Manuscript under review for Psychological Science Covert Painting Simulations Influence Aesthetic Appreciation of Artworks Journal: Psychological Science Manuscript ID: PSCI--0.R Manuscript Type: Short report Date Submitted by the Author: n/a Complete List of Authors: Leder, Helmut; University of Vienna, Faculty of Psychology; Baer, Siegrun; University of Vienna, Faculty of Psychology Topolinski, Sascha; University of Wuerzburg, Department of Psychology II; Keywords: Preferences, Motor Processes, Social Cognition
Page of Manuscript under review for Psychological Science 0 Motor beauty of artists styles Running head: Motor fluency in art appreciation Covert Painting Simulations Influence Aesthetic Appreciation of Artworks Helmut Leder *, Siegrun Bär & Sascha Topolinski Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Department of Social Psychology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany Word count: (text plus notes) * Corresponding author: Helmut Leder, University of Vienna, Faculty of Psychology, Liebiggasse, Vienna, Austria, Email: helmut.leder@univie.ac.at, Phone: +
Manuscript under review for Psychological Science Page of 0 Motor beauty of artists styles Abstract We predicted that performing movements during art perception that resemble the movements of the artist when creating the artwork would enhance aesthetic appreciation. We used painting style as a subtle manipulation of the artists original movements during art creation, while matching depicted content and art period across styles. Participants evaluated neoimpressionistic paintings featuring either a hatching-style or a pointillism-style while performing either tipping or hatching-like hand movements. Although participants did not see their own hand movements and were unaware of the link between painting style and hand movements, tipping participants preferred pointillism-style over hatching-style, while hatching participants preferred hatching-style over pointillism-style. Thus, painting style as a static materialization of the painter s movements can link the original act of art creation with the moment of art perception. words Keywords: embodiment motor fluency- art appreciation- style
Page of Manuscript under review for Psychological Science 0 Motor beauty of artists styles The question how artworks create aesthetic pleasure has puzzled psychology since its early days (e.g., Lipps, ). Common believe assumes that perceptual features such as contrast, or color determine aesthetic pleasure; and the according mechanism of this perceptual path has been identified as processing efficiency (Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman, 00). On the other side, since the late th century the Empathists movement has claimed that a substantial source for aesthetic pleasure is to empathize with the artwork (Lipps, ). Specifying this, Vernon Lee () argued that such empathy may result from episodes of sympathetic resonances occurring within the perceiver s own body (see Currie, 0). Freedberg and Galese (00) speculated that artworks may elicit activation of movements associated with the way these artworks had been produced (Cupchik, ; Leder, Belke, Oeberst & Augustin, 00). Thus, one source of aesthetic empathy and thus pleasure may stem from covertly simulating, i.e., mimicking, the artist s movements during an artwork s production (cf., Calvo-Merino, Urgesi, Orgs, Aglioti, & Haggard, 0). The feature most closely related to the artist s movements during production is the style of the painting (Dutton, 00; Leder et al., 00), i.e., the way the paint was put on the canvas. Thus, we manipulated these artist s production movements by using subtle variations of painting styles, namely hatching (e.g., van Gogh) vs. pointillism (e.g., Seurat), while keeping content and historic period similar. We argued that perceiving a painting style elicits covert simulations of concordant hand movements (cf., Tucker, & Ellis, ). These stimulus-triggered simulations can be enhanced or interfered with by simultaneously performing hand movements that either resemble the painting movements of the artist or not (cf., Beilock & Holt, 00; Reed & Farah, ; Topolinski, 0; Topolinski & Strack, 00, 0), which should increase or decrease aesthetic appreciation (cf., Topolinski, 0). In contrast, performing (mis)matching hand movements some minutes before watching artworks as a control condition should not affect the later artwork-triggered online painting simulations and thus art appreciation.
Manuscript under review for Psychological Science Page of 0 Motor beauty of artists styles Methods Participants One-hundred-fourteen students ( female, male; mean age ) from the University of Vienna participated for course credit. Material and procedure Ten images of artworks were used, neo-impressionist pointillist-style paintings and post-impressionist hatches-style paintings (see the Supplemental Material) from late th century. Based on pilot studies, both groups were matched in depicted genres and overall color impression. Participants were informed that the study was about the role of repetitive hand movements on art perception and that they should aesthetically judge all artwork on a -point scale ( I do not like at all to I like very much). Furthermore, they were advised that artworks could be evaluated beyond content also based on painting technique, lighting, kind of depiction, and colour. They received all images in random order. Manual motor-tasks. Participants were asked to perform hand movements with the dominant hand, which was hidden from view by table-based partition to avoid a mere perceptual matching effect, while the ratings were provided on the PC keyboard using the non-dominant hand. In the points-style group, participants held a pen with a soft eraser tip and performed a rhythmic pulsating movement by tipping with the eraser tip onto the table`s surface in their own convenient pace. In the hatches-style group, participants moved a pen -as for writing- in hatches of about 0 cm from left to right on the table s surface. In an experimental group (n = ), the hand movements were executed during the evaluation of the paintings to enhance (interfere with) the covert painting simulations. In a control group (n = ) leaving the motor system free to simulate during later evaluation these movements were executed five minutes before the evaluations. In a debriefing after the experimental task no participant reported a valid suspicion about the purpose of the
Page of Manuscript under review for Psychological Science 0 Motor beauty of artists styles experiment (see the Supplemental Material). No other manipulations or measures were implemented. Results A (artstyle: points-style, hatches-style; within) X (hand movements: points-style movement, hatches-styles movement; between) X (time of hand movement: before evaluation, during evaluation; between) ANOVA on the averaged liking ratings found a main effect for artstyle, F(, ) =., p =. 0, η p =.0 and, crucially, a three-way interaction, F(, ) =,, p <.00, η p =., all other ps >.0. Within the experimental group there was a two-way interaction between artstyle and hand movements, F(, ) =.0, p =.00, η p =. (see Figure ): While in the points-style movement group points-style was preferred over hatches-style, t() =., p = 0.00, d = 0., in the hatches-style movement group hatches-style was preferred over points-style, t()=., p =.0, d = 0.. In the control group, however, the crucial interaction between artstyle and hand movements was not found, F(, ) =., p =.. Discussion Body resonance with a painter s style as a yet unconsidered source of aesthetic pleasure goes beyond recent findings on interpersonal body resonance (e.g., Paladino, Mazzurega, Pavani, & Schubert, 0; Reber, & Norenzayan, 0; Wilthermuth & Heath, 00) by showing that even static materializations (the painting style) of an absent and historically already vanished- agent s actions can influence synchrony and preference. A visual matching effect between hand movements and painting styles or an increased visual salience or awareness of painting styles due to matching hand movements are unlikely because we hid the manual task from participants view. Furthermore, the control condition with hand movements executed directly before but not while watching the artworks which rendered the according sensorimotor patterns also more salient or fluent had no effect. However, further research should more thoroughly test these still possible alternative routes.
Manuscript under review for Psychological Science Page of 0 Motor beauty of artists styles The present finding shows how artistic style as a materialization of the artist s act of creation, links the artwork's creation with the moment of art perception; this connection bridged a hundred years in the present case.
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Page of Manuscript under review for Psychological Science 0 Motor beauty of artists styles Author Note This research was supported by a grant to HL FWF P. We thank Lawrence Barsalou for valuable comments, Jürgen Goller, Anita Körner and Giti Bakhtiari for their support.
Manuscript under review for Psychological Science Page of 0 Motor beauty of artists styles Figure Captions Figure : Mean aesthetic liking ratings with standard deviations for the two classes of artworks in dependence of the different movement conditions.
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