Understanding emotional responses to visual aesthetic artefacts: the SECMEA mechanisms

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While many models attempt to explain the aesthetic experience, most limit themselves to art as their focal point and only a few look into why we arrive at a certain response to a visual aesthetic object. This article attempts to offer an extension to the current models by focusing on the mechanisms that induce emotions in relation to visual aesthetic objects. It takes Juslin’s (2013) BRECVEM mechanisms – developed for the domain of music – as its basis. In this article, Juslin’s mechanisms are adapted to the visual domain, resulting in six different emotion-evoking mechanisms: startle reflex, evaluative conditioning, emotional contagion, mental imagery, syntactic expectancy and external appraisal. The authors give an overview of frameworks and empirical studies, demonstrating each of these mechanisms in relation to visual aesthetic objects (visual art as well as advertising and product design). The article’s focus on emotion-inducing mechanisms and existing empirical research provides a basis for improving empirical testing of emotional responses to a broad range of visual aesthetic objects.