Entitling art: Influence of title information on understanding and appreciation of paintings

Author(s)

Helmut Leder, Claus-Christian Carbon, Ai-Leen Ripsas

Abstract

There is evidence that presenting titles together with artworks affects their processing. We investigated

whether elaborative and descriptive titles change the appreciation and understanding of

paintings. Under long presentation times (90 s) in Experiment 1, testing representative and abstract

paintings, elaborative titles increased the understanding of abstract paintings but not their appreciation.

In order to test predictions concerning the time course of understanding and aesthetic appreciation

[Leder, H., Belke, B., Oeberst, A., & Augustin, D. (2004). A model of aesthetic appreciation

and aesthetic judgments. British Journal of Psychology, 95(4), 489¿508] in Experiment 2, abstract

paintings were presented under two presentation times. For short presentation times (1 s), descriptive

titles increased the understanding more than elaborative titles, whereas for medium presentation

times (10 s), elaborative titles increased the understanding more than descriptive titles. Thus, with

artworks a presentation time of around 10 s might be needed, to assign a meaning beyond the mere

description. Only at medium presentation times did the participants with more art knowledge have a

better understanding of the paintings than participants with less art knowledge. Thus, it seems that

art knowledge becomes significant, if there is sufficient time to assign a meaning and the present studies

reveal the importance of considering the time course in aesthetic appreciation.

Organisation(s)

External organisation(s)

Freie Universität Berlin (FU)

Journal

Acta Psychologica

Volume

121

Pages

176-198

No. of pages

ISSN

0001-6918

Publication date

2006

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

501011 Cognitive psychology

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