Key-Note: Literary Reading as a Bi-Directional Process
Paper Session: Methodology and Art Studies. II
Paper Session: Aesthetic Appreciation. II
Paper Session: Performing Arts
Symposium: Abstraction, Modernism and Aesthetic Value: A Debate
Presidential Address: Bouguereau is Back
Symposium: Proportion in Empirical Aesthetics
Paper Session: Philosophical and Technical Considerations
Paper Session:
Visual Perception, Beauty, Personality and Culture. II
Chairman: Paul Hekkert
Department of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of
Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Paul Hekkert
Department of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of
Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Whether or not it must be considered as a spirit of the age, in all
fields
of science, society and the arts much attention is devoted to affective
phenomena like moods, feelings and emotions. A major reason for this
special attention stems from the understanding that affective responses
play an ever increasing role in areas such as decision-making (aesthetic)
evaluation and social or consumer behaviour. Interestingly, cultural
artefacts, such as musical pieces, paintings, films, consumer products
and
advertisements, can be considered as carriers of emotions; due to their
structural, symbolic, and meaningful properties they can evoke strong
affective reactions. Of course, such reactions highly depend on personal
characteristics and on the context in which the artefact is presented
and
perceived. The objective of the present symposium is to address and
maybe
clarify some aspects of the complex relationship between cultural products
and the affective responses they evoke.
The symposium is organised to bring together researchers from various
backgrounds who are interested in and have carried out research on
affective responses to cultural products. In a first theoretical paper,
Ed
Tan will give an overview of research on emotions that arise out of
interaction with cultural artefacts and indicate the importance of
insights
thus acquired for theories of emotion. Next, Pieter Desmet will present
a
series of studies designed to identify what specific emotions can be
evoked
by a particular type of artefact, consumer products. The artefact of
interest in Gerry Cupchik's paper is advertisements. His empirical
study
focuses on the response to advertisements differing in complexity and
type
of product. In his contribution, Kees Overbeeke will present results
of
design experiments on the carrier=1Efunction of consumer products:
How do
products express emotional meaning?. Whereas emotions are specific
reactions to particular stimuli, moods are more diffuse and unfocused.
In
her paper, Ute Ritterfeld, is concerned with the way moods, due to
their
information value, can affect the aesthetic evaluation of cultural
products.
Ed Tan
Faculty of Literature Studies, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
If there is some truth in the idea that the psychology of emotion has
traditionally been more oriented towards explaining the emotional impact
of
natural ecologies than to emotions arising from face-to-face interactions,
then this goes all the more for affect arising from interactions with
cultural artefacts. In our time, a lot of emotions that people have
in
everyday life are linked with viewing television and film, hearing
radio,
listening to music, reading newspapers, magazines and books. Cultural
artefacts are of prime importance for understanding emotion in everyday
life. Questions that arise then, include:
What is the relevance of cultural products for people's lives, how
can they
act as emotional stimuli at all? How does the structure of cultural
artefacts influence emotion in the user? How does appraisal work in
the
interaction with cultural artefacts, how does the user assign emotional
meaning to cultural artefacts? What sorts of emotions do cultural artefacts
induce in their users? Are there genres of emotions related to genres
of
cultural artefacts? Is there a distinction between sophisticated ("high")
and popular ("low") emotion? In all cases a comparison with like emotional
processes in responding to natural and social stimuli is in order.
The psychology of emotion may profit a lot from knowledge of cultural
products as emotional stimuli that have been accumulated in the humanities.
The study of emotion in the use of language and literary texts has
been an
indispensable part of classical scholarship: rhetorics and poetics
deal
with structural determinants of user emotion. This tradition has continued
until today. In the modern era, the humanities have broadened their
scope
of interest to include cultural artefacts other than literary texts.
Works
of art, music, theatre, dance, cinema and television are now being
studied
within the humanities and in recent years the use of cultural artefacts
has
also become a subject of interest to the humanities. It will be argued
that
the (historical) study of cultural artefacts such as literary texts
and
works of art may contribute to our knowledge of universal vs. culture-
(period-) specific aspects of emotion.
Pieter M. A. Desmet
Faculty of Design, Engineering and Production, Delft University, Netherlands
The Product Emotion measurement tool (PrEmo) is an interactive computerised
tool for measuring the affective reactions specifically evoked by product
design. Those affective reactions are typically of mixed character
and
difficult to verbalise. Therefor, the self report tool is not based
on
words but on the use of facial expression pictograms. The result of
a study
in which the PrEmo is used, is an 'affective profile' for the product
that
was the object of study. In future studies, the tool will be used to
investigate the relationship between design features and affective
reactions. This research may eventually lead to the development of
tools to
support designers in designing products that evoke desirable affective
reactions.
Gerald C. Cupchik
Life Sciences Division, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
This study compared cognitive and psychodynamic perspectives on responses
to simple and complex advertisements for perfume and liquor products.
In
simple ads, copy/image relations are concordant and sentimentalized,
while
in complex ads relations are discordant and ironic. It was hypothesized
that writing story outlines based on simple ads would provide a means
for
projecting compensatory fantasies onto the scenes, while analyzing
copy/image relations in complex ads would make viewers more aware of
stimulus qualities in the ads. Thirty-one male and 21 female undergraduates
viewed four perfume and four liquor ads. Commodity (perfume, liquor)
and
Advertising Style (simple, complex) were factorially combined in two
blocks
of four trials each. In a within-subjects design, subjects either wrote
story outlines first and analyzed copy-image relations, or vice-versa.
They
then rated each ad on thirteen 7-point scales measuring perceived stimulus
properties (e.g., quality of the ad) and subjective processes (e.g.,
liking
or experiencing fantasies). Results showed that three factors underlied
the
judgments: Compensation (enhanced feelings of success, confidence,
power,
and masculinity/femininity), Effectiveness (ad was liked, perceived
as
good, stimulated fantasies, and an intention to purchase the product),
and
Action (everyday use of perfume/after shave or liquor products). Writing
stories in response to simple perfume ads had a facilitative influence
on
scales loading on the Compensation factor. Content analysis showed
that
simple perfume ads elicited romantic stories, while analyzing copy-image
relations fostered seduction themes and a sensitivity to metaphor.
These
findings provided support for Lacan's idea that people need to compensate
for self-perceived inadequacies, but also fit with cognitive/empirical
ideas.
C. J. Overbeeke
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology,
Delft, The Netherlands
Design is the unique combination of technical and human sciences, i.e.,
the
design of richly informative products would benefit from an account
of how
visual forms convey information.
In this talk we present studies on synaesthetic design. Students were
asked
to express a non-visual experience (like a taste, music) into a form.
Other
naive students were then asked to match the forms and the original
taste,
music etc. To our surprise they were able to do this. This led us to
a
central question, we think, in design: how are form, texture and colour
characteristics linked to human experience? Or, what makes a product
expressive?
Tentative answers are given, incorporating new approaches to studies
of
affect, research and design methodology, perception theory and emotion
theory. It is concluded that designers have powerful abilities to convey
complex, non-obvious information using shape and colour. In addition,
they
appear able to do so without relying solely on cultural conventions
or
literal similarity.
Ute Ritterfeld
Department of Psychology, Otto von Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany
Research presented at the last IAEA conference refered to social cues
of
aesthetic material (furniture), which was supposed to primarily account
for
liking resp. disliking. If the social cues are decodable and consistent,
a
social heuristic processing is assumed to take place. In on-line
experiments the social heuristic processing could be confirmed leading
to
quicker preference judgments than judgments upon targets with non-decodable
or inconsistent social cues. Those 'polyvalent' targets, however, require
further information processing. A study will be presented that tests
the
impact of mood on the preference judgment of polyvalent targets on
the
basis of the mood-as-information-model (Schwarz & Clore, 1988).
The
mistaking of mood as evaluative information is suggested to be another
heuristic which allows making aesthetic decisions effective if the
social
heuristic fails.
References
Martin, L. M., Abend, T., Sedikides, C. & Green, J. D. (1997). How
would I
feel if ...? Mood as input to a role fulfillment evaluation process.
J.
Per. Soc. Psychol., 73(2), 242-253.
Schwarz, N. & Clore, G. L. (1988). How do I feel about it? The
information
function of affective states. In K. Fiedler & J. Forgas (Eds.),
Affect,
Cognition, and Social Behavior. Lewinston: Hogrefe (44-62) .
Peter Vorderer
Institut fur Journalistik und Kommunicationsforschungh, Hannover, Germany
According to Berlyne, evaluation of aesthetic material is based on
structural features of the respective material. More recently, Social
Psychology found evidence that at least in some situations, evaluations
and
judgements are also based on the mood of the person who has to evaluate
(Schwarz & Clore, 1988). Individuals in an elated mood evaluate
an
aesthetic target as rather positive, while a person in negative mood
tends
to evaluate the same material as rather negative.
In the case of evaluating a movie, however, the role or function a
viewer
attributes to this movie plays an equally important role (Martin et
al.,
1997). A funny movie and a tearjerker have to fulfill different functions
and should therefore be evaluated differently.
An experiment was conducted to investigate the role of viewers' moods
and
the functions movies have on their evaluation. Participants were either
put
into a positive or into a negative mood and subsequently watched either
a
funny or a sad (short) movie. Data show that the overall evaluation
of the
movies, in fact ,is a result of an interaction; viewers in positive
moods
judge a funny movie rather positive and a sad movie rather negatively.
Viewers in a sad mood respond vice versa.
References
Martin, L. M., Abend, T., Sedikides, C. & Green, J. D. (1997). How
would I
feel if ...? Mood as input to a role fulfillment evaluation process.
J.
Pers. Soc. Psychol., 73(2), 242-253.
Schwarz, N. & Clore, G. L. (1988). How do I feel about it? The
information
function of affective states. In K. Fiedler & J. Forgas (Eds.).
Affect,
Cognition, and Social Behavior. Lewinston: Hogrefe (pp. 44-62)
Chair: Pavel Machotka, University of California, Santa Cruz, California,
USA
Laszlo Halasz
Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Science and E=F6tv=F6s
Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary
One of the ways to specify the psychological characteristics of literary
reading is to study the similarities and differences between the indices
of
the remembering, understanding and meaning assignment of literary
narratives and their manipulated (falsified) versions or non-literary
(expository-descriptive) texts of the same topic and length.
Based on the series of relevant experiments which the author conducted
the
paper discusses the phenomena of the reader's impoverishing and enriching
processes. Some contradictory characteristics of literary reading can
be
well described by clarifying the relationship between the effects of
deviations in literary narratives, one-sidedness and limitedness of
information processing, personal meaning assignment and play. At the
same
time, this approach helps us to see the new and not new traits of
postmodern literary reading in particular and to see literary reading
in
general as a form of aesthetic perception.
