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Home > Scholarly Contributions > Abstracts > Volume 24 Issue 2
Volume 24 Issue 2
DYNAMIC EVALUATION OF MATISSE'S 1935 LARGE RECLINING NUDE
AARON KOZBELT, 2006, 24:2, 119 - 137
Abstract: Forty non-artists and 16 art students rated the 22 in-progress states of Henri Matisse's great 1935 painting, Large Reclining Nude, on 26 survey items measuring several constructs: quality, originality, technique, arousal potential, and primordial thought. Factor analyses revealed differences in aesthetic judgment criteria consistent with previous research: non-artists value technique and realism, while art students emphasize originality. Changes in quality and other items were evident as the painting progressed. Non-artists judged the painting as getting generally worse over time, consistent with the increasing abstraction of the image. In contrast, art students' judgments showed a jagged trajectory with several peaks (including the finished version), suggesting an interactive hypothesis-testing process that gradually transformed the image.

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ARTISTIC TRAINING AND INTEREST IN VISUAL ART: APPLYING THE APPRAISAL MODEL OF AESTHETIC EMOTIONS
PAUL J. SILVIA, 2006, 24:2, 139 - 161
Abstract: Art experts find art more interesting, particularly when it is abstract or complex. These findings are explored in light of a model of aesthetic emotions rooted in appraisal theories (Silvia, 2005b, 2005d). This model attributes emotional responses to art to cognitive appraisal processes (as opposed to collative motivation, prototypicality, or processing fluency). Two experiments examined whether art experts and novices differed in the appraisals that make art interesting. In Experiment 1, people with art training found complex pictures more interesting, and they appraised them as easier to understand. Using multilevel modeling, Experiment 2 explored whether art training involved a qualitative shift in the appraisals that cause interest. Within-person effects of appraisals on emotions were essentially independent of between-person differences in training. People high and low in training make the same emotional appraisals of art, but they reach different answers to the appraisal questions.

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COMPARING ARTISTIC VALUES: THE EXAMPLE OF MOVIES
VICTOR GINSBURGH and SHEILA WEYERS, 2006, 24:2, 163 - 175
Abstract: Analytic art philosophers suggest that artworks carry independently valuable properties that can be rated. However, they point out that since these properties are incommensurable, one cannot infer the overall value of works in order to compare them. We show how weights can be retrieved from observations in which art critics or experts rate properties, as well as the overall value of works. This will also make clear that experts do indeed implicitly use such weights. We illustrate the idea using movies for which we do observe both a rating of total value and the ratings of a certain number of properties, focusing on the 270 movies, both nominated and having been awarded the Oscar for "Best Picture" between 1950 and 2003.

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HUMAN VERSUS COMPUTER: THE EFFECT OF A STATEMENT CONCERNING A MUSICAL PERFORMANCE'S SOURCE ON THE EVALUATION OF ITS QUALITY AND EXPRESSIVITY
NAOMI ZIV and OHAD MORAN, 2006, 24:2, 177 - 191
Abstract: The evaluation of the quality of a musical performance is not just a result of what we hear, but may be influenced by what we believe we hear. Ninety-six participants listened to two synthesized versions of a Chopin prelude, differing slightly in overall tempo, and were told that one version was played by a pianist, while the other was played by a computer. They evaluated the quality of the two versions, and rated the degree to which each version expresses various emotions. The "human" version was rated as a better performance, but no differences were found in degree and type of emotion expressed. It is suggested that attention was focused on different factors in answering the two types of questions.

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COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE RESPONSES TO STRUCTURAL VARIATIONS OF AN E. A. POE SHORT STORY
M. C. LEVORATO and L. RONCONI, 2006, 24:2, 193 - 217
Abstract: Two experiments studied reader responses to structurally different versions of a short story by E. A. Poe. It was modified by flashback and anticipation to produce four additional versions. In Experiment 1, the following responses were collected: Curiosity, Excitement, Imagery, Impact, Interest, Pleasure, Pleasure at the Ending, Surprise, Surprise at the Ending, Suspense; moreover, readers were asked to judge characteristics of the text, that is Coherence, Facility, and Postdictability. Results show that three dimensions underlie narrative reception: Involvement while Reading, Evaluation of the Outcome, and Cognitive Evaluation. In Experiment 2, at pre-established points, readers were asked to evaluate some responses belonging to the first dimension, namely Curiosity, Interest, Pleasure, and Excitement. The analyses show different trends in text reception according to text structure.

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MEASURING THE CULTURE OF C. P. SNOW'S TWO CULTURES
I. C. MCMANUS , 2006, 24:2, 219 - 227
Abstract: C. P. Snow's (1964) The Two Cultures has been controversial, and is still much cited in the literature of both the sciences and the humanities. However, there seem to have been no empirical studies of cultural and aesthetic activities in scientists and non-scientists. This study describes a questionnaire which measured 17 different cultural activities in a stratified survey of science and non-science students in London, UK. Science students showed a significantly lower level of activity on 12 of the 17 measures (and were significantly higher on none). Among the scientists, cultural activity overall was lowest in engineering and mathematics students, and highest in medical and biological science students. Cultural activity correlated significantly with the personality measure of Openness to Experience, although the correlation was weaker in scientists than in non-scientists.

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EFFECTS OF TIME AND INFORMATION ON PERCEPTION OF ART
LISA F. SMITH, SUZANNE G. BOUSQUET, GEORGE CHANG, JEFFREY K. SMITH, 2006, 24:2, 229 - 242
Abstract: This study examined whether the presence of a label and the length of viewing time affect the perception of art. Participants were 152 undergraduate students at an urban university in central New Jersey. A computer program randomly assigned participants to viewing 4 paintings under a label or no label condition and a 1-s, 5-s, 30-s, or 60-s time condition. The paintings were Cezanne's Still Life With Apples, Mondrian's Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue, Monet's Garden at Sainte-Adresse, and Davis' Report from Rockport. After viewing each painting, participants completed a rating scale of 24 adjective pairs. Multivariate analyses of variance indicated little support for the hypotheses that the label condition will lead to different ratings of the art as compared to the non-label condition and that length of viewing time will affect ratings of the art. The reliability coefficients for the rating scale were fairly strong. Results are discussed in terms of how ratings of art are dependent largely on the work of art itself.

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