Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
PLoS One. 2023 Jan 31;18(1):e0281082. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281082. eCollection 2023.
Some artists do terrible things. But does knowing something bad about an artist affect the way we perceive the work? Despite increased public interest, this question has yet to be addressed empirically. In this pre-registered study, we used aesthetic ratings and electrophysiological brain responses to shed light on the issue. We found that paintings of artists associated with negative-social biographical knowledge were liked less and found more arousing than paintings of artists associated with neutral information. Such paintings also elicited an enhanced brain response associated with fast and reflexive processing of emotional stimuli (early posterior negativity; EPN). Evaluations of quality and later, more controlled brain responses (late positive potential; LPP) were not affected. Reflecting the complexity of aesthetic experience, this pattern of results became more differentiated when the visual relatedness between the contents of the painting and the artist-related information was taken into account. Overall, our findings suggest that emotional aspects involved in art reception are not spontaneously separated from the artist, whilst evaluative judgments and more elaborate processing may be.
有些艺术家的行为很恶劣。但是，了解艺术家的一些负面信息会影响我们对其作品的看法吗？尽管公众对此越来越感兴趣，但这个问题尚未得到实证研究的解答。在这项预先注册的研究中，我们使用美学评价和电生理脑反应来阐明这个问题。我们发现，与负面社会传记知识相关的艺术家的画作比与中性信息相关的艺术家的画作更不受欢迎，也更令人兴奋。这些画作还引起了与快速和反射性处理情绪刺激相关的增强的大脑反应（后前负向电势；EPN）。对质量的评估以及之后更受控制的大脑反应（晚正电位；LPP）不受影响。考虑到审美体验的复杂性，当考虑到画作内容与艺术家相关信息之间的视觉相关性时，这种结果模式变得更加分化。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，艺术接受过程中涉及的情感方面不会自动与艺术家分离，而评价判断和更精细的处理可能会。
