How Context and Painting Attributes Affect Aesthetic Judgment Across Expertise

Using a digital environment, this study tested how setting (museum vs. street), reputation (established vs. unestablished), and style (abstract vs. representational) affected people's aesthetic perception of art. Art novices, quasi-experts, and experts were randomly assigned to rate paintings that varied in setting, reputation, and style. Although there was no significant main effect of setting, follow-up pairwise comparisons showed that novices gave higher aesthetic judgment to paintings in street settings. There was a significant interaction between reputation, style, and expertise, such that the greater the expertise, the greater the differences in ratings between established and unestablished paintings, and the smaller the differences between abstract and representational style paintings. Quasi-experts and experts gave higher ratings to established rather than unestablished paintings, and all groups preferred representational over abstract style; however, the expert preferences reversed with unestablished paintings. The study found that the effect of reputation and expertise persisted after controlling for painting familiarity.