“Art appreciation” involves at least four distinct sets of concerns. Two are aesthetic. First, there is actual aesthetic response – a person's feeling of aesthetic pleasure in a work. Note that this can change. Thus it is not confined to basic exposure. Second, there is normative aesthetic evaluation – the judgment that a work merits an honorific such as “beautiful” or “sublime.” Neither of these entails the other. I may find something aesthetically pleasing but judge it to be kitsch. Conversely, I may recognize that something is aesthetically accomplished but be unmoved by it.
The third and fourth concerns are more institutional. The third is whether something is socially treated as art. The fourth is whether a work should be categorized as art. Both are independent of aesthetic feeling and aesthetic judgment. For example, a work may be understood as normatively artistic if it introduces new stylistic techniques, even if those techniques are used somewhat ineffectively (as in one common view of Edouard Dujardin's interior monologue; see for example Beja Reference Beja1992, pp. 66–67).
The point of this analysis is twofold. First, it clarifies why art appreciation is “psycho-historical.” What we call “art appreciation” involves concerns that are emotional and responsive, hence psychological. It also involves institutional issues that are historical. What is actually taken to be art is a function of history. Moreover, what should be taken as art is in part a function of a given work's relation to previous works (e.g., the way it adds technical devices to those available), hence history. In consequence, an account of art appreciation will need to involve both historical and psychological elements. But that risks making the “psycho-historical” claims banal. Art appreciation may be “psycho-historical” only in the sense that part of art appreciation is psychological and part is historical.
The second point of the preceding analysis is related – and it brings us to the second large issue raised by Bullot and Reber's (B&R's) article, that of explanation. It is important to be clear about the different components of art appreciation, explaining them separately as they are separate components. Of these, aesthetic response is perhaps the most relevant to neuroscience. As Thaut explains, “Theorists in experimental aesthetics” have proposed that aesthetic pleasure increases with complexity “until activation becomes too complex” (Reference Thaut2005, p. 22). Apparently going against this trend, B&R discuss aesthetic response in terms of processing fluency. However, if pleasure is a function of processing fluency, there is no clear reason why we continue to pay attention to works that frustrate fluency – or why we do not simply get our aesthetic pleasure from quotidian, readily processed objects initially. Nor is it clear why we tire of works, given that processing fluency should increase in, for example, “over-listening” to music.
Aesthetic pleasure points to reward system involvement. Some music research suggests that reward response may involve successful pattern isolation (see, for example, Vuust & Kringelbach Reference Vuust, Kringelbach, Kringelbach and Berridge2010, pp. 256 and 266 on “anticipation/prediction” and reward and p. 263 on “violation of expectancies”; on reconciling “anticipation/prediction” and “violation of expectancies,” see Hogan, forthcoming). This should not simply be a matter of processing fluency. Response should be affected by habituation (see LeDoux Reference LeDoux1996, p. 138). Hence we might expect the most aesthetically pleasing work to involve some degree of predictability combined with some unpredictability, perhaps including components of each sort. The predictability might then constrain the unpredictability within some specifiable period of sustained attention. Unpredictability need not involve disfluency per se. Indeed, it seems more likely that the recipient of an artwork continually infers partially formed possible outcomes but remains uncertain about the final result, hence exhibiting complex fluency. For example, in classical Hindustani music, the repeated rhythmic cycle of the drum might provide a component with strict predictability; the vocal or instrumental improvisations would present pattern ambiguities (relative to possible melodic motifs) followed by pattern selection and completion. A larger-scale example may be found in story construction, where readers are continually projecting incomplete versions of both possible and desired outcomes (see Tan Reference Tan1995).
