Towards a unified understanding of aesthetic emotions

Aesthetic emotions have been treated with some degree of ambiguity in the new aesthetic science. They are often discussed as a crucial part of the aesthetic experience, but systematic progress on this topic is hindered by a lack of clarity on what "aesthetic emotions" refers to. Here, we briefly review the ways in which this concept has been operationalized in the aesthetic science literature, including unresolved debates about whether these emotions constitute a psychologically distinct class of emotions. We argue that both aesthetics and emotions research would benefit from the development of concrete, testable criteria by which we define what is or is not an aesthetic emotion.