Aesthetic emotions are affected by context: a psychometric network analysis.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Aesthetics

Background:

• Aesthetic emotions arise from evaluating stimuli for appeal.
• Debate exists on whether these emotions are unique to aesthetic activities.
• Understanding the emotional landscape of aesthetic experiences is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if recalling aesthetic activities yields different emotional profiles compared to non-aesthetic and consumer activities.
• To explore the unique characteristics of aesthetic emotions within a broader spectrum of engaging experiences.

Main Methods:

• A large sample of participants recalled aesthetic, non-aesthetic, or consumer activities.
• Participants rated the evocation of 75 candidate aesthetic emotions.
• A computational psychometric network approach was used to analyze emotional spaces.

Main Results:

• Recalled aesthetic activities were less vivid but more intense than other activities.
• Quantitative differences were observed in emotion typology, clusters, and core emotions across conditions.
• The network structure of emotions differed significantly between aesthetic and non-aesthetic activities.

Conclusions:

• Aesthetic and non-aesthetic activities evoke distinct emotional spaces.
• Aesthetic emotions are distributed differently in a multidimensional aesthetic space.
• The findings underscore the context-specific nature of aesthetic emotions.