A full account of aesthetic response would need to address related processes as well, prominently prototype approximation (which B&R link with fluency). There is evidence that increased prototype approximation may enhance aesthetic response to visual phenomena (see Langlois & Roggman Reference Langlois and Roggman1990, on faces; Martindale & Moore Reference Martindale and Moore1988, p. 670, on colors; Whitfield & Slatter Reference Whitfield and Slatter1979, on furniture). It is important that prototypes are not necessarily simple averages, but are often weighted averages, biased toward category differentiation (see Kahneman & Miller Reference Kahneman and Miller1986, p. 143, on prototypical diet foods). This helps to explain the “peak shift” phenomenon in aesthetic response (Ramachandran Reference Ramachandran2011). On the other hand, there is evidence that prototype preference is malleable (Hansen & Topolinski Reference Hansen and Topolinski2011). This may indicate that it bears on normative judgment (regarding what people generally would or should prefer) rather than the test subject's own aesthetic response.
It may also be necessary to take into account other emotion/motivation systems (e.g., story emotions in literature). For example, we might expect attachment to be important to aesthetic feeling for developmental and evolutionary reasons. Attachment bonds appear critical for our earliest aesthetic response to persons (e.g., Mom) and objects (e.g., teddy). In keeping with this, there is some evidence of caudate involvement in aesthetic response (see Nadal et al. Reference Nadal, Munar, Capó, Rosselló and Cela-Conde2008, p. 388), as well as attachment (see Arsalidou et al. Reference Arsalidou, Barbeau, Bayless and Taylor2010, pp. 47 and 50), though Vartanian and Goel (Reference Vartanian and Goel2004) interpret caudate involvement in aesthetic preference as reward-based.
We would also expect to find at least two processing components – relatively spontaneous emotional response (largely subcortical) and modulatory (cortical) response – that interact to produce aesthetic feeling. (Modulation might enter, for example, in disturbing one's initial pleasure in a forgery.) These would, in turn, be subject to individual differences in encoding sensitivity, prototype categorization (e.g., regarding style), activation of emotional memories, and so forth. (On some variables in emotion processing, see Hogan Reference Hogan2011, pp. 40–75.) These complications add elements of variability that are not simply a matter of history or culture, but education, biography, or even mood, hence extending B&R's psycho-historical program.
“Art appreciation” involves at least four distinct sets of concerns. Two are aesthetic. First, there is actual aesthetic response – a person's feeling of aesthetic pleasure in a work. Note that this can change. Thus it is not confined to basic exposure. Second, there is normative aesthetic evaluation – the judgment that a work merits an honorific such as “beautiful” or “sublime.” Neither of these entails the other. I may find something aesthetically pleasing but judge it to be kitsch. Conversely, I may recognize that something is aesthetically accomplished but be unmoved by it.
The third and fourth concerns are more institutional. The third is whether something is socially treated as art. The fourth is whether a work should be categorized as art. Both are independent of aesthetic feeling and aesthetic judgment. For example, a work may be understood as normatively artistic if it introduces new stylistic techniques, even if those techniques are used somewhat ineffectively (as in one common view of Edouard Dujardin's interior monologue; see for example Beja Reference Beja1992, pp. 66–67).
The point of this analysis is twofold. First, it clarifies why art appreciation is “psycho-historical.” What we call “art appreciation” involves concerns that are emotional and responsive, hence psychological. It also involves institutional issues that are historical. What is actually taken to be art is a function of history. Moreover, what should be taken as art is in part a function of a given work's relation to previous works (e.g., the way it adds technical devices to those available), hence history. In consequence, an account of art appreciation will need to involve both historical and psychological elements. But that risks making the “psycho-historical” claims banal. Art appreciation may be “psycho-historical” only in the sense that part of art appreciation is psychological and part is historical.
The second point of the preceding analysis is related – and it brings us to the second large issue raised by Bullot and Reber's (B&R's) article, that of explanation. It is important to be clear about the different components of art appreciation, explaining them separately as they are separate components. Of these, aesthetic response is perhaps the most relevant to neuroscience. As Thaut explains, “Theorists in experimental aesthetics” have proposed that aesthetic pleasure increases with complexity “until activation becomes too complex” (Reference Thaut2005, p. 22). Apparently going against this trend, B&R discuss aesthetic response in terms of processing fluency. However, if pleasure is a function of processing fluency, there is no clear reason why we continue to pay attention to works that frustrate fluency – or why we do not simply get our aesthetic pleasure from quotidian, readily processed objects initially. Nor is it clear why we tire of works, given that processing fluency should increase in, for example, “over-listening” to music.
