Mastering style – Effects of explicit style-related information, art knowledge and affective state on appreciation of abstract paintings

Recently, Leder, Belke, Oeberst, and Augustin (2004) have proposed a model of aesthetic experience in which stylistic processing is central for aesthetic experiences of art. Here we present an empirical study which investigates predictions derived from the model. Using modern and contemporary abstract paintings we investigated how their appreciation is affected by style information generalized onto new exemplars of paintings by the same artists. In accordance with the model’s predictions, effects of style processing depend on the affective states of the viewers as well as their ability for cognitive mastery, measured by amount of expertise. The experiment reveals that the examination of style-related cognitive processes is important to psychologically understand the affective, cognitive and presumably self-rewarding aspects of aesthetic experiences.