Chairman: Andras Farkas
Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest,
Hung=
ary
Richard S. Forsyth
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of the West of England,
Bristol, UK
Assigning a date to a text is an important task in stylometry. Most
previous researchers, however, have worked on intractable problems,
where a
true chronology will never be known with certainty, such as the works
of
Plato, Shakespeare or Marlowe. It is argued here that stylochronometric
methods should be extensively tested on unproblematic texts before
being
used in disputed cases. As part of such testing, the present study
applies
a novel technique, Monte-Carlo Feature-Finding (Forsyth, 1997), to
the
verse of W.B.Yeats, where the dating is relatively well documented.
Yeats
insisted that his language changed as he grew older, and most readers
would
concur; yet scholars have not reached agreement on the nature of this
linguistic change (Jaynes, 1980).
A quasi-random search algorithm was used to find marker substrings
in 142
poems of Yeats. To test their distinctiveness, four trials were performed:
(1) assignment of 10 poems absent from the training sample to their
correct
period; (2) detecting differences in two poems written by Yeats in
his
twenties and revised when he was fifty; (3) constructing a regression
formula; (4) classifying two prose extracts written 46 years apart.
Assigning short poems (median length 114 words) to their correct
chronological period is a non-trivial task. Nevertheless, counting
of
distinctive substrings gave the right assignment in 9 out of 10 unseen
cases. Moreover, these substring frequencies were sensitive enough
to
detect authorial revision in two early poems revised by Yeats many
years
after he originally wrote them, and robust enough to classify a pair
of
short prose extracts correctly; as well as accounting for 71% of the
variance when used in a regression to predict the year in which 13
poems,
absent from the training sample, were composed.
This study suggests that short substrings found by a Monte-Carlo process
warrant further investigation as stylistic indicators.
References
Forsyth, R. S. (1997). Deriving Document Descriptors from Data. In:
L.
Dorfman, C. Martindale, D. Leontiev, C. Cupchik, V. Petrov & P.
Machotka
(Eds.), Emotion, Creativity, & Art. Vol. 1. Perm: Perm
State Institute of
Arts & Culture (pp. 245-273)
Jaynes, J. T. (1980). A search for trends in the poetic style of W.B.
Yeats. ALLC Journal, 1, 11-18.
Deborah J. Fitzgerald
Department of Philosophy , Furman University, Greenville, USA
The American Mark Tansey's paintings have received notice from
philosophers, as well as from contemporary art critics, and museums.1
Danto
is one philosopher who has praised Tansey's work for having "made the
intellect central to his paintings." This, he points out, "was about
as
subversive of received dogma as it was possible for an artist to be."2
Tansey, himself, claims that the way in which he makes "intellect central"
is by addressing the question of "How do you make meaning pictorial?"
"It's
no longer," he says, "about getting direct equivalence between the
material
and the idea. It's the transition, what happens between the material
and
the ideas." Metaphor, he tells us, is what is important in painting.
This paper will explore in what sense metaphor, an intellectual idea,
can
be seen as important to painting, to something visual. It will involve
an
analysis of Tansey's idea of metaphor in terms of its challenge to
various
philosophical theories of metaphor, such as those of Max Black Stanley
Cavell, and Danto. One claim central to this paper is that beginning
with
actual paintings themselves, with the empirical, and then proceeding
to
aesthetic theory is philosophically more fruitful than starting with
theory.
Notes
1 Tansey's work is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney
Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, among others.
2 Interview with Phoebe Hoban, New York Times, April 27, 1997.
Calvin F. Nodine* and Elizabeth A. Krupinski**
* Medical Department of Radiology Pendergrass Diagnostic, University
of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
** Department of Radiology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona,
USA
Art provides images that are potentially useful in the scientific study
of
visual perception. We will present a paper to illustrate how art and
science can work together. We used black and white and color drawings
created by artists Al Hirschfeld and Martin Handford to study visual
search
and perception of hidden figures. Al Hirschfeld is well known for his
caricature-like drawings of scenes from stage and screen plays. In
addition
to admiring his depiction skills, every follower of Hirschfeld's art
knows
that hidden somewhere within the scene is at least one NINA. Similarly,
Martin Handford has been drawing scenes containing crowds of people
engaged
in various activities. Hidden among the characters in each of these
scenes
is a figure called Waldo.
The purpose of the present paper is to show how the hide-and-seek art
games
created by artists Hirschfeld and Handford can be used to illustrate
scientific principles of visual perception commonly encountered by
radiologists searching for abnormalities in medical x-ray images. For
example, Hirschfeld's hiding of NINA is typically camouflaged by blending
the letters of the name into scenic background details such as wisps
of
hair and folds of clothing, so NINA is not conspicuous and requires
visual
search and target recognition. The same is true of medical abnormalities
like lung tumors because they are camouflaged by blending with anatomic
scenery within a chest x-ray image. The camouflaging effects in both
art
and medical tasks often result in missing the hidden target whether
it be a
NINA or a lung tumor. The advantage of using hidden figures in art
images
is that viewers need no special training, thus effects of learning
and
experience are equated between medical experts and laypeople in the
hide-and-see art games. By comparing search performance of radiologists
vs.
laypeople searching art images for NINAs or Waldos, we have been able
to
evaluate basic visual search, detection and discrimination processes
and
learn what role perceptual experience plays in discovering hidden figures.
=46or example, do visual search strategies and target detection skills
transfer from radiology tasks to art tasks? To answer this question,
we
used eye movements to measure visual search performance and
signal-detection (ROC) analysis to compare detection performance of
radiologists and laypersons.
Results indicate that radiologists, who are highly experienced at medical
search tasks, are no better than laypeople at finding NINAs and Waldos
in
art images. If fact, radiologists found fewer art targets and miscalled
more art targets than laypeople. They also took longer to search for
art
targets. However, when both radiologists and laypeople missed a target,
they typically exhibited prolonged visual dwell fixating it. Viewers
stared
at missed targets, but failed to recognize them as true targets! The
characteristic prolonged dwell associated with false-negative errors
(misses) has also been observed in screening mammograms for breast
masses
and chest x-ray images for lung cancers. This seems to be a universal
finding across both art and medical search tasks which has an important
implication, namely, that prolonged visual dwell can predict missed
abnormalities. We conclude that whatever expertise may have been gained
from diagnostic experience searching medical x-ray images for abnormalities
does not transfer positively to hide-and-seek art search tasks.
(This research was supported in part by DAMD17-97-1-7130 to the first
author).
Andras Farkas
Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest,
Hung=
ary
According to Boselie's interpretation, Martindale's
preference-for-prototypes model assumes that prototypicality is a causal
determinant of aesthetic pleasure. However, nobody proved that typicality
ratings are not preference ratings themselves in the first place, thus
the
danger of circular argument is suspected: preference is explained by
preference. We do not want to enter into a controversy with the
participants of the circularity debate (Boselie, 1991, 1996; Hekkert
and
Snelders, 1995, 1996; Martindale, 1996), but want to reveal some new
details from the relations between the components of this circularity.
In
an experiment, after the presentation of 16 van Gogh paintings covering
the
whole range of van Gogh-typicality, groups of experts and non-experts
rated
60 van Goghs in respect of liking, and finishing this task rated the
stimuli in respect of van Gogh-typicality. In the case of other groups
of
subjects, the order of the two ratings was reversed. We did not find
any
correlation between liking and typicality in the case of the first
non-expert group, but found significant correlation (p < 0.05) in
the case
of the second non-expert group. For both expert groups, the respective
correlations were significant (p < 0.01). In another experiment,
after
similarity grouping of 37 Escher prints, two groups of non-experts
rated
the 37 stimuli as it was in the previous experiment. In the case of
both
groups, we got significant correlations between liking and
Escher-typicality, but the level of the significance was higher for
the
second experimental group. On the basis of these empirical data, we
draw
the conclusion that typicality ratings are not necessarily the same
as
preference ratings, and the prototypicality effect depends on many
determinants: on the level of expertness of the subjects, on the type
of
the stimulus set, and in the first place, on the previous manipulation
which the subjects had to do with the stimuli before the typicality
ratings. However, we have got enough proof for the argument that typicality
ratings are influenced by preference, and vice versa. If the previous
manipulation of the stimuli is not too long and the previous knowledge
about the stimulus category is not too effective, then there is a
possibility for learning the features of the respective category and
this
process and/or the result of this process effects the preference ratings.
Bruce F. Katz
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
This talk consists of a series of theoretical reductions which connects
the
beautiful with the functional. The first such reduction translates
the
traditional aesthetic principle of unity in diversity into neural form.
Specifically, it is shown that the perceptual unity of a diverse stimulus
will produce relatively high activity in a network classifying the
stimulus. The next reduction translates network activity into informational
terms. Specifically, it is shown that information flux in the perceiving
system is proportional to network activity. Finally, it is shown that
a
state of high information flux is adaptive, in that it gives the organism
maximal information about its environment. Taken together, these reductions
imply that the human attraction to beauty is not arbitrary, nor is
it a
side-effect of some other adaptive process. Rather, it is adaptive
in
itself. A further, perhaps unexpected implication of this derivation
is
that all intelligent life, whether it be terrestrial or alien, artificial
or natural, is likely to possess a strong sense of beauty.
Chairman: John P. McLaughlin
Psychology Department, University of Delaware, Newark, USA
Sergio Lombardo
Academy of Fine Arts, Frosinone, Italy
Every planar map is four colorable (Appel, Haken, 1976). Every planar
map
embedded on the torus is seven colorable (Dirac, 1957). Such well known
theorems may lead us to formulate the following aesthetic problems.
Are
minimal colored maps aesthetically preferred to redundant colored ones?
Is
there some aesthetically preferred color set? If so, does some aesthetic
ratio in color set choice exist? The aesthetics of map coloring seems
too
complex to be empirically solved. That is, for the extremely large
choice
of colors and for the high number of possible maps. Actually, the aesthetic
preference of a map can also be due to the formal structure of the
map.
Though, if minimal coloration is always preferred to redundant, map
coloring
aesthetics is not an untractable problem.
To test such a conjecture I restricted the survey only to toroidal
maps and
a simplified set of 35 colors (tab. 1).
I also used a standard minimal coloring procedure MCP (tab. 2).
