Art expertise: a study of concepts and conceptual spaces

An aesthetic experience is a complex cognitive process, the nature and outcome of which depend upon the perceiver’s concepts and expertise (Leder, Belke, Oeberst, & Augustin, 2004). The present study aimed to find out more about the role of expertise in the experience of contemporary art. By combining a natural grouping task and correspondence analysis we compared a group of art experts with a group of non-experts as to the concepts they applied to a set of contemporary artworks and the general dimensions underlying their perception and interpretation of the works. There were marked parallels between both groups, pointing to general characteristics of aesthetic experiences. Still, the results support the hypothesis that experts process artworks more in relation to style, whereas non-experts refer to criteria such as personal feelings.