Empirical Studies of the Arts最新文献

{"title":"Breaking the Fourth Wall: Effects on Mental State Attribution, Narrative Comprehension, and Character Identification","authors":"Ayşe Candan Şimşek, Tolgahan Aydin, Brendan Rooney","doi":"10.1177/02762374261489759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261489759","url":null,"abstract":"Breaking the fourth wall, when TV or film characters address the audience, has become common, yet its cognitive, affective, and perceptual effects remain unclear. Grounded in cognitive approaches to audiovisual narrative comprehension, this study investigates how direct address may shape viewers’ social-cognitive and narrative processing. We examined how fourth wall breaks influence viewers’ mental and emotional attributions, engagement, identification, affective valence, and enjoyment. Participants ( <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">N</jats:italic> = 50) watched scenes from movies and TV series that were experimentally manipulated to include or exclude a fourth wall break. After viewing, participants completed quantitative measures and provided open-ended scene descriptions. Scenes containing fourth wall breaks led to stronger identification with the target character and greater perceived narrative understanding. Open-ended responses also included more references to characters’ mental states when fourth wall breaks were present. The findings suggest that fourth wall breaks influence narrative comprehension and mental state attribution during film viewing, although further research is needed to clarify the mechanisms underlying these effects.","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149198907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"PreWorkS: A Precarious Work Scale for the Cultural and Creative Industries","authors":"Achilleas Piliousis,Alexandros Baltzis","doi":"10.1177/02762374261496214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261496214","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149173027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Linking Visual Properties and Aesthetic Attractiveness Through Perceived Abstraction in Abstract Art","authors":"Ji Young Jun, Jeounghoon Kim","doi":"10.1177/02762374261490847","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261490847","url":null,"abstract":"art tends to receive lower and more variable aesthetic ratings than representational art among non-expert viewers, yet the role of abstraction in aesthetic judgment remains underexplored. We investigated whether perceived abstraction accounted for part of the relations between quantitative visual properties and aesthetic attractiveness. Three hundred paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Piet Mondrian were analyzed using five image measures: local subsymmetrical complexity (LSC), deviation of the center of mass (DCM), Fourier spectral slope (FS), fractal dimension (FD), and color entropy (CE). Fifty-two non-expert viewers rated each painting for perceived abstraction and aesthetic attractiveness. Mediation analyses showed significant indirect associations of LSC, DCM, FD, and CE with attractiveness through perceived abstraction. These findings suggest that, in modernist abstract art, aesthetic judgment is linked to how formal visual properties are perceived as abstract, with greater visual order and formal reduction associated with higher perceived abstraction and lower aesthetic attractiveness.","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"87 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149123966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Grade Inflation in Music Ratings? Statistical Analysis of Professional Ratings of Albums on Wikipedia","authors":"Duane Emerson Lundy, Leon Kira Brentise Hancock, Kally Leanne Grice, Isaiah James Houston","doi":"10.1177/02762374261490877","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261490877","url":null,"abstract":"With so many supposed experts on the internet, who can be trusted about perceptions of artistic merit? All professionals’ album ratings on <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">Wikipedia</jats:italic> were tabulated every five years over 50 years, yielding a sample of 531 raters giving 16,614 ratings of 4,448 albums in 17 genres. For all critic pairs rating at least 30 albums, ratings were moderately in sync, with 72% of 230 pairs showing significant positive correlations (average <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">r</jats:italic> = +.35). In addition, shared aesthetic consensus regarding album quality explained more than twice the variance in ratings compared to individual critic idiosyncrasies. As predicted, the critics’ rating distribution was mound-shaped but negatively skewed (−.62), while individuals varied widely in rating behavior. Inflated ratings were particularly salient (46.5% of ratings at 80/100 or higher). Consistent with Martindale, who argued that quality should decrease in older artistic areas, critics tended to perceive weakening average album quality between 1960 and 2010.","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149124191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Way We Look at Art: How Alternating Gazes and Interest Shape Museum Learning","authors":"Mariana Martins, Klaus Speidel, Eva Specker","doi":"10.1177/02762374261479180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261479180","url":null,"abstract":"Through curation, museums shape the way visitors engage with exhibitions. An essential aspect of curation is arranging artworks to convey meaning, therefore, we aimed to understand how visitors may