Experiment 1
A (dark green), B (green), C (light green) and D (magenta) were applied
to
a stochastic 4 colorable toroidal map of 12 regions, 30 vertices and
40
edges. 2 regions (A colored) covered 40% of total area. 3 regions (B
colored) covered 30% of total area. 4 regions (C colored) covered 20%
of
total area. 3 regions (D colored) covered 10% of total area. The 4
colors
were permuted creating 24 stimuli. 96 persons rated each stimulus in
an
aesthetic preference scale ranging from 1 to 10. The preferred map
(A, B,
C, D) obtained 962 scores, the less preferred (D, C, B, A) 724 scores.
Dark
and cold colors (A, B) were preferred for the most wide and complex
regions, light and warm colors (C, D) were preferred for little, compact
and disseminated regions.
Experiment 2
8 stimuli were drawn: 2 with formal and chromatic redundance, 2 with
formal
redundance and chromatic minimality, 2 with formal minimality and chromatic
redundance, 2 with formal and chromatic minimality. All of them were
4
colored. In a preference ranking experiment, minimality was always
preferred to redundancy.
Experiment 3
A 3-chromatic toroidal minimal map with 6 regions was drawn. 4 different
coloring procedures were used: 1- 6 colors, a different color for each
region 2- 3 colors, MCP 3- 1 color of 3 levels of lightness, MCP 4-
2
complementary colors, one of which in 2 levels of lightness, MCP. Each
ratio was used to draw 6 different maps, creating a set of 24 stimuli
. 42
persons ranked the stimuli according to personal aesthetic preference.
The
result was favorable to procedures 3 and 4.
Thus, minimal colored maps were preferred to redundant colored maps.
Ruth Lorand
Department of Philosophy, University of Haifa, Israel
Many experimental aestheticians agree that beauty and good art consist
of a
balance between the extremes of order and disorder.
Berlyne (1960), for example, argues that experiments tend to confirm
the
view that some intermediate degree or complexity produces the most
pleasing
effect and that extremes of simplicity or complexity are distasteful.
High order, so the argument goes, is predictable and therefore incapable
of
raising, curiosity and interest, while disorder is confusing or even
frightening and therefore incapable of producing pleasure.
I argue that analyzing beauty in terms of a balance between order and
disorder, and denying that beauty is an expression of high order fails
to
explain the admiration we have for beautiful objects. Beauty, in my
view,
is an expression of a peculiar type of unpredictable yet lawful order.
This
paradoxical combination of lawfulness and novelty is typical of any
form of
aesthetic experience. It requires the acknowledgment of two types of
order:
a discursive, rational order and an aesthetic order. The first enables
prediction and general laws, the second expresses the necessity of
the
particular.
References
Berlyne, E. D (1960). Conflict, Arousal and Curiosity. New York: Mc
Graw-Hil=
l.
John. P. McLaughlin
Psychology Department, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA
Various investigators claim that the prototypicality of a stimulus is
of
greater importance than its arousal-potential in determining aesthetic
appeal, but defining prototypicality for the category "painting" has
seemed
arbitrary, e.g., defining the prototype as photographic realism ignores
the
influence of a culture's abstract patterns. Another definition is the
degree of similarity of a painting to other works of art known by the
subject. The purpose of this research was to assess the relative
contributions of such similarity and measures of arousal potential
to
aesthetic appeal.
Thirty-eight paintings were chosen with styles ranging from gothic
to
modern and from realist to nonrepresentational. The paintings were
judged
on two arousal-potential scales, tense-relaxed (TR) and passive-active
(PA)
and also rated on liking (L) and similarity (S) to other paintings.
Mean TR, PA and S scores for each painting were entered into a stepwise
multiple regression analysis with L as the dependent variable. On the
first
step, with TR entered, the multiple R was 0.71. Adding S increased
R to
0.76. Addition of PA to the analysis did not increase R significantly.
The
correlation of TR and L, with S partialled out, was 0.54 and that of
S and
L, with TR partialled out, was 0.40 .
It is clear from the analyses that both the TR and S scales were related
to
liking. Subjects like familiar styles that are also relaxing.
Bettina Laugwitz and Hans Irtel
Facultat fur Sozialwissenschaften, University of Mannheim, Mannheim,
Germany
Following Martindale (1981, 1988) the human mind may be described as
a
network of connected cognitive units organized in multiple layers.
During a
cognitive process like perception nodes corresponding to stimulus receptors
get activated. They transmit activation from one layer to a higher
level
inhibiting neighbouring nodes within their own layer. For aesthetic
perception Martindale additionally assumes that a stimulus is perceived
to
be more pleasant the higher the overall activation in the whole network
is.
The model explains the "uniformity in variety" principle of aesthetics
(Fechner, 1876). Important concepts of the model are lateral inhibition
and
prototypicality of the stimulus.
Some implications of the model were tested experimentally in a repeated
measure design. Colour combinations with varying similarity and
prototypicality of colours were presented on a computer monitor. 20
subjects rated the colour combinations on a seven category scale from
"not
pleasant at all" to "very pleasant".
Results indicate that Martindale's aesthetic model applies to the
aesthetics of colour combinations: the expected inhibition effect was
found
when colours differed in hue or saturation but not for brightness
differences. Preference ratings for prototypical colours were slightly
lower.
The model explains this by assuming stronger inhibitory activation
for
prototypical colours.
Bernadett S=F2ti
E=F6tv=F6s L=F3r=E1nd University, Budapest, Hungary
According to Cupchik, naive viewers search for identifiable objects
in
paintings, while experts take notice of their formal properties as
well. We
suppose that the abstractness and the presentation order of paintings
also
influence the subject's interpretative styles. In an experiment, slides
of
nine paintings out of three subject matters (building, harbour and
cornfield) were projected. Each of the subject matters was represented
by
paintings covering three levels of realism. Two naive and two trained
groups of subjects participated in the experiment, and the order of
the
presentation of stimuli was varied: in the case of two groups that
differed
on the level of expertness, the order was random, in the case of another
two groups, the order ran from very realistic to abstract. The
interpretative styles were judged on the basis of recalling the paintings
from memory. Results were as follows: 1) the number of recalled
identifiable objects increased as the level of realism increased,
simultaneously, the number of recalled formal properties decreased;
2) the
order of stimulus presentation affected the interpretative style: those
persons who had seen the realistic paintings first, searched for meaning
in
the abstracts as well, they remembered more identifiable objects in
them,
as compared to the random presentation order; 3) experts remembered
less
identifiable object and more formal properties than naive subjects
did.
Summarizing, these findings supported our previous assumptions in
connection with the effect of the level of realism and of the order
of
presentation. In respect of aesthetic preference, our results=20can
be
characterized as follows: 1) naive subjects preferred the most realistic
paintings and refused the abstracts; while experts preferred the middle
realistic paintings and refused the most realistic ones; 2) the order
of
presentation affected preference as well: both types of subjects, regarding
expertness, gave higher preference values to the paintings in the case
of
non-random presentation.
Annett Rag=F3
Department of General Psychology, E=F6tv=F6s Lorand University, Budapest
Creating artificial categories is a well-proved method of establishing
control over people's category knowledge to exclude other aspects relevant
to the hypotheses being tested. A relevant question in empirical aesthetics
is to what extent the aesthetic attitude creates new categories based
on
knowledge structure or re-evaluate category features. The commonly
used
concept of prototype, because of the mode of instantiation, can be
unavoidably connected with the notions of familiarity and frequency
during
the interpretation of preference values (see Boselie, 1996).
My experiment, which is the paraphrase of that cited by Barsalou (1992),
consisted of a training phase, where the task was to learn two categories
on the basis of training exemplars with feedback. This was followed
by a
test phase, where additional exemplars were presented without feedback.
The
prototype was presented only in the test phase. The results show that
subjects were able to elaborate a kind of graded structure, because
they
could much better categorize the prototype never seen before than the
exemplar similar to the other that was the most representative in the
learning phase.
I used pictures of nonfigurative sculptures as stimuli (cf Brant et
al,
1995), classified on the basis of three dimensions, described by external
features that should be explicit and could be evaluated independently
of
the others. I also asked for preference judgment for each sculpture,
and
from the results the conclusion can be drawn that preference is not
dependent upon the prototype or the extent of the prototype.
Antonio Tadiotto
University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
In the economic activity of the genetic selection of dairy cows, directed
by the National Italian Frisian Breeders Association (ANAFI) and supported
by operators in the field of artifical insemination, a figurative
representation of the Ideal Cow Model (MVI) - produced in 1993 - is
proposed in order to show the perfect conformation that a "functional"
animal must have for milk production and longevity. In other words,
the
body of the cow shown is presented as a system that has a rational
aim: the
functional nature of its forms which is seen with the objective of
producing a considerable quantity of milk, both in the single milking
session and by increasing these sessions themselves, in so doing, leading
to increased offspring.
This system is introduced by the particular position taken up by the
animal
in the figure shown: it is presented as an enunciative posture revealing
the presence of the enunciation subject that achieves a manipulatory
manner
of the observer's modal competence: the high head, erect ears, the
forward
and hind legs slightly apart offer themselves as "figures" of
the body of
a "restrained" animal (punctuality), but on the verge of springing
away. It
is the figuration of a body under tension between the end of the previous
movement (terminativity) and the beginning of a new one (inchoateness),
that is presented, unwillingly, to the spectator's gaze.
We can say that, from a modal point of view, the animal possesses the
same
competence as the observer: the animal's not being able to show itself
in
any other position but the one illustrated matches the spectator's
not
being able to observe in any other way but from that one perspective.
The
spectator, therefore, cannot but observe the ideal qualities of the
animal's body, thus implementing - from the cognitive standpoint -
that
separation of the cow's body into discrete units and identifying them
with
the morphological characteristics which represent the reference values
(standard characteristics) in the field of genetic selection of dairy
cows.
Thus, it is through the perspective "enunciated" by the animal's position
(the aspectuality) that the eidetic categories are disclosed, via which
we
identify the plastic formants that are called upon to act as pretext
to
investments of diverse significations, allowing us to speak of plastic
language and to circumscribe its specific nature" (Greimas, 1984).
This "way of seeing things" (according to the cannot but) cannot be
revealed but by the aesthetic dimension: the enunciative posture -
the
"aspectus" - of the Ideal Cow Model offers itself as a spectacle, a
showing
of the perfect forms of the subject represented. The observer, first
of
all, is invited to comply with a =ECpleasure of gaze, a sensitive pleasure
and to reflect, later, on the nature of the perceptions the object
provides
(Blanch=E8, 1979).
