Chapter 3 - Confluence and Divergence in Empirical Aesthetics, Philosophy, and Mainstream Psychology

Abstract

This chapter discusses the history and influence of confluence and divergence on psychological research in aesthetics and explores the relationship between mainstream analyses of perception and cognition in everyday life and conceptualizations of aesthetic process derived from scientific aesthetics. There are five fundamental characteristics of aesthetic experience: fixed attention, release from concerns over past and future, detached affect, active discovery, and a sense of wholeness. Psychologists have generally agreed that aesthetic activity is intrinsically motivated and free of practical concerns. However, less agreement has been in evidence regarding relations between everyday and aesthetic processes and the structure of the aesthetic object. Different kinds of attentional processes are implicated in aesthetic activity. Aesthetic meaning is contingent on the interpretive context within which it is examined or understood. The shift between local concerns and an appreciation of global structure is particularly demanding. This interaction between viewers or readers and aesthetic works must be explicated by future generations of researchers in scientific aesthetics.