The usefulness of eye movement recordings to subject an aesthetic episode with visual art to empirical scrutiny.

Abstract The focus of this paper is on recent findings of eye movement studies conducted by this author and his colleagues that demonstrate the valuable potential of eye-movement research to reveal the perceptual and cognitive processes that underlie an aesthetic episode with visual art. Key words: eye-movements, aesthetics, art The usefulness of eye movement recordings to subject an aesthetic episode with visual art to empirical scrutiny In the field of experimental aesthetics, the study of eye movements has been used as a tool by researchers for many decades to reveal covert perceptual and cognitive process that underlie the perception and aesthetic evaluation of artworks (see Nodine & Krupinski, 2003, for a review). As a viewer gathers information from an artwork such as a painting, his or her eyes move in rapid jumps or saccades followed by pauses or fixations. In general, the eyes move three to four times per second during visual search. The number, duration, and location of fixations used to scrutinize a work are a function of the interaction among the properties of a composition (e.g., its structural organization, content, style), the evaluative task being performed by the viewer (e.g., rating a composition for its complexity versus its pleasantness), and viewer characteristics (e.g., level of experience or training in the visual arts). By superimposing eye movements over a stimulus display, one can map out the location and sequence of fixations, called a scanpath, used by a viewer to encode a visual display and with this scanpath identify which pictorial features of it raised the viewer's interest and invited exploration. When used in experimental aesthetics research, a scanpath provides a graphic record of how information from an artwork was selected and processed across the time course of an individual's interaction with it, that is, during an aesthetic episode. The focus of this paper is on the way recent findings of eye movement studies conducted by this author and his colleagues provide insights into the perceptual/cognitive processes that underlie an aesthetic episode and contribute to the appreciation of paintings. A recent advance in eye movement research is the availability of systems that permit investigators to record simultaneously a viewer's verbal reactions to a visual stimulus and his/her scanpath as the stimulus is examined. Prior to the availability of these systems, participants in eye movement studies were not permitted to move their heads during data collection because head movements interfered with calibration settings. This made it impossible for participants to verbally describe their reactions to stimuli as they looked at them. Locher (2003) has demonstrated the value of investigating the relationship between the way viewers think about an artwork, as inferred from their written reactions to it, and their ability to accurately detect original abstract and representational paintings (seen in reproduction) from two experimentally manipulated less well-organized versions of each work. Specifically, he found that hit rates for originals were highest for abstract works when participants focused on their compositional style and form and highest for representational works when their content and realism were the focus of attention. As mentioned, participants' reactions to the works were obtained from their written responses to them. A recent study by Locher, Krupinski, Mello-Thoms, and Nodine (2005) is the first investigation to address the limitation of previous eye movement studies by recording simultaneously the eye movements and verbal reactions of observers as they evaluated for pleasingness reproductions of paintings by renowned artists. Specifically, Locher et al. examined the relationship across the time course of exploration among participants' reactions to the art stimuli obtained from their verbal responses to the works, their scanning patterns, and each painting's compositional organization. …