It is to these perceptions of a "purely visual nature" that the beauty
of
the Ideal Cow Model's perfect forms firstly refers: it is the recognition
of "what is pleasing for its shape". The cow shown in the model is
in this
sense a shapely cow (the Italian term "formosa" - in the Latin meaning
of
the word - formosus), which underlines the "centrality of shape in
what we
consider to be beautiful" (Bodei, 1995).
It is through an aesthetic door - recognition of the beauty of shapes
-
that the process of signification starts, through which the functional
values are correlated to the significant shapes of the morphology of
the
animal's body. It is in the perception moment itself that we learn
the
possible significations of objects, before any particular investment
of
value, aesthetic or functional (conceptual level).
In this view, the comparative evaluation in a ring of a cattle show
will be
considered an interpretative process which, in drafting rankings -
besides
refering to the System of linear evaluation through which a final score
is
attributed that expresses the percentage of approximation to the Ideal
Cow
Model, by evaluating the overall aspect (30%), dairy characteristics
(20%),
body capacity (10%) and udder (40%) - also represents an example of
valorization, meant as an individual practice of establishing a value,
definable as a generative process of investing a value on a subject
(the
champion) in a manner not strictly conforming to the specifications
of the
axiological system.
The assigning of a final score and the evaluation of the animals (both
represent comparative evaluations, even if in a different way), in
fact, go
beyond the realm of functional aesthetics and arouse concepts of classical
aesthetics such as proportion (the ordered relation between the parts
of a
whole) and harmony (the perfect connection between parts), which are
generally seen in the mirror symmetry of the two halves of the animal's
body (the antimers).
Moreover, as regards the overall aspect, the category of distinction
is
very important: an animal shows its own distinction not only statically,
simulating the enunciative posture of the Ideal Cow Model in order
to
highlight, for example, the marked angularity or fineness of the skin,
but
above all when it shows the qualities of proportion, harmony and symmetry
in movement (a question of gait). Furthermore, when an animal
"distinguishes" itself from another in the competition of a cattle
fair,
the category of functionality is no longer relevant, but presupposes
a
certain taste on the part of the judge who more or less subjectively
attributes greater or minor aesthetic quality to the individual parts
and
to the overall body of an animal (there emerges a shift from a practical
valorization - utilitarian values - to a ludic valorization -
non-utilitarian values).
References
Blanch=E8, R. (1979). Des Cat=E9gories esth=E9tiques. Paris: Vrin.
Greimas, A. J. (1984). S=E9miotique figurative et s=E9miotique plastique.
Ac=
tes
S=E9miotique Documents, 60.
Bodei, R. (1995). Le Forme del Bello. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Chairwoman: Anna Maria Giannini
Department of Psychology, 1st University of Rome, "La Sapienza", Rome,
Italy=
.
Bernardas Satkovskis
Department of Piano and Musicology, Lithuanian Academy of Music, Vilnius,
Lithuania
The significance of timbre in music has increased. That is why the motives
of timbre significance in music and the ways how it influences musical
expression are important.
The aim of this work is to examine, by means of objective acoustical
methods, the regularity of structure of differently shaded sounds,
to find
relations between the objective acoustic data and the subjective experience
of the human ear, to reveal the significance of effect of differently
shaded sounds to musical expression.
Differently shaded sounds of various musical instruments have been
studied
by means of high accuracy electronics. There were distinguished three
typical sound shades that a man can hear and they possess three different
characteristics: the sound played by two musical instruments of different
type, the sound played by two instruments of the same type but of different
quality, the sound played in different ways by the same instrument.
Three
mentioned timbre shades are caused by regularities of acoustical sound
structure, which were found due to the analysis of a number, intensity
and
arrangement of the brightest overtones in the sound spectrum. These
sets of
structure regularities were the named set of sound instrumental shade,
set
of quality and articulation shade.
The comparison of a separate sound and chord structures as well as
their
perception regularities revealed relations between micro- and macro
processes in music.
On the grounds of the above-mentioned results, as well as on vocal
pedagogic and voice physiology, several performance recordings were
analysed by a beginner, an ordinary and eminent opera singers. The
significance and nature of the quality shade role in vocal music
interpretation were revealed. It was shown that the specific quality
shade
(created when a singer arranges his vocal organs correctly) permits
a
performer to approach an ideal level of artistic skill.
The investigation emphasizes the significance of timbral means of musical
expression and shows a great variety of ways of its possibilities.
Anna Maria Giannini*, Paolo Bonaiuto*, Valeria Biasi*
and Elisabetta
Chiappero**
* Department of Psychology, 1st University of Rome, "La Sapienza",
Rome,
Italy.
** "Teatro Nuovo di Torino", Turin, Italy.
In spite of the wide range of individual differences, it is possible
to
discover typical average personality profiles which characterize different
categories of artists and differentiate them with respect to people
belonging to other subcultures. This happens especially where the demands
of a specific artistic environment are extreme: as in the case of classical
ballet and modern dance. Consequently, in the last 40 years several
psychologists have been engaged in trying to outline traits particularly
frequent among dancers. They have also discussed the role of causal
factors
such as self-selection, preliminary or long-term selection, stress
overload, dominant education styles, and the most common lifestyles
and
forms of training, which could affect the statistically determined
frequency distributions. The importance of this kind of study concerns,
amongst other things, the possibility to better understand and predict
certain forms of behaviour of dancers, some reasons for their success
or
failure, certain components of current aesthetic taste, the workings
of
dance schools and, finally, some health risk factors affecting dance
professionals or amateurs. Examining the available reports, and comparing
methods and results, we can contribute to indicate various constant
characteristics, even if we must be careful to avoid favouring rigid
stereotypes. Moreover, some discrepancies may be noticed.
Campbell (1961), examining US dancers and dance students, noted a strong
drive toward achievement. Also, Alter (1984) found that US ballet dancers,
compared with non-dancer students, had higher achievement motivation,
higher creative thinking and positive self-esteem. Kalliopuska (1989,
1991)
found that young Finnish artists of the same category, compared with
non-dancer students and with junior baseball players, had more hobbies
that
allowed them to express their creativity, higher self-esteem and empathy,
and higher success in normal school work. After these quite optimistic
findings, Bakker (1988, 1991) began to examine young female ballet
dancers
in Holland , comparing them with non-dancer pre-adolescents or adolescents.
Dancer girls appeared higher in achievement motivation, more introverted
and anxious, with more interests, more intense emotionality and less
self-esteem. A follow-up study confirmed these previous observations.
Marchant-Haycox & Wilson (1992) compared ballet dancers in
Holland with
other professional performing artists and with a control group. In
general,
dancers were found to be introverted, anxious, emotionally unstable,
unhappy, obsessive, lacking in self-esteem and autonomy, and inclined
to
depression. Taylor (1997) administered the MMPI-2 to a small group
of US
ballet majors. Among other things, she found tendencies to obsessive
compulsive disorders and to depression, when dancers were introverted;
the
extroverted dancers not appearing depressed.
The investigations carried out in Italy by our research group from
1994 up
to now (Bonaiuto, Biasi, Giannini & Chiappero, 1996) on many dancers,
compared with athletes of several sport specialities and with sedentary
people (both genders), allow us to confirm some of the previous
observations and add new information. In our case, each person filled
a
booklet containing the Adult Adolescent Type A Behavior Scale (AATABS,
from
initial studies by Wrzesniewski, Forgays & Bonaiuto, 1990;
and Forgays,
=46orgays, Bonaiuto & Wrzesniewski, 1993; now available in its
3rd revision)=
;
moreover, the Framingham Type A Scale; plus other tools, such as the
Hardiness Scale (by Kobasa, 1979), the STAXI (by Spielberger et al.,
1985),
the IBS (by Spielberger, 1988). Looking at the results, we see that
athletes do not differ on the focussed features from a sedentary group
with
similar gender compositon, average age and general cultural
characteristics: except for the fact that Type As are significantly
more
frequent in athletes. Dancers, on the other hand, also score significantly
higher on Type A measures, confirming their special orientation toward
achievement, and their tendency to exercise control, among the Type
A
attributes. They also show reduced hardiness and specific tendencies
to
deny negative emotions and to avoid interpersonal conflicts, at the
cost of
severe self-control, intra-punitivity and even self-sacrifice ("Need
for
Harmony").
These traits look consonant with aesthetic sensitivity, severe continuous
discipline and social coordination that the art of dance and dance
schools
demand. Internal comparisons between sub-categories (amateurs vs.
professionals), showing their relative homogeneity, demonstrate the
dominating influence of factors such as self-selection and preliminary
selection, instead of education and training, in favoring the typical
dancer personality profile.
References
Alter, J. B. (1984). Creativity profile of university and conservatory
dance students. J. Person. Assess., 48, 153-158.
Bakker, F. C. (1988). Personality differences between young dancers
and non
dancers. Person. Individ. Diff., 9 (1), 121-131.
Bakker, F. C. (1991). Development of personality in dancers: A longitudinal
study. Person. Individ. Diff., 12 (1), 671-681.
Bonaiuto, P., Biasi, V., Giannini, A.M., & Chiappero, E. (1996).
Defense
mechanisms and Type A Behavior Pattern among Dancers, Athletes and
Sedentary Young Adults. Paper presented at the 17th International STAR
Conference, Graz.
Campbell, D.G. (1961). The physician looks at the dancer. In M. Van
Tuyl
(Ed.), The Dancer as a Person. San Francisco: Impulse Publ. (pp. 52-57).
=46orgays, D. K., Forgays, D.G., Bonaiuto, P. & Wrzesniewski, K.
(1993).
Measurement of the Type A Behavior Pattern from Adolescence through
Mid-Life: Further development of AATABS. J. Behav. Med., 16 (2), 117-138.
Kalliopuska, M. (1989). Empathy, self esteem and creativity among junior
ballet dancers. Percept. Mot. Skills, 69, 1227-1234.
Kalliopuska, M. (1991). Empathy, self esteem and other personality
factors
among junior ballet dancers. British J. Projective Psychol., 36 (2),
47-61.
Kobasa, S.O. (1979). Stressfull life events, personality and health:
An
inquiry into hardiness. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 37, 1-11.
Marchant-Haycox, S. E. & Wilson, G. D. (1992). Personality and
stress in
performing artists. Person. Individ. Diff., 13 (10), 1061-1068.
Spielberger, C.D. (1988). The Rationality/Emotional Defensiveness (R/ED)
Scale: Preliminary Test Manual. Tampa: Center for Research in Behav.
Med.
and Health Psychol., Univ. South Florida.
Spielberger, C.D., Jacobs, G., Russell, S. & Crane, R.S. (1985).
Assessment
of anger: The State-Trait Anger Scale. In: J.N. Butcher & C.D.
