Specker and colleagues wanted to better understand why we respond to artworks the ways we do. They report that “Making use of the brightness–positivity association, the overall brightness of paintings (i.e., as stylistic feature) was manipulated to match their content (positive vs. negative). We hypothesized that a congruency of style and content would facilitate the processing of paintings resulting in a better understanding, but also, greater liking, and . . . higher artistic value. Our data indicated . . . that content alone was a strong predictor for art processing and—in an exploratory approach—highlighted the importance of individual differences in terms of art interest and knowledge in our sample.”
Eva Specker, Maximillian Douda, and Helmet Leder. 2023. “How Do We Understand Artworks? Exploring the Role of Artwork Inherent Features in Art Processing.” Empirical Studies of the Arts, https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374231201074