Once More, with Feeling: the Role of Familiarity in the Aesthetic Response

Abstract

This article argues that familiarity is an important ingredient of the aesthetic brew, potentially more important than the tinge of surprise. Most of the examples are drawn from the psychology of music, pointing at people’s preferences for music from their youth, strong correlations between familiarity and liking of musical excerpts, the Caillebotte effect in preferences for paintings, and neuroimaging work on the role of anticipation in the experience of musical chills. In addition, I refer to the value of incremental work in creators, and the influence of prototypicality and self-relevance for the aesthetic response. Surprise/complexity/originality/expectation violations play a role too, but their influence needs to be carefully Goldilocked: There is an inverse-J-shaped relationship between originality and liking, and, within music, liking is associated with proximity to pink noise. Finally, there is evidence that different aspects of musical events lead to different responses, illustrating that the aesthetic brew is a complicated mix.