Correlations between Kinematic, Affective, and Aesthetic Judgments to Ballet Movements

Abstract

We obtained kinematic, affective, and aesthetic judgments from 3 different groups of participants for 203 ballet movements of a newly developed ballet movement library (Christensen et al., resubmitted). Two types of kinematic movement descriptors were obtained. First, the clips were coded in 6 movement dynamics descriptors. By means of a principal component analysis (PCA), it was found that movement Path (in horizontal plane), Manner (in vertical plane), and Quantity were the basic kinematic dimensions. Second, judgments of the four Laban movement dimensions of the Shape-Effort space of the theory of Rudolf Laban (Laban 1988) were obtained. These are Time, Space, Weight, and Flow. The values from this judgment procedure were again submitted to a PCA by which one component was extracted (Laban Score). Finally, the movements were rated in affective Valence and Arousal, and in the aesthetics dimensions Beauty, Liking, and Wanting. Pearson's correlations revealed that movement Manner did not show any correlations with any of the other variables. The variable Path showed trend effect correlations with the Laban Score and the Affective responses: the softer and expansive the movements, the more positive and highly arousing they were perceived. Furthermore, more expansiveness in space (a high score in Path) was correlated with higher ratings in the scales of Beauty, Liking, and Interest. Also Quantity correlated positively with Valence, Arousal, and all Aesthetics ratings. The Laban Score was negatively correlated with Valence and Arousal and positively correlated with the aesthetics dimension Interestingness. Given that the Laban Score represents how energetic the movement is, these data points together seem to suggest that the affective valence and level of arousal a spectator derives from a dance movement and its interest depends on the movement's saliency and on the fluent quality of that movement. Affective Valence and Arousal both correlated positively with all three Aesthetics ratings. This means that especially movements that evoked positive valence and high arousal were considered to be more Beautiful, Likeable, and Interesting.