Aesthetic pleasure points to reward system involvement. Some music research suggests that reward response may involve successful pattern isolation (see, for example, Vuust & Kringelbach Reference Vuust, Kringelbach, Kringelbach and Berridge2010, pp. 256 and 266 on “anticipation/prediction” and reward and p. 263 on “violation of expectancies”; on reconciling “anticipation/prediction” and “violation of expectancies,” see Hogan, forthcoming). This should not simply be a matter of processing fluency. Response should be affected by habituation (see LeDoux Reference LeDoux1996, p. 138). Hence we might expect the most aesthetically pleasing work to involve some degree of predictability combined with some unpredictability, perhaps including components of each sort. The predictability might then constrain the unpredictability within some specifiable period of sustained attention. Unpredictability need not involve disfluency per se. Indeed, it seems more likely that the recipient of an artwork continually infers partially formed possible outcomes but remains uncertain about the final result, hence exhibiting complex fluency. For example, in classical Hindustani music, the repeated rhythmic cycle of the drum might provide a component with strict predictability; the vocal or instrumental improvisations would present pattern ambiguities (relative to possible melodic motifs) followed by pattern selection and completion. A larger-scale example may be found in story construction, where readers are continually projecting incomplete versions of both possible and desired outcomes (see Tan Reference Tan1995).
A full account of aesthetic response would need to address related processes as well, prominently prototype approximation (which B&R link with fluency). There is evidence that increased prototype approximation may enhance aesthetic response to visual phenomena (see Langlois & Roggman Reference Langlois and Roggman1990, on faces; Martindale & Moore Reference Martindale and Moore1988, p. 670, on colors; Whitfield & Slatter Reference Whitfield and Slatter1979, on furniture). It is important that prototypes are not necessarily simple averages, but are often weighted averages, biased toward category differentiation (see Kahneman & Miller Reference Kahneman and Miller1986, p. 143, on prototypical diet foods). This helps to explain the “peak shift” phenomenon in aesthetic response (Ramachandran Reference Ramachandran2011). On the other hand, there is evidence that prototype preference is malleable (Hansen & Topolinski Reference Hansen and Topolinski2011). This may indicate that it bears on normative judgment (regarding what people generally would or should prefer) rather than the test subject's own aesthetic response.
It may also be necessary to take into account other emotion/motivation systems (e.g., story emotions in literature). For example, we might expect attachment to be important to aesthetic feeling for developmental and evolutionary reasons. Attachment bonds appear critical for our earliest aesthetic response to persons (e.g., Mom) and objects (e.g., teddy). In keeping with this, there is some evidence of caudate involvement in aesthetic response (see Nadal et al. Reference Nadal, Munar, Capó, Rosselló and Cela-Conde2008, p. 388), as well as attachment (see Arsalidou et al. Reference Arsalidou, Barbeau, Bayless and Taylor2010, pp. 47 and 50), though Vartanian and Goel (Reference Vartanian and Goel2004) interpret caudate involvement in aesthetic preference as reward-based.
We would also expect to find at least two processing components – relatively spontaneous emotional response (largely subcortical) and modulatory (cortical) response – that interact to produce aesthetic feeling. (Modulation might enter, for example, in disturbing one's initial pleasure in a forgery.) These would, in turn, be subject to individual differences in encoding sensitivity, prototype categorization (e.g., regarding style), activation of emotional memories, and so forth. (On some variables in emotion processing, see Hogan Reference Hogan2011, pp. 40–75.) These complications add elements of variability that are not simply a matter of history or culture, but education, biography, or even mood, hence extending B&R's psycho-historical program.