Similarities in Affective Processing and Aesthetic Preference of Visual, Auditory and Gustatory Stimuli

Abstract

In the last few decades experimental aesthetics studies mainly focused on objective features of sensory stimuli in attempts to identify determinants of aesthetic preference. However, recent research has addressed the role of evaluative or affective meaning in aesthetic preference of sensory stimuli. Here we examined underlying structure of evaluative meaning for three types of sensory stimuli and the relations between obtained dimensions and aesthetic preference of stimuli from different sensory modalities. In three experiments participants assessed visual, auditory and gustatory stimuli on the aesthetic preference scale and on three instruments involving evaluative attributes people usually use to describe their subjective experience of visual, auditory and gustatory domains. The results of principal component analysis showed the same triple factorial structure for different sensory modalities: affective evaluation (pleasant, positive, relaxing), arousal (impressive, powerful, interesting), and cognitive...