Aesthetic Preference and Time: Preferred Painting Dilates Time Perception

Lingjing Li,Yu Tian

doi:10.1177/2158244020939905

Lingjing Li, Yu Tian

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020939905

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Abstract

In the domain of aesthetic preference, previous studies focused primarily on exploring the factors that influence aesthetic preference while neglecting to investigate whether aesthetic preference affects other psychological activities. This study sought to expand our understanding of time perception by examining whether aesthetic preference in viewing paintings influenced its perceived duration. Participants who preferred Chinese paintings ( n = 20) and participants who preferred western paintings ( n = 21) were recruited to complete a temporal reproduction task that measured their time perception of Chinese paintings and of western paintings. The results showed that participants who preferred Chinese paintings exhibited longer time perceptions for Chinese paintings than for western paintings, while the participants who preferred western paintings exhibited longer time perceptions for western paintings than for Chinese paintings. These results suggested that aesthetic preference could modulate our perceived duration of painting presentation. Specifically, individuals perceive longer painting presentation durations when exposed to the stimuli matching their aesthetic preferences.

Highlights

In the past several decades, researchers have mainly focused on exploring the factors that influence aesthetic preference, such as culture (Souief, 1971), experiential background (Konecni, 1979), environment (Ma & Ma, 2005), individual characteristics (Chokron & De Agostini, 2000; Pugach et al, 2017), and stimulus characteristics (Martindale et al, 1990; Wang & Lin, 2018)
We used each participant’s ratings for Chinese paintings minus their ratings for western paintings to calculate the score of aesthetic preference (SAP)
A repeated-measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was performed on the preference ratings, with painting type (Chinese or western) as a within-subject factor, and with group (CPP or western painting preference (WPP)) as a between-subjects factor

Summary

Introduction

In the past several decades, researchers have mainly focused on exploring the factors that influence aesthetic preference, such as culture (Souief, 1971), experiential background (Konecni, 1979), environment (Ma & Ma, 2005), individual characteristics (Chokron & De Agostini, 2000; Pugach et al, 2017), and stimulus characteristics (Martindale et al, 1990; Wang & Lin, 2018). Few studies have investigated whether aesthetic preference affects psychological activities, especially in terms of time perception. The aim of our current research was to examine the effects of aesthetic preference on individuals’ time perception. Time perception reflects one’s subjective experience of the passage of time (Eisler, 1975; Fraisse, 1984; Zakay & Block, 1997). Unlike objective time, which progresses linearly, ample evidence has been found that time perception is unstable and can be distorted, both by variations in the external environment and by an individuals’ internal mental state Unlike objective time, which progresses linearly, ample evidence has been found that time perception is unstable and can be distorted, both by variations in the external environment and by an individuals’ internal mental state (Droit-Volet & Meck, 2007; Gautier & Droit-Volet, 2002; Gil & Droit-Volet, 2009; Lake et al, 2016; J. Shi & Huang, 2017; Tian et al, 2018)

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