Aesthetic emotion and implicit preference for different art styles

"The term aesthetic emotion refers to emotions arising during the process of aesthetic appreciation, such as when we observe an artwork (Frijda, 2007; Scherer, 2004; Tan, 2000). Several researches, employing explicit measures, have shown a general preference for figurative pictures compared to abstract ones (Feist & Brady, 2004) and for classical architecture rather than contemporary ones (Stamps & Nasar, 1997). The aims of our study concerns the existence of an automatic aesthetic evaluation: when we observe an artwork, architecture or design object, does the primary affective evaluation, in terms of pleasant or unpleasant, automatically appear to our mind? Three experiments were conducted using the Implicit Association Test. Findings of the first two studies on art and architecture showed that naïve participants implicitly preferred figurative art and classical architecture (compared to abstract art and contemporary architecture), registering shorter latency times in associating positive adjectives to these categories (Mastandrea, Bartoli & Carrus, 2011). The third study aims to verify if expertise on industrial design (laypeople vs. experts) can orient implicit and explicit preferences towards different styles (classical vs. modern) of chairs . Preferences resulted being moderated by expertise: experts were more aesthetically oriented towards modern than classical chairs while laypeople did not show a clear preference. The appraisal theory of emotions can provide an important contribution to the study of aesthetics (Silvia, 2005): not only the art stimulus, but also the individual appraisal of the event can generate an aesthetic preference at an implicit level."