Experimental psycho-aesthetics: Bringing art into ... - Gestalt ReVision

EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHO-AESTHETICS:
BRINGING ART INTO THE LAB AND
SCIENCE INTO THE MUSEUM
PART 2
JOHAN WAGEMANS
LIPS, LEUVEN, 19 FEB 2010

Contents
1. (historical) introduction to experimental
psycho-aesthetics
2. variety of research topics and research
styles
3. implications for psychology as a whole
4. some Parallellepipeda projects
5. towards a new kind of experimental
psycho-aesthetics?

4.
SOME PARALLELLEPIPEDA PROJECTS

Parallellepipeda
• an interdisciplinary (cross-over) project on the
boundary between arts and sciences
• an initiative of a number of partners in Leuven:
– “Kunst in Huis” (Kristel Eggermont, Raf Coenjaerts)
– the department of cultural affairs of the City of Leuven
(Steven Dusoleil)
– the City Museum M (Lore Vanhees)
– STUK/Artefact (Pieter-Paul Mortier)
– the Association K.U. Leuven/IvOK (Jan Baetens, Jan De
Vuyst)
• Note: IvOK stands for “Instituut voor Onderzoek in
de Kunsten” (“Institute for Research in the Arts”),
which allows a number of artists to obtain their PhD
in Arts (not arts science or arts history, but really
practice-based arts).

Parallellepipeda
• Different projects
• Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and 4
artists:
– Ruth Loos (visual, PhD)
– Wendy Morris (visual, PhD)
– Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (visual)
– Carl Van Eyndhoven (Lemmens Institute, carillon, PhD)
• Others:
– Ronny Delrue (visual, PhD) + Koen Van Laere (nuclear
medicine)
– Nick Ervinck (visual) + Pierre Delaere (experimental
ORL)
– Koen Vanmechelen + Jean-Jacques Cassiman (human
genetics) + Luc Vrielinck (stomatology)

What I will do here
• present a brief introduction about the
artists and their work
• present one or two examples of studies
we did in relation to their work (in the
context of Parallellepipeda)
– some from early stage of collaboration (close
to standard lab work)
– some from later stage of collaboration (more
remote from standard lab work)
• briefly mention other (on-going) projects

Ruth Loos
• preparing a Ph.D. thesis on different aspects
of “the book object”
• important graphical/visual component to her
work:
– repetition, symmetry,
balance
– 2D vs 3D
– texture
– scale
– perspective
– visual relations
– …

opgerold boek met paraffine-schijfje en touw

opgerold boek met paraffine-schijfje en touw

“sea of stories - fairy tales”

studie van losse pagina’s: paraffine op kalkpapier

doordrukalfabetbladen en gedroogde koraal

oeken ontbonden, pagina’s herschikt tot lopende meters

“harten en dragers” - plaaster, papier, inkt, naaigaren

Early stage experiment
• forced choice and ranking task with
several series of works
• ideas: balance/composition (visual
rightness)
• method:
– which one do you like most?
– which one do you like least?
– rank order the remaining in-between these
extremes
– which one do you think is the original?

Example

And the correct answer is…

96 op 126 cm (één van drie) 7

Later stage study (quasi-experiment)
• collaboration with Elisabeth Van Lierop
• manipulation/evaluation during an exhibition
• exhibition is divided in 2 halves: left/right of
diagonal, one with and one without
additional information (counterbalanced
across participants)
• additional information in this case:
explanation by well-informed guide
• evaluation in this case: standard
questionnaires but also semi-structured
interviews (checking whether we made them
look differently)
• relate viewing/knowing to appreciation

Basic design
• 2 halves of the exhibition: A and B
• 4 groups of participants: 1, 2, 3 and 4
• 4 conditions:
(1) A without info – measurements for A
B with info – measurements for B
(2) A with info – measurements for A
B without info – measurements for B
(3) B without info – measurements for B
A with info – measurements for A
(4) B with info – measurements for B
A without info – measurements for A

On-going project
• similar study during Parallellepida
exhibition in M

Wendy Morris
• preparing a Ph.D. thesis on her movie work
• animated charcoal drawings
• important visual component
to her work:
– spatiotemporal variations
– translations, transformations,
invariance
– traces, analogies
– micro-macro
– visual detail
– …

