Perceptual Veridicality in Esthetic Communication: A Model, General Procedure, and Illustration

Abstract

The validity of much artistic criticism rests upon two crucial assumptions about the nature of esthetic communication. The first (Hypothesis H1) holds that objective esthetic features are accurately perceived by audience members. The second (Hypothesis H2) asserts that such perceptual veridicality does not depend upon one's degree of education or training, so that critics and audience members tend to share cognitive responses t o artistic messages and offerings. However, the empirical verification of H1 and H2 has received little attention. Indeed suitable models and methods for addressing these issues cppear to be missing. Accordingly. this article proposes a model of perceptual veridicality in esthetic communication. describes a procedure for assessing perceptual accuracy. and illustrates this approach in a study of perceptual responses to stylistic aspects of classical piano performances. Specifically. a keyboard piece by Bach is played in all 16 possible combinations of variations in 4 stylistic features: tempo, rhythm, dynamics, and phrasing. Subjects' adjectival ratings of these performances are factor analyzed into a reduced set of perceptual indices that are then submitted to multiple discriminant analysis to obtain a multidimensional perceptual space. The correlational fits of this perceptual space to the objective stylistic features support the hypotheses by indicating high overall perceptual veridicality (H1) and equivalent accuracy for expert and naive subjects (H2).