pick up on these interrelations by focusing on gaze behavior, and, specifically, alternating gazes. The present preregistered study (N = 104) aimed at investigating whether alternating gazes (as a measure of visual exploration) improve the understanding of a museum exhibition (an indicator of museum learning). Overall, results showed that alternating gazes did not improve art understanding. Despite that, participants were able to correctly identify the themes of the exhibition (i.e., objective understanding, <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">d</jats:italic> = 2.86). But, this was not related to alternating gaze behavior nor subjective understanding (felt understanding). Instead, a lower proportional time spent alternating gazes was related to a higher subjective understanding, suggesting that visual exploration, may reflect initial uncertainty/confusion, offering preliminary insight into the role of viewing behavior in museum learning.","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148877282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluation Dimensions and Viewer Types in Fine-Art Photography: An Exploratory Study With Professional and Amateur Photographers","authors":"Joachim Feigl","doi":"10.1177/02762374261482048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261482048","url":null,"abstract":"Although empirical aesthetics has extensively studied domains such as painting and music, fine-art photography remains underexplored as a distinct evaluative domain—particularly with regard to which criteria audiences actively involved in photography consider relevant and how evaluative approaches differ within this population. The present study therefore does not examine judgments of individual images but rather the perceived importance of criteria that viewers apply when assessing the artistic significance of photographs. In an anonymous online survey (data collection April to June 2024), <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">N</jats:italic> = 431 individuals actively involved in photography participated (233 professionals, 198 amateurs). Fourteen criteria were rated in terms of their importance; additionally, participants selected the three most important criteria from the set. A principal component analysis with Varimax rotation (KMO = .76; Bartlett's χ <jats:sup>2</jats:sup> = 1478.12, <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">p</jats:italic> &lt; .001) initially yielded four components (57.6% explained variance), which were consolidated into three dimensions for subsequent reporting: aesthetic–emotional impact (α = .68), reflection/narrativity (α = .74), and uniqueness and technical excellence (α = .64). A k-means cluster analysis based on interest, knowledge, the three dimensions, as well as metacognitive and normative judgment aspects identified three viewer types: fine-art photography connoisseurs (39.4%), fine-art photography enthusiasts (39.9%), and occasional viewers (20.6%). Professional status was associated with segment membership but did not fully account for the observed heterogeneity. The findings indicate domain-specific multidimensionality in evaluative logics and pronounced heterogeneity among people actively involved in photography. The study is based on a convenience sample and employs exploratory analyses; replication with independent samples and confirmatory methods is warranted. Implications are discussed for empirical aesthetics, photographic education, and curatorial mediation.","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148858793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Art and Moral Decision-Making: Would You Save a Human Life or the Sistine Chapel?","authors":"Aaron Kozbelt, Anna Gugeshashvili, Ursula Podosenin","doi":"10.1177/02762374261480032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261480032","url":null,"abstract":"We devised a novel version of a sacrificial ‘trolley’ dilemma to assess how people make moral decisions about art. In an online survey, 210 undergraduates responded to 26 scenarios involving a forced choice between saving a person or saving an artwork, with characteristics of the person or the artwork varying across scenarios. Participants also provided information on their valuation of art and human life, choices in non-art-related ‘lifeboat ethics’ scenarios, difficulty answering the dilemmas, and other information. In a scenario involving saving a generic person versus the Sistine Chapel, one-sixth of participants chose to save the artwork. Modifying characteristics of the person or the artwork led to substantial shifts in choices. Propensity to choose the Sistine Chapel over a human life was predicted by similar responses to other sacrificial dilemmas (both art- and non-art-related), ratings of difficulty in answering dilemmas, and self-reported valuation of human life.","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148768354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Impact of AI-Mediated Accompaniment on the Practice Experience and Aesthetic Perception of Trombone Players","authors":"Zhaoyang Sun, Qianqian Zhang, Qingwen Hu","doi":"10.1177/02762374261473199","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261473199","url":null,"abstract":"The integration of artificial intelligence into music education has enabled the development of adaptive tools that may simulate selected aspects of human musical collaboration. Nevertheless, the psychological mechanisms through which such tools influence the immediate quality of musical practice remain insufficiently understood. This study examined the short-term psychological and