Spielberger
(Eds.), Advances in Personality Assessment. Vol. 2. Hillsdale,
N.J.:
Erlbaum.
Taylor, L. D. (1997). MMPI-2 and ballet majors. Person. Individ. Diff.,
22
(4), 521-526.
Wrzesniewski, K., Forgays, D.G. & Bonaiuto, P. (1990). Measurement
of the
Type A behavior pattern in adolescents and young adults: Cross-cultural
development of AATABS. J. Behav. Med., 13 (2) 111-135.
Universitat des Saarlandes, Saarbr=FCcken, Germany
Popsongs should not contradict their consumers' general opinions as
they
are commercial products that ought to be bought; therefore, their texts,
too, give us hints on the assumed consumers' opinions. So an empirical
analysis of German-language popsong texts since the late seventies
allows
us to describe the development of public opinion, that leads from a
diagnosis of society in political terms to unpolitical individual
reactions. The basis as well as the cause of this development is the
feeling of a loss of utopias. This, to some degree, corresponds with
the
expressionist impression of absurdity. However, expressionist philosophers
(as is shown with Albert Camus) develop from an individual diagnosis
to a
reaction concerning society. The paper will present some empirical
data and
will discuss the differences as well as the common positions of both
developments.
Chairman: Andrew S. Winston
Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Andrew S. Winston
Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
This symposium examines whether psychological aesthetics can pose a
serious
challenge to the canons of modernism and the elevated status of abstraction
achieved in this century. Martindale argues that Academic painting
of the
late 19th century represented an aesthetic zenith followed by decline,
and
uses empirical findings to warrant this claim. Avital attacks modern
art
via conceptual analysis rooted in an evolutionary theory of symbol
systems,
and concludes that art has lost its most important defining feature.
These
two positions will then be critiqued by Boselie, Winston, and Machotka,
who
offer differing but complementary views of aesthetic value and abstraction.
The symposium will be conducted via brief presentations, followed by
open
and lively debate among the five participants.
Colin Martindale
Department of Psychology, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA
Nineteenth-century academic painters, such as Bouguereau and Alma-Tadema,
have been treated harshly by art critics. Their work is said to be
kitsch,
sentimental and even pornographic. On the other hand, contemporary
impressionist and post-impressionist painters are, of course,highly
praised. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, these appraisals seem
questionable, as many academic paintings are quite beautiful while
most
impressionist and post-impressionist paintings are completely without
aesthetic merit. My impression has always been that modern art is ugly.
Any
preference for it is due to prestige suggestion. I had people with
no
training in art history rate paintings by old masters, academic artists,
and impressionist and post-impressionist painters. As expected, academic
paintings were seen as being of better quality than old master paintings
and were much better liked than impressionist and post-impressionist
paintings.
Tsion Avital
Department of Design and Art, Centre for Technological Education Holon,
Affiliated With Tel-Aviv University, Holon, Israel
Figurative art is universally readable, communicative and intelligible
at
one level or another whereas in abstract art each individual is permitted
to see whatever they wish. This difference arises from the fact that
figurative art has a symbol system whereas abstract art has not. Unlike
signs and codes, which have no necessary interconnections, figurative
symbols have systemic interconnections. Hence, figurative works have
hierarchic structure, whereas no work of abstract art has hierarchic
structure. Hierarchy is the most universal ordering relation at every
level
of Being: physical, biological, social and noetic, of which figurative
art
is but a special case. Figurative art is therefore able to present
an order
which is homologous with that which exists in the world, and thereby
to
represent our world Picture by means of a visual language. The hierarchy
in
the symbol system is also the precondition for abstraction in all symbol
systems; hence, 'abstract art' is not really abstract and it is
questionable if it is art. The fathers of 20th century art relinquished
the
hierarchical controls that had maintained art for a least 40,000 years,
without establishing any other equally effective constraints in their
place. The result is an extreme fragmentation which has brought art
to
chaos and a dead end. It is high time to begin elaborate search for
a new
Grand Paradigm for art, or it should be considered as a closed chapter
in
human culture.
Andrew S. Winston
Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada
Analyses by Martindale and Avital suggest that abstract art in particular
and modern art in general suffer from fundamental aesthetic deficiencies,
rendering such works bad art or non-art. Putting aside the breadth
of this
categorization and the complex relationship between postmodernism and
figuration, I argue that such judgments can only be made with regard
to
historically and culturally contingent rules for the functions of a
work of
art. Such rules are unexamined when the "ugliness" of modern art or
its
failure to represent our "world picture" are presented as deficiencies.
The preference of "untrained" viewers for the moral simplifications
of
sentimental art illustrates the differentiation of rules for varied
cultural communities, not the stripping away of "prestige suggestion".
While it is reasonable to inquire about the psychological functions
of
figuration and abstraction, attempts to resurrect 19th century rules
for
art, or to impose essentialist requirements for hierarchical structure
in
art, are not fruitful projects for psychological aesthetics.
Pavel Machotka
University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA
Martindale and Avital reach conclusions about modern art, in the one
case
by experiment and in the other by philosophical reasoning, which an
openness to an attentive look at modern art cannot sustain. Martindale's
experimental study uses a methodology that conflates preference with
judgment, which is akin to showing that popular music is better than
classical, or soap opera better than Sophocleanor Shakespearean tragedy.
Avital's historical and philosophical analysis, cogent in its own terms,
leaves out the history of the many ways in which the deepest satisfactions
from even figurative art are in the abstract form that they are given.
To
criticise all of modern art, then, in either manner, is to simplify
its
aims and accomplishments. We can look instead at both its failures
and its
successes, with appropriate examples.
Chair: Holger Höge, Department of Psychology, University of
Oldenburg,
Oldenburg, Germany.
Colin Martindale
Department of Psychology, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA
I have argued that any art form must change if it is to survive. If
painters, for example, kept painting the same things in the same style,
people would tire of their work. Constant innovation is needed, so
we find
evolution in art just as in biology. Evolution does not guarantee progress.
Art forms, just as biological species, can become extinct. Epic poetry
and
saber-tooth tigers are examples. It would seem that modern art (the
line
from impressionism through post-impressionism, expressionism, and cubism
to
abstract expressionism) is another example of an extinct art form.
The
innovations of modern art involved simplifications that eventually
caught
it in an evolutionary trap. Once one comes down to more or less randomly
putting colors on a canvas, there is no possibility for further evolution.
I venture the guess that modern art will eventually be reduced to a
footnote and that art history will be rewritten as the history of
representational painting.
Nineteenth-century academic painters, such as Bouguereau and Alma-Tadema,
have been treated harshly by art critics. Their work is said to be
kitsch,
sentimental and even pornographic. On the other hand, contemporary
impressionist and post-impressionist painters are highly praised. From
an
aesthetic standpoint, these appraisals seem questionable, as academic
paintings are quite beautiful while a lot of impressionist and
post-impressionist paintings are downright ugly. While impressionist
and
post-impressionist painting is of interest for art history, to call
it
beautiful is a misuse of the term.
In courses on art history, students receive in at least a subtle fashion
the message that if they do not like impressionist, post-impressionist
and
later modern art, then they have bad taste. The problem is with them,
not
with the art. If academic art is even mentioned, students get the message
that if they like it, they have bad taste, that the art may seem to
be
beautiful, but it really is not. Among those trained in the arts, one
wonders about the extent to which preference for impressionist and
later
art is a result of prestige suggestion. The more training one gets
in the
arts, the more he or she is told that modern art is wonderful and academic
art is awful. Faced with this unanimous consensus, it would take a
brave
soul to venture the opinion that, say, Cezanne is a horrible painter
and
Bouguereau ranks with Raphael. (I guess that I am a brave soul.)
An obvious way of assessing the aesthetic quality of academic versus
impressionist painting is simply to ask people with no training in
the
arts. Such people will not have been brainwashed one way or the other.
Of
course, an objection to such a procedure would be that training is
necessary to appreciate the beauty of modern art. This objection really
does not make much sense. No one has ever argued that special training
is
needed to appreciate a beautiful sunset or a Botticelli painting.
We selected paintings by old masters, impressionist and post- impressionist
painters, and academic painters. Undergraduates untrained in the arts
rated
the paintings on 7-point bipolar scales: Interesting-Uninteresting,
Painted
by a master-Painted by an amateur, Like-Dislike, Great art-Bad art,
and
Tasteful-Tasteless.
Results were clear-cut. Subjects did not care for the impressionist
and
post-impressionist paintings at all. As compared with academic and
old
master paintings, they were seen as=20significantly more uninteresting,
amateurish, disliked, and examples of bad art. Furthermore, subjects
gave
more favorable ratings to academic art than to paintings by old masters.
Perhaps people would like impressionist and post-impressionist paintings
more if they had more exposure to them. We tried an experiment in which
untrained observers were repeatedly exposed to the same academic and
impressionist paintings. The subjects did not like the impressionist
paintings to start with, and they liked them less and less the more
they
had to look at them. This was not the case for academic paintings.
The high esteem in which our subjects held academic art suggests that
its
bad reputation among art critics comes from prestige suggestion rather
than
from anything intrinsically bad in the paintings themselves. Reproductions
of paintings by Bouguereau and other academic artists are becoming
increasingly available. In many stores, such reproductions have virtually
driven out reproductions of modern art. One expects that the reason
for
this is that customers, like our subjects, do not like modern art.
Chairman: Holger Höge
Department of Psychology, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
Holger Höge
Department of Psychology, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
The beginning of empirical aesthetics was Fechner's investigation on
the
preference for proportions with some emphasis on the golden section.
The
results influenced not only Fechner himself =1E he wondered that his
data did
not falsify the golden section hypothesis =1E but much more the followers
in
the field. Recent evidence, however, clearly speaks against a preference
for the golden section. Nevertheless, there are still ideas, opinions
and
results insisting on the importance of the golden section being a special
proportion in the arts or other applied fields. Thus, as there are
contradictory discussions the need for this symposium is obvious to
clarify
the differences between data and methods applied.
Unfortunately, most investigations concentrate on the preference of
one
proportion (golden section) but this is most likely a too restricted
view
on the problem. As the data of Fechner's original study as well as
several
new studies suggested that the square (or put generally: the equal
relation
of lines or sides) is of higher aesthetic relevance the topic of this
symposium is not limited to the golden section; e.g., there may be
situations in which unusual or even extreme proportions might be
appropriate to express certain aspects of the artist's or architect's
feelings, needs or other aspects of inner or outer life conditions.
