Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-88psn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-20T15:31:13.368Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Aesthetic meanings and aesthetic emotions: How historical and intentional knowledge expand aesthetic experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2013

Paul J. Silvia
Paul J. Silvia*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170. p_silvia@uncg.edu http://silvia.socialpsychology.org
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This comment proposes that Bullot & Reber's (B&R's) emphasis on historical and intentional knowledge expands the range of emotions that can be properly viewed as aesthetic states. Many feelings, such as anger, contempt, shame, confusion, and pride, come about through complex aesthetic meanings, which integrate conceptual knowledge, beliefs about the work and the artist's intentions, and the perceiver's goals and values.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 157 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Berlyne, D. E. (1971) Aesthetics and psychobiology. Meredith.Google Scholar
Ellsworth, P. C. & Scherer, K. R. (2003) Appraisal processes in emotion. In: Handbook of affective sciences, ed. Davidson, R. J., Scherer, K. R. & Goldsmith, H. H., pp. 572–95. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fechner, G. T. (1876) Vorschule der Äesthetik [Elements of aesthetics]. Druck und Verlag von Breitkopf & Härtel.Google Scholar
Palmer, S. E., Schloss, K. B. & Gardner, J. S. (2012) Hidden knowledge in aesthetic judgments: Preference for color and spatial composition. In: Aesthetic science: Connecting minds, brains, and experience, ed. Shimamura, A. & Palmer, S. E., pp. 189–222. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Reber, R. (2012) Processing fluency, aesthetic pleasure, and culturally shared taste. In: Aesthetic science: Connecting minds, brains, and experience, ed. Shimamura, A. P. & Palmer, S. E., pp. 223–49. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Silvia, P. J. (2005b) Emotional responses to art: From collation and arousal to cognition and emotion. Review of General Psychology 9(4):342–57.Google Scholar
Silvia, P. J. (2009) Looking past pleasure: Anger, confusion, disgust, pride, surprise, and other unusual aesthetic emotions. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 3:48–51.Google Scholar
Silvia, P. J. (2012) Human emotions and aesthetic experience: An overview of empirical aesthetics. In: Aesthetic science: Connecting minds, brains, and experience, ed. Shimamura, A. P. & Palmer, S. E., pp. 250–75. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Silvia, P. J. & Brown, E. M. (2007) Anger, disgust, and the negative aesthetic emotions: Expanding an appraisal model of aesthetic experience. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 1:100–106.Google Scholar