aesthetic effects of an interactive AI-mediated accompaniment condition versus a metronome condition during trombone practice. Using a within-subjects design, 36 trombonists completed two counterbalanced sessions, yielding 72 complete session-level observations. Participants in the AI accompaniment condition reported higher flow, positive affect, self-regulated learning, and aesthetic perception, and lower music performance anxiety, heart rate, and electrodermal activity than in the metronome condition. Blind expert ratings showed higher musical expressiveness, whereas technical accuracy did not differ significantly. A moderated mediation analysis indicated that AI accompaniment was associated with higher aesthetic perception through reduced music performance anxiety, and this indirect effect was stronger among musicians with higher technology acceptance. These findings suggest that interactive accompaniment may create a more engaging and less anxiety-provoking practice environment that fosters aesthetic engagement.","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148650558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Measuring Musical Sophistication in Turkey: Psychometric Evaluation of the Turkish Gold-MSI","authors":"Yusuf Dursun, Turan Sağer","doi":"10.1177/02762374261473198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261473198","url":null,"abstract":"This study aimed to adapt the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) into Turkish and to examine its psychometric properties in an adult sample from Turkey. Musical ability is increasingly conceptualized as a multidimensional construct reflecting everyday musical engagement, skills, experience, and affective involvement. Following International Test Commission guidelines, the Gold-MSI was translated and culturally adapted using forward–backward translation and expert review. Data were collected from 1,278 adults aged 18–65 years. Confirmatory factor analyses using a diagonally weighted least squares estimator tested correlated, hierarchical, and bifactor models. Results supported a bifactor structure comprising a general musical sophistication factor and five specific subscales, with acceptable to good model fit. Internal consistency, assessed via Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega, was satisfactory, and test–retest analyses indicated strong temporal stability. The Turkish Gold-MSI thus provides a reliable tool for research on musical engagement and for future cross-cultural investigations in which measurement equivalence is appropriately evaluated.","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"354 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148612509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The “Untitled Effect”: How Explicitly Labelling Absence of a Title Shapes Poetry Appreciation","authors":"Shodai Maruyama, Tomohiro Ishizu","doi":"10.1177/02762374261470349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374261470349","url":null,"abstract":"Titles play an important role in shaping aesthetic experience, yet little is known about how the explicit label Untitled affects poetry appreciation. The present study examined whether explicitly indicating the absence of a title influences readers’ aesthetic responses to poetry, and whether this effect varies as a function of individual differences. Across two online studies with Japanese participants, we compared poems labeled Untitled with poems presented without any displayed title (No-title), and, in Study 2, with poems presented with their Original titles. In Study 1, 400 participants were recruited and 357 were retained after exclusions. Participants read three poems under either the Untitled or No-title condition and rated aesthetic emotions, beauty, imagery, ambiguity, intention, romantic quality, and reading time. Relative to the No-title condition, the Untitled condition yielded significantly lower ratings for Aesthetic appeal, High- and Low-arousal positive emotions, Beauty, Imagery, and Romantic, as well as shorter Reading Time. Exploratory analyses suggested that some title effects varied as a function of attitudes toward ambiguity and prior poetry experience. In Study 2, 152 participants were recruited and 98 were retained after exclusions. Using a within-participants design, participants read nine poems in the Untitled, No-title, and Original title conditions and completed ratings of Aesthetic appeal, Epistemic emotions, Situation, Intention, Ambiguity, Meaningfulness, Interpretation, and Reading Time, along with a measure of multisensory imagery vividness. Compared with the Original title condition, the Untitled condition produced significantly lower ratings for Aesthetic appeal, Epistemic emotions, Situation, and Intention, and significantly higher Ambiguity. No reliable main effects were observed for Meaningfulness, Interpretation, or Reading Time. Exploratory analyses suggested that some title effects varied as a function of imagery vividness and prior poetry experience. Taken together, the findings suggest that the explicit label “Untitled” can shape poetry appreciation, particularly in contrast to original titles. Although Study 1 indicated that “Untitled” and No-title can produce different aesthetic responses, this contrast was not clearly replicated in Study 2. Thus, the distinction between “Untitled” and No-title should be understood as conceptually important but empirically context-dependent.","PeriodicalId":45870,"journal":{"name":"Empirical Studies of the Arts","volume":"182 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148612508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}