Thus, it seems necessary to broaden the scientific scope of investigations
on preferences for proportions, it is necessary to find out the reasons
for
such choices and for future applications to explain possible rules
of the
appropriateness of proportion in applied fields. One of the still unsolved
questions, is how to determine the proportion of natural objects; are
there
rules and laws as many writers believe - or are there too much mistakenly
done calculations, as Fechner found, when checking the results of others?
Second, are there physiological factors of the perceptual apparatus
that
might give biological reasons for the preferences observed? Third,
how do
artistes or other professionals concerned with composition and design
give
value for different proportions?
It is obvious that, first of all, we need a stock of facts which seem
to be
reliable before we try to answer the more general question of preference
for proportion. As Berlyne noted that even minute variations in material
and/or experimental conditions may cause big differences in preference
the
symposium should take a step deeper into the analysis of these details.
A
theory of preference for proportions is currently not in sight, but
we
should move to such an enterprise.
Diane Humphrey* and Dorothy Washburn**
* Department of Psychology, King's College, London, Ontario,
Canada
** Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, USA
Symmetry detection experiments have revealed the relative ease of detecting
vertical-reflective and multiple symmetries over other types of plane
design symmetries. In addition, sex differences have been found in
terms of
a female proclivity for these same symmetries. In a study of art and
non-art students' productions and preferences for seven one dimensional
design symmetries (Washburn and Crowe, 1988) art vs. non-art differences
were greater than any other group differences. Two-dimensional paper
constructions using asymmetrical triangles showed that art students
used
more four-fold rotations and glide reflections than did non-art students.
Preference measures revealed that art students showed lower preference
for
reflective symmetries and rated them as less symmetrical than did non-art
students, revealing a more "democratic" view of symmetry types on the
part
of art students, who also liked translational symmetries more than
did
non-art students. In a second study, the constructions by the first
group
of participants were rated on scales of creativity, pleasingness,
complexity, symmetry in details and overall symmetry by another group
of
non-art students.
Constructions by art students were rated higher on all scales. Art
males'
constructions were rated higher on creativity, pleasingness, complexity,
and overall symmetry than were those of art females. Non-art females'
constructions were rated higher on creativity, pleasingness and both
scales
of symmetry than were those of non-art males.
Paul Locher*, Rose McGrath*, Derik Mills* and Calvin F. Nodine**
* Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Upper
Montclair,
New Jersey, USA
** Medical Department of Radiology Pendergrass Diagnostic, University
of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia ,USA
The present study sought evidence that pictorial balance can be detected
spontaneously with the first glance at a picture. In addition, it was
designed to investigate the contributions of two components of a
composition's structural organization, namely, weight distribution
about
the vertical axis and lateral organization, to the balance percept.
Both
display attributes have been theorized by Wolffllin, Gaffron, Arnheim,
and
others to be major determiners of perceived balance.
Stimuli consisted of displays composed of triangles with controlled
variations of both weight distribution and directional cues, and
reproductions of paintings which varied on the same factors. The paintings
represented a broad sample of Western pictorial art. To assess the
impact
of directional cue information upon perceived balance, all pictures
were
presented in their original and their laterally reversed views. Using
a
signal-detection approach, subjects rated each stimulus for balance
after
presentation durations which permitted either a single glance (200
ms
fixation) or unlimited exploration of it. Forty dextral and 40 sinistral
university students served as subjects.
Results show that participants discriminated the less balanced displays
from the more balanced versions with a single glance at each. The
distribution of weight about the vertical axis in combination with
left-right lateral cue direction contributed to difference in perceived
balance at both presentation durations. Subjects' assessment of a
composition's balance following a single glance was highly correlated
with
its perceived balance when exposure duration permitted unlimited viewing
of
it. These findings are consistent with the assertion that the induced
structural organization resulting from the balanced configuration of
a
picture's elements is detected spontaneously by the eye "at first glance."
As such, pictorial balance can be considered an organizational primitive
in
the sense that it resonates with the mechanisms of the visual system
processing it. We speculate that balance perception may share the same
mechanism that has been proposed to explain the visual system's well
documented ability to signal automatically the presence of imperfect
bilateral symmetry.
Kathleen Moore* and Alan West**
* Kennebec Valley Technical College, Fairfield, Maine, USA
** Department of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, White River
Junction, Vermont, USA
Several classic determinants of aesthetic appeal in visual arrays have
been
proposed, including Gestalt factors, "golden" proportions, and
unity-in-variety. To extend the study of perceived unity as a factor,
we
obtained ratings of patterns of intersecting circles, manipulating
complexity, spacing, and numbers of constituent circles.
We chose the circle as the basic building block for our stimuli because
it
represents the ultimate in visual unity, having neither beginning nor
end.
The simplest pattern of intersecting circles, two equal circles positioned
so that the circumference of one passes through the center of the other,
is
a figure known as the "vesica piscis". This pattern occurs both in
nature
and in ancient achitecture, much like the golden section, to which
it is
related. An extension of the pattern, with six circles evenly distributed
around a focal circle, yields a six-petal flower-like design which
can be
repeated in several rotations to form intricate, evenly balanced designs
that contain several types of geometric relationships. We sought to
assess
whether these patterns are seen by naive subjects as more unified,
and
hence more pleasing, than comparison patterns. In this context, we
also
manipulated pattern complexity and regularity as potential aesthetic
determinants.
In two experiments, college students rated stimuli on Likert scales
for
perceived unity, complexity, balance, variety, meaning, beauty, and
liking.
Stimuli consisted of arrays of intersecting circles of equal size.
Arrays
varied in number of circles surrounding a focal circle, as well as
number
of intersecting rings of circles. In the second experiment, we also
manipulated the spacing and radial displacement of peripheral circles
from
the pattern center.
Results indicate a general preference for patterns involving rings
of six
or twelve circles surrounding the central circle, and a relative distaste
for patterns involving 5-circle rings. Preferred stimuli also tended
to be
judged more unified, meaningful, and in some cases, complex. For patterns
involving multiple intersecting rings of circles, the preferred
displacement had each circle passing through the center of an adjacent
circle. Results are discussed in relation to the aesthetics of the
"vesica
piscis".
Jonna Kwiatkowski, Colin Martindale and Carrie Martin
Department of Psychology, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA
Since Fechner began seriously investigating the Golden Section hypothesis
in 1865, the idea of a preferred ratio for shapes has intrigued
psycho=1Eaesthetic researchers. The Golden Section hypothesis states
that
people will prefer shapes that are created with a ratio of 1:1:62.
Fechner
found a preference for the Golden Section (1865, 1871, 1876)
Subsequent researchers have reported mixed results. Some studies support
the Golden Section hypothesis (Pierce. 1894; Thorndike. 1917), others
find
no preference for the golden ratio (Angier. 1903, Davis. 1933) and
still
others find no conclusive results (Witmer, 1894). However, using the
method
of use, he found that commonly used objects such as table tops and
picture
frames are not golden section rectangles.
It is our hypothesis that the different mental models may account for
the
mixed results in Golden Section research. Those participants who think
of
common rectangular objects will not draw a Golden Section rectangle
as
their preferred model, as everyday objects do not conform to the golden
ratio. Those who think only of the rectangular form will draw a Golden
Section rectangle as their preferred model. To test this hypothesis,
we pres
ented participants with a computer monitor and a mouse for drawing
a
rectangle. The computer monitor displayed a blank window with a very
small
rectangle in the upper left corner. Participants were instructed through
a
computer=1Egenerated message to draw the rectangle that is most pleasing
to
them. This computer=1Egenerated message randomly assigned participants
to
either the "Common Object" group or "the Abstract Shape" group and
offered
additional instructions to set the participant's mental model.
Preliminary results indicate that those participants assigned to the
"Common Object" group drew rectangles far removed from the golden ratio.
Those prompted to think of an abstract shape drew rectangles closer
in
dimensions to the golden ratio.
References
Angier, R. P. (1903). The aesthetics of unequal division. Psychol. Review
Mon. Suppl. 4, 541=1E561.
Davis, F. C (1933). Aesthetic proportion. American J. Psychol., 45,
298-302
Fechner, G. T. (1865). Uber die frage desgolden schnitts. Archiv fur
die
Zeichnenden Kunste. 11, 100-112
Fechner,G. T. ( 1871). Zur experimentallen Aesthetik. Leipzig: Hirzel
Fechner, G. T. (1876). Vorschule der Aestherik. Leipzig: Breitkoft
und Har=
tel.
Pierce, E. (1874). Aesthetics of simple forms. Psychol. Review , 1,
483-495
Thorndike, E. L. (1917). Individual differences in judgments of the
beauty
of simple forms. Psychol. Review, 24 147=1E153.
Witmer, L. (1894). Zur experimentellen Aesthetik enfachter raumlicher
Formverhaltnisse. Philosophische Studien, 9, 209-263.
Mark J. Horn
Westport, USA
The ubiquity of Phi (the golden mean, (1=B1 >=885 )/2 =3D 1.618033....)
is well
documented, and is here shown to be an immanent proportional constant
in a
model of early vision (Marr, 1982). Further, as it pertains to the
mechanism of foveation and perceptual grouping, we suggest an optimal
solution for feature salience determination can be realized by modelling
the detector (e.g., the retinal receptive field "array") as an
n-dimensional, diffracting selfsimilar tiling. We propose this as the
basis
for design of a superior foveated digital sensor (referred to aesthetic
preference of proportions that cluster about the golden mean). This
appears
as compelling evidence that aesthetic preference for a given proportion
can, to a large degree, be determined by the physiology alone.
Holger Höge
Department of Psychology, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg,
Germany
Although recent studies published in Empirical Studies of the Arts (Vol.
15, 2, 1997) put together a reasonable body of results that do not
give any
support to the golden section hypothesis (GSH), the reasons for the
preference data reported by Fechner still remain unknown. In 1997 we
put
forward two hypotheses: (a) taste and, hence, preference for proportions
have changed (Change of Taste hypothesis) and (b) factors of material
quality may have been different between Fechner's and later investigations
of the GSH.
As the Change of Taste hypothesis is not testable, it will remain a
line
for more speculative kinds of scientific endeavors. Material factors,
however, can be manipulated and thus can answer the problem in more
detail.
Sure, among the factors influencing preferences, there are not only
material ones =1E in former studies e.g., we found influences of the
verbal
criterion given in preference tasks. Although these are not under concern
here, one should note that all of them did not lead to the results
Fechner
reported.
As the details of his report on the experiment are not very precise,
it is
reasonable that there are still unknown factors in his materials.
