Krznarić, Lea Maria (2022) Moved by Art - What Makes Us Move in Aesthetic Experience. Master thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
There is a universal understanding that art has the ability to move us emotionally and physically, figuratively and literally. Why and how art moves us is a subject of a growing body of research today. This study aimed to investigate what moves us emotionally and physically when observing paintings. We distributed a questionnaire to select representative paintings based on how dynamical and emotionally moving they were rated. The selected paintings were implemented in the lab study where we measured participants’ postural sway while observing the selected paintings. Participants also rated the paintings’ dynamics, as well as how emotionally moving and aesthetically pleasing paintings were perceived. Our analyses indicated that paintings’ dynamic ratings and the produced postural movement correlated significantly, while emotionally moving ratings did not correlate significantly with the produced postural movement. Emotionally moving ratings, however, did correlate significantly with aesthetic appreciation. Analyzing differences between the depicted objects in the paintings, depicting either moving objects, nonmoving objects, people, or abstraction, indicate we elicited greater bodily movement when observing moving objects than nonmoving objects. Additional analyses provided findings that paintings depicting moving objects were rated significantly more dynamic than other paintings, while abstract paintings were rated significantly lower in emotionally moving ratings than other paintings. Altogether, our emotional and physical involvement in aesthetic experience involves numerous components working in interaction to affect our aesthetic experience. With the complex nature of aesthetic experience, prospective research is needed to ultimately answer how art moves us.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
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| Supervisor name: | Cox, R.F.A. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | Talent Development and Creativity (TDC) [Master Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 25 Feb 2022 14:52 |
| Last Modified: | 25 Feb 2022 14:52 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/240 |
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