Art in its experience: Can empirical psychology help assess artistic value?

Leonardo

Volumn 41, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 367-372

  Reber, Rolf ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN   (Norway)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 69849133840     PISSN: 0024094X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/leon.2008.41.4.367     Document Type: Article

References (41)

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2. Steven Pinker, The blank slate (London: Penguin 2002), 413
3. George Dickie, Is psychology relevant to aesthetics? Philosophical Review 71, no. 3 (1962): 285-302
4. For example George Dickie, Introduction to aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997)
5. Arthur C. Danto, The abuse of beauty. Aesthetics and the concept of art (Chicago: Open Court, 2003), 7
6. John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Penguin, 2005), 123
7. and Herbert Read, The meaning of art (London: Faber & Faber, 1972), 38
8. Art theories that result in a different definition of artistic value include formalism, see Clive Bell, Art (London: Chatto & Windus, 1915)
9. For these approaches to artistic value, intention of an artist does not play any role, and therefore Dickie's [3] notion that aesthetics would not profit from empirical psychology applies to these two approaches
10. For a discussion, see Paul Taylor, "Artist's intention" in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. Craig (London: Routledge, 1998), (accessed August 15, 2006)
11. W.V. Quine, "Epistemology naturalized" in Ontological relativity and other essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 83
12. Alvin I. Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press 1.986)
13. For novelty as criterion in modern art, see U. Eco, Innovation & Repetition: between modern and postmodern aesthetics. Daedalus 134, no. 4, 191-207
14. See Richard. Wollheim, Art and its objects, 2nd edition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1980), 72
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17. Pinker [3], 407-408, referring to Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste, trans. R. Nice (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1987)
18. For dealing with self-presentation, see Seymour Sudman and. Norman M. Bradbum, Asking Questions: A Practical Guide to Questionnaire Design (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1982)
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21. For psychophysiological techniques, see T A, Ito and J. T. Cacioppo, "Attitudes as a mental and neural state of readiness: Using physiological measures to studyimplicit attitudes" in Implicit Measures of Attitudes: Progress and Controversies, ed. B. Wittenbrink and. N. Schwarz (New York: Guilford Press, 2007), 125-158
22. For brain imaging techniques, see A. Olsson, and E. A. Phelps, "Understanding social evaluations: What we can (and. cannot) learn from neuroimaging" in Wittenbrink & Schwarz, 159-178
23. P. Winkielman and J. T Cacioppo, "Mind at ease puts a smile on the face: Psychophysiological evidence that processing facilitation leads to positive affect" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81, no. 6 (2001): 989-1000
24. T. Baumgartner, K Lutz, C. F. Schmidt, and L. Jäncke, "The emotional power of music: How music enhances the feeling of affective pictures" Brain Research 1075, no. 1 (2006): 151-164
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26. Henry Geldzahler, Making it new. Essays, interviews, and talks (New York: Turtle Point. Press, 1994), 186-187
27. P. Thompson, "Margaret Thatcher: a new illusion" Perception 9, no. 4 (1.980): 483-484
28. See Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books, 1959)
29. Cited in Danto [5], 34
30. For examples, see J. E. Cutting, "Gustave Caillebotte, French Impressionism, and mere exposure" Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 10, no. 2 (2003): 319-343
31. H. Leder, "Determinants of preference. When do we like what we know?" Empirical Studies of the Arts 19, no. 2 (2001): 201-211
32. and R. Reber, N. Schwarz, and P. Winkielman, "Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure: Is Beauty in the Perceiver's Processing Experience?" Personality and Social Psychology Review 8 no. 4 (2004): 364-382
33. Gustav Theodor Fechner, Vorschule der Ästhetik (Leipzig, Germany: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1876). Online at and (accessed March 31, 2007)
34. Daniel E. Berlyne, Studies in the new experimental aesthetics. Steps toward an objective psychology of aesthetic appreciation (Washington, DC: Hemisphere, 1974)
35. George D. Birkhoff, Aesthetic measure (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933), and Jacobsen et al. [24]
36. T Jacobsen, "Bridging the Arts and Sciences: A Framework for the Psychology of Aesthetics" Leonardo 39, no. 2 (2006.): 155-162
37. H. Leder, B. Belke, A.. Oeberst and D. Augustin, "A model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments" British Journal of Psychology 95, no. 4 (2004): 489-508
38. and P.J. Silvia, "Emotional responses to art: From collation and arousal to cognition and emotion" Review of General Psychology 9, no. 4 (2005): 342-357
39. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and visual perception: The new version (Berkeley: University of California Press 1974)
40. and Semir Zeki, Inner vision. An exploration of art and the brain. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)
41. J. M. McDowell, "Aesthetic Value, Objectivity, and the Fabric of the World" in Pleasure, Preference and Value, ed. E. Schaper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1-16