Therefore, we tried to find out more details about his experiment but
had
to face the fact that there is no further information available. Therefore,
we hypothesized that the paper color ('white') used in his 1860 empirical
study might be different from the whiteness used in experiments in
the
1990s. Consequently, we changed (a) paper quality as well as (b) color
and
(c) the angles of the sides of the materials, whereas the proportions
of
the rectangles were presented in the same format as in Fechner's study.
=46inal results of these studies will be presented at the symposium;
a first
inspection of data, however, indicated that such factors seem to influence
the preference for proportions.
Chairman: Alberto Argenton
Department of Psychology of Development and Socialization , University
of
Padua, Padua, Italy
Costanze Peres
Hochschule f=FCr Bildende K=FCnste, Dresden, Germania
The metaphor of "veil" or "veiling" has an ambivalent status in the
philosophical tradition. Usually it substitutes for a kind of articulation,
which hides or discloses either truth or at least fundamental metaphysical
contents. This articulation includes individual "languages", which
are not
totally analysable, for instance metaphors and, in its main case, art.
But
there are theories, in which the veil substitutes for the ontological
principle of individual itself. Thus in the pessimistic view of
Schopenhauer the veil of Maja is a central moth, which is a substitute
for
the "principium individuationis". It is the boundary between the subject
and his holistic cognition of the world. Only music is able to take
the
veil off and to open the whole, the "world-will" ("Weltwillen"). Nietzsche
endorses this idea with his principle of enthusiastic "Dionysian",
which
takes away the boundary between the individual and the whole of the
world.
But it needs the counterpart of the "Apollinian", i.e. the individuation.
Thus we have a paradox: the same work of art, which on the one hand
- as an
individual delimiting figure - veils the whole, is on the other hand
the
only medium, which opens the truth of the whole and unveils it during
the
act of experience. According to Nietzsche the paradigmatic case for
this
constellation is the music of Richard Wagner. Wagner himself, in his
philosophical theory of music, developed the idea of the veiling and
unveiling function of music with his conception of "the art of transition
(Kunst des =DCbergangs)" and " the texture of motifs (Gewebe der
Leitmotive)". Thus the theories of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner
are
three important stations in the development of the affirmation of "veiling"
articulations, like art, as special media of cognition, a development,
which begins with Giambattista Vico and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten
and
can be seen up to contemporary philosophical aesthetics, such as the
semantic approach of Nelson Goodman.
Robert Pfaller
University for Art and Industrial Design, Linz, Austria
In view of a series of cultural phenomena as well as certain tendencies
in
contemporary art, we have got to propose a new term: the concept of
interpassivity, since there are not only interactive installations
which,
in art, transfer parts of the artistic activity on to the side of the
spectators. There are also works which, inversely, even relieve the
spectators from their "passivity" of just watching - artworks which
seem to
watch themselves in place of the spectators. The spectators, then,
neither
have to engage artistically nor just watch or consume passively - since
the
artwork already presents itself as both produced and consumed.
Jacques Lacan has remarked this with regard to Greek Tragedy: the typical
tragic pleasures, misery and fear, were not experienced by the spectators
(as Aristotle had put it), but by an agent present on stage: the choir.
The
same goes, as Slavoj Zizek pointed out, for the "canned laughter" in
contemporary TV-comedies: sit-coms like "Golden Girls" laugh about
themselves, and instead of us.
Although an old cultural phenomenon (appearing as well in the institution
of professional "weepers" at funerals), interpassivity seems to have
some
special importance for contemporary art and culture. The presence of
writing within Fine Arts, for example (from artists like Jenny Holzer,
Joseph Kosuth, Roni Horn etc.), could be understood as a desire for
a
writing that reads itself. The same problematic is at work in the
discussion about the planned memorial for the holocaust in Berlin and
Vienna: should we construct a big, visible sign, or is there the danger
that such a monument could relieve everybody from remembering the nazi
crimes, by presenting the work of memory as something already done?
In the so-called contemporary "service-art", which was so predominant
on
document X at Kassel, some artists also deal with similar problems
of
delegated consumption. For, at closer sight, some of the "services"
they
offer have quite a strange nature. For instance: You have a sandwich
in
your pocket? The artist will eat it in your place.
In a general sense of "aesthetics", interpassivity, of course, puts
up a
fundamental paradox: Why is it such a pleasure to be relieved from
one's
pleasure? And if I do not want to have my pleasure =1E why do I take
so much
care that somebody else is experiencing it in my place?
Si=FAn Hanrahan
University of Ulster at Belfast, Belfast, Ireland
Intertwining art and philosophy runs the gauntlet of the twin dangers
of
irrelevance and subservience. If the concerns addressed by the art
and the
philosophy are relevant to one another and the site of engagement is
art,
then the philosophy risks being relegated to a subservient position.
If the
site of engagement is philosophy, then the art is likely to be relegated
to
a subservient position. As an artist seeking to engage these two
disciplines in dialogue, I chose to introduce art as an equal in a
philosophic arena. I sought to bring insights gained through art-making
to
bear upon a philosophic position. To this end, insights gained through
art-making that were pertinent to a particular philosophic position
had to
be made available in verbal form. This paper presents a methodology
which
enabled dialogue between these two proud kingdoms.
The concern around which this dialogue unfolded was that of "our
responsibility for meaning". Each discipline proceeded discretely to
explore this concern - a basis for considering our responsibility for
meaning was achieved through sculptural making and through study of
the
epistemological writings of a particular philosopher and critical responses
to them. Of what was known through art-making it was the insights gained
regarding the relationship between conception and perception that were
pivotal in relation to the philosophic position.
If these insights were to be brought to bear upon the philosophic position,
then a simple assertion would not suffice. What was known non-verbally
had
somehow to be revealed. A series of analyses was used to "crystallise"
what
was already realised through engaging with the artworks. Insights regarding
the influence of conception on perception (or our responsibility for
meaning) gained in the art investigation were made available through
analysing the interdependence of context (a particular bounded physical
situation), character (the elements of parts identified within that
situation), and category (the kind of question asked of that situation)
in
perceiving the artworks. Using this triad of terms to analyse the
sculptures split experience into components that could be systematically
varied so that their influence upon one another could be explored and
the
results used to critique the philosophic investigation.
The analyses offered a way of mapping a response that could not be
described. It is not claimed that the analyses are objective nor is
it
claimed that they capture the meaning of the artworks, rather they
offer an
isomorphic translation of a kinaesthetic response. Furthermore, they
allowed what was known through engaging with the artworks regarding
the
relationship between conception and perception to be systematically
revealed.
The methodology used within my doctoral research to enable artistic
and
philosophic modes of thought to engage in a dialogue in which the concrete
analogical thinking possible through art forged significant modifications
in relation to a philosophic position is presented in this paper. The
particular "combined artistic and philosophic research methodology"
remains
just that, however: particular. As with syllogisms, if there is a
particular premise, the conclusion must also be particular. Art-making
is
necessarily particular and each "dialogue" engaged in it will require
a new
approach. Nonetheless, what this combined artistic and philosophic
research
methodology does establish is that, just as other disciplines are credited
with having insights to offer in relation to art, art has insights
to offer
in relation to itself and to other disciplines.
Chairwoman: Vittoria Giuliani
Institute of Psychology, C.N.R., Rome, Italy
Ana Marostica
School of Economics, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
People of archaic cultures in their craftmanship try to represent
archetypes of their primitive world. There is an important difference
between modern and so-called primitive art. The modern type has a primary
aesthetic purpose, while the latter has an aim which may be called
"magic".
A new approach for building cognitive programs, trying to reconstruct
primitive artistic objects, is explained. It is claimed that mental
"magic"
structures guided native artists in the performance of those rupestrian
objects. A sketch of a Diaguita mental model from motives found upon
petroglyphs is presented.
Hiroshi Kawano
Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
In what follows, I would like to present a new paradigm called "folk
aesthetics". It is a pluralistic epistemology of multiagents and lower
sense instead of the modern European aesthetics since Baumgarten. This
new
paradigm is based on both the new computer metaphor used in
parallel-distributed processing or the society of mind and the Asian
philosophy of Taoism or Zen.
Nowadays, a new theory is looked for to clarify post-modern art after
Picasso, Dada, Non-European primitive arts, etc. The new paradigm of
folk
aesthetics with its naive epistemology seems effective giving a theoretical
explanation of the mental mechanisms involved in these arts.
Vincenzo Padiglione, Maria Grazia Massaro and Simone Moraca
Department of Psychology, 1st University of Rome "La Sapienza", Rome,
Italy
This study analysed how Senegalese immigrants in Rome use their tradition
in a reflexive manner in order to stress and comment their cultural
identity in motion. Our plan was to document, from an ethnographic
point of
view, how dinner-time is thought up and organised, and which typology
of
food activities is performed. We assumed food-making "alla senegalese"
(Senegal style) as a type of "ethnic art" (Chifford 1986): a way to
show
and redefine a cultural heritage, to recreate atmosphere and feelings,
to
call embodied knowledge, narrative activities and values linked to
the
sense of togetherness. Food-making as an ephimeral art is useful to
perform
social exchange processes and to socialise new tastes stressing "tradition"
as authority.
Andras Farkas
Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest,
Hungary
With the aim of testing Martindale's cognitive hedonics style, typicality
was used for the operationalization of prototypicality in the case
of
paintings and classical music compositions. The relations between
typicality judgments and aesthetic preference, and the effect of
categorisation on preference, were studied. In the first group of
experiments, the method was as follows: artworks of a style category
(masterpieces of different artists selected from an artistic style
representing different levels of style-typicality, artworks of an artist
selected from different periods of his oeuvre) were presented to experts
and non-experts, and liking and typicality judgements were asked in
separate series of presentations, and this procedure was repeated.
