Abstract
Over the last few decades, empirical researchers have become increasingly interested in explaining the formation of “basic” aesthetic judgments, i.e. simple judgments of sensory preferability and the pleasure that seems to accompany them. To that end, Reber et al. have recently defended a “processing-fluency” view, which identifies aesthetic pleasure with one’s ability to easily process an object’s perceptual properties (e.g. Reber 2012). While the processing-fluency theory is certainly an improvement over its competitors, it is currently vulnerable to several serious criticisms. In what follows, I aim to provide a more holistic, explanatorily robust, model of the processing-fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure by incorporating what the view neglects: the crucial role of perceptual disfluency, interest, and the underlying values that drive aesthetic appraisal.
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Notes
The generally accepted division between aesthetic (sensory-based) and cognitive (conceptual) judgements does not suggest that the two modes of appraisal are entirely independent of one another. It is certainly the case that even low-level appraisals of sensory properties can be influenced dramatically by the context in which they are perceived, the object to which they are thought to belong, and other conceptual considerations. But, while conceptual judgments surely can influence whether we take pleasure in a given sensory experience, such judgements are not necessary for feeling pleasure in everyday sensory experience. We can, it would appear, appraise perceptual properties like color, shape, pattern, texture, etc. as pleasant, even when conceptual cues might push us in the opposite emotional direction—imagine, for instance, finding a pleasant arrangement of colors in an otherwise revolting pile of rotting fruit. For this reason, it is theoretically useful to maintain a rough distinction between pleasure derived principally from sensory-content and pleasure derived from higher-order judgments of what that sensory-content represents or indicates.
For more on the interaction between “aesthetic” and “cognitive” judgments in art, see e.g. Walton’s (1970) discussion of the relationship between aesthetic judgements and cognitive framing (1970), Sibley’s (1959) challenge to the idea that all aesthetic judgments are reducible to perceptual properties, and Bullough’s (1912) assessment the sorts of psychological attitudes required for aesthetic engagement.
At this point, it is widely acknowledged that while our hedonic responses to perceptual properties may play an important role in art appreciation (especially for those without formal training), one’s preferences for art are often driven by the appraisal of more complex conceptual/cognitive content, e.g. the artist’s intention, representational content, historical context, etc.
Compare, for instance, the phenomenal contrast between contentment and fear. When content, an animal’s physiological and psychological states are relatively close to baseline, e.g. its heart rate is regular, breathing is steady, and the animal is able to shift attention with relative ease; by comparison, when in a fearful state, the same animal is likely to be agitated both physically and mentally, e.g. its heart rate climbs, breathing will quicken, and its attention homes in dramatically on any potential source of negative affect (see e.g. Easterbrook 1959).
Accordingly, when evaluating dog breeds, the average Westerner might prefer Labradors over Bull Terriers because the former more clearly resemble the abstract average of all of the members of our culturally shared “dog” category. Returning to our earlier example, fit to central tendency could in principle explain why we enjoy melodies more than discordant notes, even when they have equal arousal potential.
Indeed, as others have mentioned, one shortcoming of the prototype-preference theory is that “typicality” is hard to define beyond the particulars of a specific act of aesthetic appreciation (Silvia 2012). An artwork, for instance, could be typical or atypical with respect to its e.g. diverse formal properties, representational content, intended historical style, etc.—to simply state that aesthetic pleasure is a measure of “typicality” simpliciter is to ignore the fact that typicality can only be established within the context of cognitive framing (again, for a thorough philosophical treatment of this topic, see Walton 1970).
Because it gives rise to a phenomenal state, fluency can be gauged by subjective measures, e.g. subjects’ ratings of a task as easy or effortful; more often than not, however, it is gauged via objective measures of speed and accuracy, e.g. pronunciation latency (e.g., Whittlesea 1993; Whittlesea et al. 1990), naming latency (Reber et al. 1998), or likelihood of identification (Jacoby and Dallas 1981). These objective measures of fluency generally coincide with subjective feelings of fluency. For more on this topic, see Reber et al. (2004b).
Of course, I am not claiming that all discounting of irrelevant affect must be explicit: despite evidence of frequent misattribution of emotion, human beings are clearly capable of appropriately compartmentalizing their emotional appraisals. However, research into the misattribution of affect makes it clear that often such discounting does not arise without conscious reflection.
Depending on one’s level of art education, the inverted U-shape is shifted up or down, so to speak.
In these studies, monkeys make a primary selection with a known probability of reward; they then can make a second selection to find out whether or not a reward is in fact coming. Crucially, opting to receive this information reliably reduces the size of the reward if it comes, yet they do so anyway.
The fact that humans must value perceptual properties in order to experience aesthetic pleasure raises an interesting question about non-human animals. Specifically, questions about whether other species are capable of “aesthetic pleasure.” If e.g. a female peacock appraises the colors of a potential mate’s tail as good- or bad-seeming because she values or cares about those colors, this might suggest that the peacock is experiencing a narrow instance of aesthetic pleasure—she is responding emotionally to the hues themselves, presumably because they are a markers of reproductive fitness. What seems unique among humans, however, is the fact that we are capable of broadly valuing the entire spectrum of aesthetic properties in-and-of-themselves (not just those perceptual properties that relate to other values of e.g. finding mates, suitable environments, food, etc.).
This is presumably exactly what we do when finding the beauty in a threatening tornado. While one’s safety might be a higher priority/more highly valued than aesthetic properties, one can still shift the dimension of one’s appraisals to focus on perceptual properties (just as our storm-chaser can toggle back and forth between e.g. fear in light of the tornado’s destructive power, and excitement about the opportunity it provides).
Indeed, Van de Cruys & Wagemans theory highlights this fact by focusing on subjects who are knowingly engaging with art, rather than with everyday aesthetic objects. People who frequent art museums and seek out art for its aesthetic qualities have already demonstrated an underlying interest in aesthetic properties, hence their motivation to grapple with disfluent stimuli and ultimately find it pleasant. Further, the very knowledge that one is dealing with art—or that one will be asked about their reactions to that art—is likely enough to temporarily place aesthetic properties high on one’s list of values. When we are dealing with everyday (non-art) aesthetic appreciation, that same underlying value must also be there to capture one’s attention, or the slight disfluency of e.g. an unknown mountain would not draw the sustained interest necessary for resolving that disfluency.
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Adair, H.V. Interest, Disfluency, and Underlying Values: a Better Theory of Aesthetic Pleasure. Rev.Phil.Psych. 13, 779–795 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-021-00564-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-021-00564-3