How do we understand artworks? Investigating the role of congruency in art perception
- Author(s)
- Eva Specker, Maximilian Douda, Helmut Leder
- Abstract
Understanding an artwork is essential for aesthetic experiences. But how does one form an understanding of art? To investigate this still poorly addressed process, we hypothesized that the easier a stimulus is processed (i.e., higher fluency), the easier it should be understood. We focused on artwork inherent features (i.e., style and content) and their interactions affect processing. Making use of the brightness–positivity association, the overall brightness of paintings (i.e., as stylistic feature) was manipulated to match their content (positive vs. negative). We hypothesized that a congruency of style and content would facilitate the processing of paintings resulting in a better understanding, but also, greater liking, and (exploratively) higher artistic value. Our data indicated no congruency effects between brightness and content, but that content alone was a strong predictor for art processing and—in an exploratory approach—highlighted the importance of individual differences in terms of art interest and knowledge in our sample.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology
- Journal
- Empirical Studies of the Arts
- ISSN
- 0276-2374
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374231201074
- Publication date
- 2023
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 501021 Social psychology, 501030 Cognitive science, 501001 General psychology, 501006 Experimental psychology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Music, Visual Arts and Performing Arts, Literature and Literary Theory
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/how-do-we-understand-artworks-investigating-the-role-of-congruency-in-art-perception(c1549d31-72b3-4634-b555-b672a63e7570).html