysis (DPA) and recurrence quantification analysis (RQA). The results of the DPA suggested that fixation durations longer than 229 ms are sensitive to the effect of aesthetical evaluation. We also found that the effect of aesthetical evaluation was significant in the time window between 2.3 s and 19.8 s of viewing a painting. The results of the RQA suggested that the participants viewed paintings evaluated as beautiful in a more structured manner compared to those evaluated as nonbeautiful, which suggests higher involvement of top-down processes while facing beautiful artwork. We discuss and refer these results to the literature on cognitive processes related to aesthetical evaluation of paintings.

Titles and Semantic Violations Affect Eye Movements When Viewing Contemporary Paintings

“…Also, participants who appreciated certain artworks scanned paintings in a more balanced and uniform fashion evidenced by higher values of stationary entropy. Interestingly, Jankowski et al (2020) obtained opposite results: in their study low stationary entropy (unbalanced attention dedicated to a few areas only) was related to greater appreciation.…”

“…Measure of interest and appreciation-high values of stationary entropy are related to an even distribution of attention between different AOIs and higher appreciation (Krejtz et al, 2014). However, Jankowski et al (2020) found that stationary entropy negatively predicts appreciation of paintings.…”

“…Eye movements were classified as saccades when they reached a peak velocity of 40 degrees/second. Fixations less than 80 ms were eliminated (as in Francuz et al, 2018;Jankowski et al, 2020) resulting in a loss of 1.4% of data. Moreover, additional calibration checks and offset correction were performed.…”

Reimagining Imagia. Neurocognitive Theory of Image Revisited With the Consciousness Studies Perspective

“…The status of beauty as a separate node is less straightforward, as it undoubtedly consists of a subjective component specific to a given recipient. However, it has also been argued that beauty judgments could be intersubjective, and a definition of beauty has been extensively discussed (e.g., Eco, 2004;Gombrich, 1995;Jankowski, Francuz, Oleś, Chmielnicka-Kuter, & Augustynowicz, 2020). Thus, the beauty node is irreducible neither to the image (i.e., a specific piece of art) nor to the beholder.…”

“…Thus, the beauty node is irreducible neither to the image (i.e., a specific piece of art) nor to the beholder. Importantly, Francuz and colleagues have investigated (Jankowski, Francuz, Oleś, Chmielnicka-Kuter, & Augustynowicz, 2020;Oleś et al, 2021) the relationship between the beholder (e.g., temperament, expertise in art, personal storytelling), beauty (aesthetic appraisal) and image (formal elements of paintings). Therefore, I believe it is safe to assume the reconstructed model follows his views.…”