Abstract
Normative data on paintings from two periods are reported. Subjects rated the pleasingness and interestingness of 60 Renaissance and 60 20th-century (abstract) works, and indicated how much they wished to own a reproduction of each painting. Skin-conductance changes elicited by the paintings were also assessed. The data may facilitate the inclusion of real works of art in future experiments involving visual aesthetic materials (on either the independent- or the dependent-variable side) and are relevant for the research on some motivational and cognitive issues of current interest in the psychology of art.
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This research was supported by Grant GS-42802 from the National Science Foundation to Vladimir J. Konečni. The authors wish to thank Robert B. Allen for assistance with data processing.
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Sargent-pollock, D.N., Konečni, V.J. Evaluative and skin-conductance responses to Renaissance and 20th-century paintings. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation 9, 291–296 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202237
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202237