Where Does It Come From? Developmental Aspects of Art Appreciation
- Author(s)
- Alfred Schabmann, Gernot Gerger, Barbara M. Schmidt, Eva Wögerer, Igor Osipov, Helmut Leder
- Abstract
Art is a unique feature of human experience. It involves the complex interplay among stimuli, persons and contexts. Little is known of how the various features deemed important in art appreciation depend on development, thus are already present at a young age. Similarly to our previous approach with adults of differing levels of expertise, the present study uses structural equation modeling to explore this complex interplay by analyzing differences in the appreciation of classical, abstract and modern artworks by children of two age groups. We measured evaluations of perceived beauty, elicited emotions, arousal and understanding. Structural equation solutions for children not only revealed significant effects of emotion in all conditions, but also confirmed that the dependencies between emotion and liking were consistently higher for younger children, while the interactions of arousal and liking, as well as understanding, were higher for older children. These results are in accordance with a transition from an affective towards an increasingly cognitive knowledge based sense of aesthetics, but underline the importance of emotional processing as fundamental.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology
- External organisation(s)
- Universität zu Köln, Universität Wien
- Journal
- International Journal of Behavioral Development
- Volume
- 40
- Pages
- 313-323
- No. of pages
- 11
- ISSN
- 0165-0254
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025415573642
- Publication date
- 2015
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 501001 General psychology, 501006 Experimental psychology, 501005 Developmental psychology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Social Psychology, Life-span and Life-course Studies, Developmental Neuroscience, Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/where-does-it-come-from-developmental-aspects-of-art-appreciation(e3b8d63d-0395-424e-9e67-6717ac010010).html