Early Depth Engagement in Art Perception: visual dynamics and aesthetic experience

Understanding how aesthetic experience develops over time during art viewing has become an important issue in recent research. However, it remains unclear which perceptual factors engaged during viewing contribute to subsequent gaze organization and aesthetic evaluation.

This study examined whether gaze engagement with compositional depth is associated with later differences in gaze dynamics and aesthetic evaluation. This temporal pattern is defined here as Early Depth Engagement in Art Perception (EDEN).

Forty-eight participants freely viewed twelve Japanese ukiyo-e landscape prints by Hokusai and Hiroshige for 30 s while their eye movements were recorded. Depth points were defined using a separate depth localization task with the same participants. Gaze metrics were analysed in 3-s windows, and aesthetic ratings were normalized within participants to classify artworks into high- and low-evaluation groups. The same analyses were also applied to a secondary stimulus set of twenty landscape prints by contemporaneous ukiyo-e artists.

No group differences were observed during the initial viewing phase (0-6 s), when gaze behavior was exploratory in both groups. From approximately 6 s onwards, the high-evaluation group showed greater fixation frequency and dwell time at depth points, and these differences were maintained over time. In contrast, no consistent group differences were found in time to first fixation on depth points. A similar but weaker temporal divergence was observed in the secondary stimulus set. These findings indicate that compositional depth points function as structural anchors for gaze during the mid-viewing phase rather than as targets of earlier initial access.

EDEN describes not immediate access to depth itself, but the temporal emergence, divergence, and maintenance of depth-related gaze organization during free viewing. This framework provides a dynamic account of how depth-related information becomes incorporated into viewing behavior and contributes to aesthetic experience.