Assessing Art

Kuhnapfel and colleagues report that “in a gallery-like setting . . . we tracked movements of participants that engaged an abstract artwork. . . . moving more/more dynamically related to more reported insight. . . . We found indications that when people spent more time near to the artwork, or when their mean viewing distance was closer, they rated the art as more meaningful, interesting, and reported feeling more stimulated and insight. Participants who spent more time standing farther away had a less stimulating, moving and emotionally arousing experience. . . . Spending relatively more time standing on the right side of the artwork/room positively correlated to more felt insight, experiencing a change in meaning, and understanding of artist intention, as well as to feeling less negative emotion. At the same time, spending relatively more time on the left side also correlated to more change in meaning and felt novelty.”

Corinna Kuhnapfel, Joerg Fingerhut, Hanna Brtinkmann, Victoria Ganster, Takumi Tanaka, Eva Specker, Jan Mikuni, Florian Guldenpfennig, Andreas Gartus, Raphael Rosenberg, and Matthew Pelowski. “How Do We Move in Front of Art?  How Does This Relate to Art Experience?  Linking Movement, Eye Tracking, Emotion, and Evaluations in a Gallery-Like Setting.”  Empirical Studies of the Arts, in press, https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374231160000