Later stage project
• eye movement and visual memory study (with
Peter De Graef & Line Denayer)
• animation film: “Off the Record”
• multiple viewings (1-2-3)
• with or without additional information (2 types:
biographical/historical versus anecdotal/visual)
• in-between: same aesthetic appreciation (5point
scales)
• afterwards:
– unexpected recognition memory test, using static
images from the same film (40 targets) or another film
(40 distractors)
– same personal background questionnaire (general art
interest, familiarity of the work)

Basic design
• 3 groups of participants
• 3 conditions:
(1) view 1 – no information – view 2 – view 3
(2) view 1 – information A – view 2 – view 3
(3) view 1 – information B – view 2 – view 3
• memory experiment

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Analysis
• compare eye movements between different
viewers, different conditions (with/without
additional information)
• compare eye movements within viewers,
between different viewings (1-2-3), before
and after additional information
• relate eye movements to visual aspects
(→ additional visual information)
• relate eye movements to content
(→ additional verbal information)
• relate eye movements to appreciation
• relate eye movements to memory

Example result

On-going project
• “Audio-visual contract”
– original soundtrack
– two new soundtracks

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven
• best-known artist
• works with a lot of different techniques (also
digital)
• important visual component
to her work:
– perceptual organization
– 2D vs 3D
– contours vs surfaces
– figure-ground ambiguities
(e.g., perceptual holes)
– multiple depth layers
– depth cues
– …

Early stage experiment
• free sorting task with “I’ll rob you” (36
drawings on colored paper, 12 weeks,
Lakenhalle, Bruges, 2005)
• question: do people see connections
between the drawings?
• method: free sorting

• color of paper
• color of central blob
Sorting criteria
• female present or not
• furniture present or not
• female: body and head integrated or not
• one or more blobs
• homogenously colored background or not
• …

Later stage study
• eye movement study with “Kalligrafie”
- with Peter De Graef & Karen De Ryck
- a series of 15 drawings
• goal: to get insight in the process of
viewing and appreciating art by
– studying on-line visual sampling
– relating scan parameters to
• questionnaire measures of art appreciation
– explicit (evaluative statements and ratings)
– implicit (Osgood semantic differential)
– as a function of
• level of art experience
• level of episodic experience
• interpretive set available to the viewer

Methods
• drawings photographed and viewed on a CRT
• 2 groups of subjects
– novices, no formal or informal art training (N = 22)
– experts: artists – art students (N = 22)
• basic design
– A. 20 sec viewing per drawing (eye movements)
• followed by evaluation questionnaires
– B. 20 sec viewing per drawing (eye movements)
• followed by evaluation questionnaires
• participants see interview with artist prior to phase A (half
of the group) or prior to phase B (other half)

• the artist
• checking balance
Effects of art expertise
on individual scan paths

• the novice
• reading
Effects of art expertise
on individual scan paths

• the expert
• checking composition
Effects of art expertise
on individual scan paths

Preliminary conclusions
• information sampling strategy appears to reflect
the viewer’s “purpose”
– art novices are attempting to understand the work
• look for informative clues (text)
– art experts are attempting to read and evaluate the
work
• look for compositional structure
– may be more sensitive to the intentional use of Gestalt-based
composition
• evaluate details of form, colour use, technique
• not quite focal vs ambient, rather different types
of focal

5.
TOWARDS A NEW KIND OF EXPERIMENTAL
PSYCHO-AESTHETICS?

A new kind of psycho-aesthetics
• working with real, active artists who are
scientifically interested and motivated
• added value
– new kinds of research
– new insights in visual perception
– new view on relations between arts and sciences
• multi-method approach
• neuro-aesthetics: PET study on visual creativity
• lessons for psychology as a whole
– studying rich topics is possible
• perception/cognition/emotion
• multifactorially determined
– multi-method
– we can do more than we think

• visit the exhibition
Invitation to …
• attend Thursday evening lectures
– 25 Feb: Ruth Loos, Volkmar Mühleis
– 25 March: Semir Zeki, Koen Van Laere, Johan
Wagemans
– 15 April: Wendy Morris, Carl Van Eyndhoven,
Géry d’Ydewalle
• participate in on-going research
– as experimenter
– as visitor/participant

THANK YOU
www.gestaltrevision.be
johan.wagemans@psy.kuleuven.be