Art schema effects on affective experience: The case of disgusting images.

Abstract

Can we experience depictions of repulsive objects more positively when we watch them as part of a work of art? We addressed this question by using a scenario approach in a laboratory setting designed to activate two different cognitive schemata: participants viewed the same pictures framed either as art photographs or as documentary photographs for educational purposes. Self-reports of the positivity, the negativity, and the intensity of the affective responses yielded three results. First, participants experienced the photos more positively in the art-framing condition. Second, the negativity ratings did not differ in both conditions, suggesting that art framing does not erase, diminish, or convert the negative affect vis-à-vis the disgusting stimulus features. Third, there was no difference in terms ofthe intensity of the experience-a result that contradicts the position that aesthetic emotions are less intense than ordinary emotions. The results of our study suggest that cognitive schema activation should be included in a multifactor psychological account of the aesthetic enjoyment of artworks that involve negative emotions. More specifically, results add to the growing insight into what distinguishes aesthetically modified emotions from ordinary emotions.

Ten years of a model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments : The aesthetic episode – Developments and challenges in empirical aesthetics

“…Aiming to clarify this interplay, Wagner, Menninghaus, Hanich, and Jacobsen () examined the impact of verbally elicited cognitive schemas about art on the affective processing of images. Participants viewed the same stimuli, which depicted disgusting objects, framed as either artistic photographs or as educational documentary materials.…”

Art as emotional exploration

“…A study that presented photographs of disgusting matter as either art photography or documentary photographs made for purposes of hygiene instruction found higher levels of positive affect in the art-framing group (Wagner et al 2014); at the same time, reported feelings of disgust did not differ between the two conditions. Accordingly, a study on perceived sadness and anxiety in a fictionversus-nonfiction framing did not find any differences for the two conditions (Goldstein 2009).…”

“…The DEM predicts that these schemata, activated by art framing, should influence the experience of negative emotions. However, Wagner et al (2014) and Gerger et al (2014) cited as supporting studiesfound no such influence. The DEM is grounded not on empirical data but on assumptions about art and emotion derived from philosophical and poetic theorizing.…”

“…8;Krämer & Witschel 2010) because exposure to artworks is categorically different from ordinary "real-life" contexts. The majority of the studies on responses to horror films (Andrade & Cohen 2007), sad music , sadly moving films (Hanich et al 2014), and disgusting images (Wagner et al 2014) have relied exclusively on subjective self-reports and, therefore, cannot rule out this possibility. However, several studies on sad music (Lundqvist et al 2009), affectively negative pictures (Gerger et al 2014), and anger-inducing performances (Wagner et al 2016) have also reported objective physiological responses of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) that were in line with the patterns expectable for genuine episodes of the respective negative emotions.…”

“…Menninghaus et al suggest that activation of the concepts <art> and <fiction> causes emotional distancing, a hypothesis that is both widely accepted in aesthetic philosophy (Kantian "disinterestedness"; see Stolnitz [1961]) and experimentally demonstrable (Gerger et al 2014;Mocaiber et al 2010;2011a;2011b;Van Dongen et al 2016;Wagner et al 2014). But their claim that <fiction> can be "activated far beyond the confines of art" (sect.…”