Aesthetic Sensitivity

Abstract

<p>Since the beginning of the time when researchers have endeavored to understand and identify giftedness and individual ability, they have been attentive to how individuals differ in their capacity to recognize aesthetic quality—a construct that is frequently referred to as <italic>aesthetic sensitivity</italic>. In this chapter, I first attempt to clarify what the intricate construct of aesthetic sensitivity refers to—and what it does not. Then, I briefly depict the century-old history of research on the topic. Later, I examine the main challenges that arise from the accurate measurement of aesthetic sensitivity, and the strategies used to face such challenges. Afterwards, I discuss the relations between aesthetic sensitivity and mental ability, as well as with personality. I later discuss the training and development of aesthetic sensitivity. Finally, I review the current limitations of—and propose future directions for—research on the topic.</p>

Social reputation influences on liking and willingness-to-pay for artworks: A multimethod design investigating choice behavior along with physiological measures and motivational factors

“…Furthermore, we cannot be sure that all subjects accepted the definition of artistic quality that was specified in the instructions (see description S1 File for German and S2 File for English in the Supplementary Information). In contrast to monetary values, the definition of artistic value has always held a certain individual freedom in regard to meaning [ 38 – 40 , 94 , 101 ]. Nevertheless, we tried to reduce potential confounding as much as possible through the descriptions, and participants did not express any confusion about the meaning of artistic value in this study context.…”

“…Furthermore, for art and aesthetic research as well as social psychological studies, using prestigious objects as stimuli, investigations should focus more on social mechanisms and how they lead to behavioral change. Hence, we would like to emphasize that interactions between the private self and self-image, and within a particular social context (social self), are influenced by social reputation, beyond other social factors, and in consequence can modify choices, judgments, and ratings for all kinds of precious cultural goods (see [ 2 – 5 , 10 , 34 ]); precious cultural goods that are valued most likely due to human’s intrinsic sense of aesthetic sensitivity [ 38 – 40 ]. In this sense addressing artworks with values coordinating our choices within private and public contexts might intuitively appear not surprising, though has never been studied empirically before considering the entangled values surrounding aesthetic commodities.…”

“…The study used 48 images of abstract paintings made from about 1960 onward (see Fig 1 for an example; S1 Table in Supplementary Information includes a full list of all artworks). Abstract art was selected to minimize potential confounding issues (e.g., personal memories, associations) from mimetic content and, due to the general, well-documented lack of familiarity, interest, and even appreciation for abstract art from our participant base [ 19 , 40 , 73 – 75 ], we expected that participants would find it plausible that abstract contemporary art might well vary in both artistic and monetary axes. Whereas representational paintings might be expected to have a higher, positive correlation between price and artistic quality, or, as historical objects, might not be expected to have especially low prices.…”

“…Personal choices displaying ‘good’ art may also act as a means of broadcasting abilities. Discussions of aesthetic sensitivity or taste [ 9 , 38 – 40 ]—not to mention more contemporary acts such as giving ‘likes’ to images or posting attractive selfies on social media [ 41 , 42 ]—have long held an unavoidable overlap with more general discussions of skill, merit, and socioeconomic status [ 43 , 44 ].…”

The development of visual aesthetic sensitivity in students in China

“…"Aesthetic sensitivity was introduced as a way to account for a form of intelligence that was not (enough) represented in typical cognitive ability testing" (Myszkowski, 2020, p. 9). Researchers have found that aesthetic sensitivity is related to general intelligence and personality (Myszkowski et al, 2014(Myszkowski et al, , 2018Myszkowski, 2020). The relation between visual aesthetic sensitivity and intelligence does not significantly changed by age and gender, and they shared some cognitive processes (Myszkowski et al, 2018;Myszkowski, 2020).…”