The Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago

MEASURING THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE

Principal Investigator: Colm O'Muircheartaigh, VP for Statistics and Methodology, National Opinion Research Center, and professor at the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies

9/24/01

The idea for this project came out of the first conference of the Cultural Policy Center, which brought out two seemingly opposing perspectives. One was that art is so profound and meaningful that it is only for the individual to experience and it cannot be measured. The other perspective is that the success of art and museums is often indicated by the numbers of people who attended exhibits. The complex combination of these two perspectives gave birth to the notion of "Measuring the Aesthetic Experience".

The project addresses a wide range of theoretical, methodological and policy issues. What is the aesthetic experience? How do you (can you) measure it? What is its significance? Is it an instinct or is it learned? Can we develop, mould, or nurture it? Is early exposure important? Does early investment in aesthetic sensibility lead to a more fulfilling life? Is there a connection between aesthetic development and social and cognitive development? Is a more aesthetically fulfilling environment healthier for the individual and for society? If so, what (or whose) standards of aesthetics should we be applying? At what stage do we acquire this response, and at what stage do we lose it? What are the barriers to aesthetic development? Is the received wisdom a help or a hindrance? What is great art, and does it matter if it is not great art? Is an institutional apparatus to support the aesthetic experience desirable? Is it an appropriate area for public intervention? And, if so, how can we evaluate the achievements of particular enterprises?

Assuming that there is nothing universally true and thus nothing is perfectly measurable even if one understands it, the project proposes to assess response to the visual arts by separating more meaningful patterns (signals) from less meaningful ones (noise). For this purpose, it will introduce a three-dimensional model of measurement that takes into account realism, control (calibration), and representation. Realism is basically the context of observation, i.e., the reason why one looks at art. Is it for pure enjoyment or with a purpose to purchase or as a matter of academic study? One way to measure this is by asking questions. For example, at the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s "Sensation" exhibit, visitors were asked as they left if they enjoyed the art they saw and most said yes. However, there is an element of post hoc rationalization involved here: if you go to see an exhibit, you are probably going to like it. Thus, there are other methods to examine a person’s aesthetic response to the visual arts. Psychophysical reports could gauge blood pressure, metabolic rate, eye movement, etc. Also, one could ask questions to determine whether the visitor went to the exhibit alone or with others, whether s/he wanted or felt obliged to go, what s/he was feeling during the visit, how often s/he goes to an art museum and how long it has been since the last trip. This point is directly connected to the problematic relationship between the dimensions of control and representation. For instance, when you survey people who are in a museum, they are the ones who chose to be there. Is this survey representative of a whole population of people? Also, there is the question of a gifted or ungifted viewer- someone who has an eye for art, a collector for instance, versus a novice.

There is an ever-growing body of research focused on museums and their visitors and on aesthetic development and education. However, there has not been much concentrated effort to tackle the issue of the aesthetic experience per se. In this sense, this project is as necessary as it is ambitious. We have already talked to a number of psychologists, methodologists, arts enthusiasts, and arts professionals who have expressed their interest and support. Our aim is to bring together an interdisciplinary team of researchers but also ground the study in society rather than simply in the academy or the art world. Thus, our research settings and orientation will take advantage of the diversity and richness of opportunities available in Chicago.

Drawing on an interdisciplinary team of collaborators, this project will develop and implement both quantitative and qualitative measures specific to the aesthetic response. We will develop questionnaires based on survey methodology, the measurement of affect and co-activation models but we also want to explore alternative measures to assess psychophysical responses (e.g., stress, loneliness, dysfunction) and behavioral/neurological patterns (e.g., facial expression, eye movement). Therefore, in addition to survey questionnaires, we will employ experience sampling methods as well as a purpose-build environment of measurement that contains the works of art and the means of measurement. Our aim, then, is to make use of settings for non-interventionist observation (e.g. exhibit galleries) but also develop sites for experimentation, intervention and observation.

The next step is to bring together a small group of social scientists and methodologists for an intensive workshop exploring these ideas and think up some new ones (Dec. 7-8, 2001). We will then begin work on developing a set of instruments that incorporates some of these ideas and come up with settings and populations in which to test them (pilot projects).