COGNITIVE APPRAISALS AND INTEREST IN VISUAL ART: EXPLORING AN APPRAISAL THEORY OF AESTHETIC EMOTIONS By: PAUL J. SILVIA Silvia, P. J. (2005). Cognitive appraisals and interest in visual art: Exploring an appraisal theory of aesthetic

Since Berlyne‘s seminal research, the study of experimental aesthetics has examined interest as a response to art. The present research explores the implications of appraisal theories of emotion for the study of interest as an emotion relevant to aesthetics. Participants viewed pictures of modern experimental visual art and rated each picture for interest and for appraisals of complexity and comprehensibility. Multilevel modeling assessed the within-person effects of appraisals on interest. As predicted by appraisal theories, both appraisals significantly and strongly predicted interest at the within-person level. The within-person relationships were not moderated by individual-differences relevant to interest in art (e.g., trait curiosity). Theories of ―aesthetic response‖ should capitalize on modern theories and findings in emotion psychology. Article: In the decades following Berlyne‘s (1971, 1974) seminal research on ―the new experimental aesthetics,‖ a large literature has accumulated on people‘s subjective reactions to art. Much of this research has been guided by Berlyne‘s theorizing about the role of collative variables and arousal in determining the reward value of artistic stimuli. The collative–arousal theory of motivation that underlies Berlyne‘s research has proved surprisingly resilient, given that psychology has moved away from arousal models of reward and from the concept of ―arousal‖ itself (e.g., Neiss, 1988). Modern research on experimental aesthetics still takes inspiration from Berlyne‘s ideas about how collative variables affect arousal, interest, and preference. The influence of the Berlyne tradition may be best seen in the intensity of debates about alternative theories of aesthetic response (e.g., Boselie, 1991; Martindale, Moore, & Borkum, 1990; North &Hargreaves, 2000; Whitfield, 2000). Tan (2000) recently noted that the study of art has not paid much attention to emotion psychology. It seems surprising that the study of subjective responses to art would be so disconnected from the modern psychology of emotions. Yet, it is not so surprising when one considers Berlyne‘s (1971, p. 62) view of emotions: ―The word ̳emotion‘ is actually not much used by contemporary psychologists ... as with many other terms taken over from ordinary language, the boundary lines of what it denotes are not distinct enough or properly located for the purposes of science.‖ He went on to reduce emotions to states of arousal by labeling them as states of high activation (cf. Duffy, 1934). Emotion psychology had not fully matured during the development of the new experimental aesthetics, so it was reasonable to frame aesthetic problems in terms of prevailing psychobiological theories of motivation. Since then, however, emotion psychology has come of age, and it offers powerful theories for explaining the dynamics of emotional responses. It seems time for experimental aesthetics to consider the value of concepts offered by emotion psychology for the enduring problems of