The Role of Collative Variables in Aesthetic Experiences

Abstract

AbstractDaniel Berlyne and his New Experimental Aesthetics have largely shaped the field since the 1970s by putting the study of collative variables related to stimulus features in the foreground, embedded in the context of motivation, arousal, and reward. Researchers from various fields have extensively studied the role of novelty, surprise, complexity, and ambiguity in aesthetic responses since then, employing a wide range of behavioral, computational, and neuroscientific methods. These studies have been conducted in different sensory and artistic domains, such as in music, literature, and the visual arts. The insights gained from these efforts are very promising from a broader theoretical perspective, and have opened up new avenues of research going beyond Berlyne’s psychobiological model of aesthetic response, leading to manifold applications in several practical fields.