On the
basis of the changes of the judgements as the experiment proceeded,
we
could follow the effect of learning style-properties on aesthetic
preference. In the second group of experiments, the method was as follows:
artworks of more than one style category (masterpieces of different
artists
selected from four different artistic styles works of art from four
different mixed categories, e.g. Henry Rousseau, Turner, non-figuratives,
Swedish painters) were presented to experts and non-experts, and liking
judgements were asked in the first series, and information was given
about
the respective category which the artwork belonged to, and in the following
series (two, three or four presentations depending on the characteristic
of
the stimulus material, the level of the expertness etc.), categorisation
of
the artworks were asked. On the occasion of each presentation of a
stimulus, after each subject signed the category on his/her questionnaire,
a feedback was given about the correct categorisation, except the last
presentation, where we could register the real success of learning
the
categories. At the end of the experiment liking judgements were asked
again. Results can be summarised in brief as follows: 1) style-features
can
be extracted from the samples of the respective categories, and in
many
occasions, in case of non-experts, the measure how a distinct stimulus
belongs to a category will be similar to the expert judgements; 2)
in the
case of experts, there is a stable value-system for the preference
and
typicality judgements, while in case of non- experts, in the beginning,
there are no correct categories, but there is a pre-attitude against
or
toward some members of some categories, and as a result of the repeated
presentations of stimuli or the process of repeated categorisations,
subjects generalise their pre-attitude to the other members of the
respective category: if the pre-attitude is negative (e.g. modern music,
abstract paintings, Classicist style etc.), then the preference of
the
previously unknown members of the category will decline; if the
pre-attitude is positive (e.g. Baroque music, Impressionist paintings
etc.), then the preference of the previously unknown members of the
respective category will increase; 3) in the case of concurrent categories,
the preference of the members, which can be learned to categorise with
difficulty (they are non-typical in any of the categories), will increase
(or will not decrease when the preference of the other members decreases)
as the experiment proceeds. A part of these findings can be explained
in
the framework of Martindale's preference-for-prototypes model, but
in many
respects, our empirical results overstep its explanatory capability.
Adele Cavedon
Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
M. Pastoureau (1987) says: "Material is the place of multidisciplinary
research for excellence". This observation is very true, but it has
been
taken into consideration too little in the various fields that study
this
topic.
Psychology, for example, has infrequently dealt with fabric and it
has
never done so in a systematic way: in the study of perception, for
example,
they speak of various types of material like one of many existing surface
examples.
Every surface has a Texture or Grain that makes it perceptually different
from one another and thus is more easily recognised. One fabric has
all the
definable qualities of a surface and possesses tactile, visual and
often
auditory perceptive characteristics: it could be, in fact, smooth,
rough,
porous, compact, variegated, but also rustling or changeable. These
characteristics, especially the visual and tactile ones, define the
texture
or grain of a particular fabric.
R. Arnheim (1966), one of the great psychologists of art of this century,
affirms that the expression resides in the perceptive=20qualities of
the
stimulating pattern, and that the aesthetic-expressive qualities have
the
characteristic of being general, like the perceptual ones. Finally,
that
these qualities have a priority with respect to the perceptual one
in
characterising the object itself.
In the first investigation the aim was to analyse which characteristics,
the perceptual or the aesthetic-expressive ones, would be named more
often
by interviewed subjects in a series of presented fabrics.
In the second investigation I attempted to quantitatively define what
the
relevance of the perceptual characteristics with respect to the
aesthetic-expressive ones were in the cases of some special fabrics.
In agreement with Arnheim, the results seem to demonstrate that the
aesthetic-expressive characteristics are, in most cases, of primary
importance in a textile surface.
August Fenk
Institute of Media and Communication Science, University of Klagenfurt,
Klagenfurt, Austria
Logical pictures are a difficult problem for semiotic classification
(Fenk,
1997) but are an excellent material for the empirical investigation
of the
efficiency of an aesthetic principle of text-picture composition which,
according to our findings, enhances the intelligibility of instructional
texts: the visualisation of metaphors is not only interesting because
of
its possible "literary quality (Pape, 1996), but also because of its
potential for instructional material. It seems to encourage the "internal"
mapping between prepositional thinking and mental modelling (Fenk,
1994).
The assumption was tested in two experiments: The more precise the
mapping
between spatial metaphor (linguistic format) and logical Picture (graphical
format), the higher the efficiency of the picture in reducing the cognitive
costs of text processing; the experimental design has to meet the
requirement of an equivalent "meaning" of the text-picture compositions
to
be compared.
In Experiment I the very same text on the evolution of hominides, using
expressions assigned to the "phylogenetic tree" metaphor, was combined
with
four different orientations of a dendrogram: upright, to the right,
downward, to the left. The upward ordering of chronology was expected
to
overcome approved tendencies of diagram construction such as the
left-to-right ordering in "normal" time series or the downward ordering
known from the genealogical tables in history books.
In Experiment II two different spatial metaphors - the "inclusion
metaphor", prevailing in a text version a, and the "subsumption metaphor",
prevailing in version b - were used in order to depict the very same
taxonomical structure. It was assumed that a Venn-diagram (A) would
better
match with text a and a graphical hierarchy (B ) with text b.
In both experiments two measures were used for determining the fit
between
text and picture: a simple rating test (number of choices is the relevant
criterion) and a much more time-consuming guessing game technique:
here the
relevant criterion is the relative frequency of false guesses by the
subjects who are facing the figure and try to guess a corresponding
text
letter by letter.
The results of the rating test are summarised in the table below. A
clear
correspondence was found between these subjective preferences and the
performance data from the guessing game (Fenk, forthcoming).
Exp. I =82 =C6 =D8 =A8 orientation of dendrogram
42 20 16 6 number of choices
Exp. II aA bB aB bA text-picture combination
14 15 9 5 number of choices
References
=46enk, A. (1997). Representation and iconicity. Semiotica, 115, 3/4,
215-23=
4.
Pape, W. (1996). The battle of the signs: Robert Crumb's visual reading
of
James Bosewell's "London Journal". In P. Wagner (Ed), Icons - Texts
-
Iconotexts. Essays on Ekphrasis and Intermediality. Berlin: Walter
de
Gruyter (pp. 324-345).
=46enk, A. (1994). Spatial Metaphors and Logical Pictures. In W. Schnotz
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Pragmatics & Cognition (Special Issue on "The Concept of
Reference in the=
Cognitive Sciences").
Novella Kobrina
Department of English, Herzen State Pedagogical University, Saint
Petersburg, Russia
The primary meaning of the Greek word aestheticos was anything referring
to
perception, that is, the mental grasp of objects through senses. It
is only
later that the word came to mean "a theory of artistic perception and
knowledge","a science of beauty", "a science of laws of creativity",
etc.
Anyway, whether one understands aesthetics in its first meaning or
in its
modem one, speech (oral or written), language in general, must be the
object of aesthetic consideration, as it is produced and used for the
purpose of perception and it is a creative art. It is also the instrument,
and a very precise one, through which both the transmission and reception
of literary, theatrical, cinematic, etc. works are realized.
Due to its hierarchical and polyaspective nature, language is a very
flexible and adaptable instrument, though its vocabulary is not limitless
and its structures, forms, and patterns are few and canonized as to
their
application. Still, there are certain mechanisms and devices which
help to
realize its creativity. Among them there are some which function for
the
purpose of giving an aesthetic effect or greater expressiveness:
1. Devices to construct reality based on the author's perception of
it;
mostly, such a construction is intended - absurd, fantastic, grotesque,
etc. The purpose is to evoke similar perception of the addressee. The
devices are numerous: metaphors, metonymies, unusual combinations,
euphemisms, parody.
2. Discrepancy between form and meaning, or between relations suggested
by
the form and real relations: discrepancy between the categorical meaning
of
the form and its functional meaning.
3. Superfluity, when unnecessary, excessive, duplicating forms are
used to
produce an effect of emphasis.
4. The effect of disillusion produced by filling the syntactic position
with an unusual or void word, which is used pseudoreferentially, whereas
the addressee expects a referentially valid word. Besides such specialized
devices any speech act (spontaneous or purposefully motivated, as in
literary texts) involves a lot of preliminary operations of choice
when
necessary and suitable elements are chosen from the repertoire of the
language system. Operations of choice take place on all levels and
in
different aspects and comprise special trifle marks or hints oriented
on
the addressee's perception of, or reaction to, what is being said or
has
been written. In most cases the would-be aesthetic impact is the main
consideration of the author or speaker, otherwise the role of fiction,
poetry, plays, or cinema would be relegated to mere sources of information,
devoid of aesthetic value. Hence, a peculiar interest in the interaction
of
the author and the addressee which gave rise to special branches of
aesthetics - text study and literary criticism.
Erika Cort=E9s Bazaes
University of the Pacific, Santiago, Chile
Starting from three scenic proposals, the emerging of a new theatrical
language will be analysed. A field of semiotic analysis has been delimited
focusing on the rendering in images as the privileged object of the
study.
The descriptive protocols have been constructed starting from the following
concepts considered to be relevant for the corpus studied: 1) text
as
production and creativity, that we find in the work of Julia Kristeva;
2)
the descriptors contributed by Omar Calabrese to typify neobaroque
text:
rhythm and repetition, decentralising of genres, nodes and the labyrinth,
the use of details and imprecisions, instability, catastrophic systems
and
distortion; 3) the role of narrative in classical audiovisual production,
described by Christian Metz; and 4) the type of information transmitted:
pulsional and semantic, contributed by Kristeva and Lyotard. From the
analysis it may be seen that the proposals studied have in common a
constant experimental investigation which is seen in the use of details
and
its instability; the use of the connotative, of ambiguity and imprecision;
thus, the development is intertextual, recreating a d=E9ja vu, starting
from
a hegemony of imagery and sound.
Leonid L. Bochkarev and A. L. Bochkarev
Laboratory of Psychological Anthropology, Institute for Cultural Research,
Moscow, Russia
Mayeutic dialogue of cultures is one of the characteristic pecularities
of
the mentality of the XXth century and it is reflected in art on historical,
aesthetical, psychological and operational levels.
Mayeutic dialogue may be a result of sociocultural variations of national
musical ethos and industry of culture. A culture creative mayeutic
tendency
is typical for genre neoformation and innovation (creation of synthetic
genre, implementation of extramusical ties and links and other signsemantic
systems).
The above-mentioned language level characteristics of culture dialogue
were
implicit in musical works which were used in our experiments.
Investigations were held in Russia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Ukraine,
Switzerland and Japan.
Adequate perception of a libretto of oratory by L. Dychko "And named
Kiev"
was 78% in Ukraine, 65% in Russia, 60% in Canada, 59%
in Switzerland,
58% in Kazakhstan and 47% in Japan.
But adequacy of perception of the emotional intonational nature of
music
was mainly the same (72, 71, 67, 60, 63, 57% - correspondingly).
It is explained by the fact that the whole field of modern existing
civilization is presented in selected music. The aesthetic sense of
Swiss
and Canadian listeners, in general, was set on Russian-Ukrainian. But
Kazakhs and Japanese found many images of their native history. Each
listener emotionally perceived music in the form and system of their
national culture. They tried to actualize their unique spiritual world,
which reflected the general idea in their individual ways and manners
and
obtained new aspects in the mayeutic in the international process of
different cultures in individual consciousness. We have eleborated
the
method of mayeutic catarsis, which may be used in the sphere of propaganda,
psychological councelling and psychotherapy.