Art Expertise and the Processing of Titled Abstract Art

Abstract

The effect of art expertise on viewers' processing of titled visual artwork was examined. The study extended the research of Leder, Carbon, and Ripsas by explicitly selecting art novices and art experts. The study was designed to test assumptions about how expertise modulates context in the form of titles for artworks. Viewers rated a set of abstract paintings for liking and understanding. The type of title accompanying the artwork (descriptive or elaborative) was manipulated. Viewers were allotted as much time as they wished to view each artwork. For judgments of liking, novices and experts both liked artworks with elaborative titles better, with overall rated liking similar for both groups. For judgments of understanding, type of title had no effect on ratings for both novices and experts. However, experts' rated understanding was higher than novices, with experts making their decisions faster than novices. An analysis of viewers' art expertise revealed that expertise was correlated with understanding, but not liking. Overall, the results suggest that both novices and experts integrate title with visual image in similar manner. However, expertise differentially affected liking and understanding. The results differ from those obtained by Leder et al. The differences between studies are discussed.

Linguistic Analysis of Statements Concerning Paintings Viewed Under Different Instructions by Experts and Novices in the Visual Arts

“…In their statements, they included a kind of think-aloud protocol in solving the task, which consists of capturing and expressing the essence of the viewed painting in the form of a title. As in Mullennix and Robinet (2018), we found no significant differences in visual data processing between experts and novices. Participants without formal education in the arts approached this task in the same way as the participants with formal training in art.…”

“…This criterion is quite commonly accepted for selecting experts in empirical aesthetics research. There are also reports that it does not differentiate people enough in terms of their competence in the art (Francuz, Zaniewski, Augustynowicz, Kopiś, & Jankowski, 2018;McSorley & McCloy 2011;Mullennix & Robinet, 2018). Maybe these competencies are not at all correlated with art education, as shown by the examples of many outstanding painters who have not graduated from any fine art schools (Gombrich, 1995).…”

“…However, it is not the very presence or absence of a title of an artwork that influences its greater or lesser appreciation. This depends on how it is formulated (Bubić, Sušac, & Palmović, 2017;Gerger & Leder, 2015;Leder, Carbon, & Ripsas, 2006;Millis, 2001;Thömmes & Hübner, 2014), to what extent it expresses the author's intentions (Jucker, Barrett, & Wlodarski, 2014), the level of participants' expertise (Mullennix & Robinet, 2018), whether it refers to a work of figurative or abstract art (Belke, Leder, Strobach, & Carbon, 2010;Leder et al, 2006), and even on the experimental design used (within-vs. between-participants) (Russell, 2003).…”

Effects of Touching Sculptures on the Artistic Appreciation of Collative Emotional/Perceptual Properties

“…Since the ability to process information content influences the evaluation of artwork, it is possible to infer that our results may be related to a limited capacity of understanding the stimuli and with difficulty in processing information. In this respect, evidence suggests that whereas the preference level of naïve subjects is strongly influenced by the level of abstraction and surface features, participants with formal training in the arts are more sensitive to the underlying structural features of artworks Koide, Kubo, Nishida, Shibata, & Ikeda, 2015;Leder, Gerger, Brieber, & Schwarz, 2014;Mullennix & Robinet, 2018;Pelowski, Markey, Lauring, & Leder, 2016). Thus, our study indicates that the skill to pay attention and understand profound aspects of artworks might influence the way they are perceived.…”

Perceived cognitive challenge predicts eye movements while viewing contemporary paintings

“…Also, they are more sensitive to composition (Nodine, Locher, & Krupinski, 1993) and outperform naive viewers in recognizing visual patterns (Kozbelt, 2001). They appreciate more original than altered versions of artworks (Hekkert & Van Wieringen, 1996), show better understanding, form their evaluations faster and more accurately (Mullennix & Robinet, 2018), and rely more on their preferences when estimating the artistic quality of objects (Haertel & Carbon, 2014). Their eye movements are also less influenced by low-level factors (Koide, Kubo, Nishida, Shibata, & Ikeda, 2015) and challenging abstract features (Pihko et al, 2011; see Table 1 for more details).…”