Structure of aesthetic experience Cover Image

Estetski doživljaj umetničkih slika
Structure of aesthetic experience

Author(s): Marko Polovina, Slobodan Marković
Subject(s): Visual Arts, Aesthetics, Experimental Pschology
Published by: Društvo psihologa Srbije
Keywords: aesthetic experience; paintings; subjective judgements; multidimensional scaling;

Summary/Abstract: This study investigated the structure of aesthetic experience and the relationship of this structure and other dimensions of the subjective judgements of paintings. Aesthetic experience was defined by nine descriptors selected from relevant literature: fascinating, irresistible, unique, eternal, profound, exceptional, universal, unspeakable, I would like to have this painting. 24 paintings were judged of on nine unipolar seven-step scales that were made of the up-mentioned descriptors. The factor analysis extracted one principal component. Multiple regression has shown weak correlation between aesthetic experience (averaged nine judgements) and the factors of the subjective judgements of paintings (the factors were measured by the instrument SDS 16; Radonjić & Marković, 2005). Factor Arousal was a significant predictor of aesthetic experience, but the percent of explained variance was relatively low (circa 23%). The prediction of other factors, Regularity, Attraction and Serenity, was not significant. For the purpose of this analysis we used the data from the previous study (Radonjić and Marković, 2005). Further regression analyses indicated the role of aesthetic experience in the similarity judgments of paintings: the distributions of the paintings within 2-D and 3-D MDS space were partially explained by the measure of aesthetic experience. The MDS data were taken from the previous study (Radonjić i Marković, 2004). The results of this study suggest that the aesthetic experience is a unique and relatively independent phenomenon: internally, it is not dividable into components, and externally, it is weakly correlated with the other subjective dimensions.

  • Issue Year: 39/2006
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 39-55
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Serbian