The Influence of Culture on the Viewing of Western and East Asian Paintings

The influence of British and Chinese culture on the viewing of paintings from Western and East Asian traditions was explored in an old/new discrimination task. Accuracy data were considered alongside signal detection measures of sensitivity and bias. The results showed participant culture and painting tradition interacted but only with respect to response bias and not sensitivity. Eye movements were also recorded during encoding and discrimination. Paintings were split into regions of interest defined by faces, or the theme and context in order to analyse the eye movement data. With respect to the eye movement data, the results showed that a match between participant culture and painting tradition increased the viewing of faces in paintings at the expense of the viewing of other locations, an effect interpreted as a manifestation of the Other Race Effect on the viewing of paintings. There was, however, no evidence of broader influence of culture on the eye movements made to paintings as might be expected if culture influenced the allocation of attention more generally. Taken together, these findings suggest culture influences the viewing of paintings but only in response to challenges to the encoding of faces

Spectatorship of paintings by naïve viewers

The present thesis proposes a framework for understanding spectatorship of paintings. Specifically, the thesis explores eye movements of naïve viewers on representational paintings over four separate studies. Chapter 1 outlines the framework of spectatorship as described in previous literature. Chapter 2 described the first study of this thesis, exploring how participants looked at portraits when making liking judgments. The results showed that the presence of salient features in the context were positively associated with liking, and greater focus was made to the portrayed faces when the salient features were presented in the context rather than when they were absent. Chapter 3 demonstrates across two experiments that memory representations of painting’s mostly rely on inspecting the paintings theme rather than the context. Only when there is uncertainty the focus on the context increased. The study reported in Chapter 4 explored cultural influence on spectatorship. It did so by comparing British and Chinese participants viewing Western and East Asian representational paintings. Chinese participants were observed to be more influenced by culture (than the British participants), the Chinese spectators presented a relatively greater likelihood of inspection of the context other the theme, but only during discrimination target paintings from foils. Chapter 5 investigates if emphasizing motif category might influence the spectatorship of paintings, by again testing British and Chinese participants. The results showed spectatorship was influenced by efforts to make the motif explicit. For British participants, making the motif of painting explicit increased focus on the painting. In contrast, for Chinese participants, knowledge of the motif decreased focus on the painting. Finally, Chapter 6 summarizes and generalizes the findings from empirical work in the preceding chapters, and identifies a number of implications for further work

The time-course of fixations to faces, theme and context in representational paintings: a cross-cultural study

British and Chinese participants viewed a set of Western representational paintings (henceforth paintings) for later identification in a yes/no discrimination task. Eye movements were recorded while participants viewed the paintings with each painting split into face, theme of the painting and its context regions of interest (ROIs). British participants performed the discrimination task more accurately than Chinese participants. Eye movement data were first analyzed to confirm reliable individual differences in the proportion of fixations made to ROIs, and second, for evidence of a cross-cultural influence in focus on ROIs over the time-course of viewing. The results confirmed that individual differences in the proportion of fixations made to ROIs were reliable across a subset of paintings for both British and Chinese. In the context of the present study, this finding was a precondition to explore the time-course of fixations across ROIs. With respect to the time-course of fixations across ROIs, Chinese participants focused more on the theme, and less on faces (and vice-versa for British participants), in a period starting around 2 s after the onset of viewing. Earlier in viewing there was evidence that Chinese participants had an increased focus on the context. The results (a) extend the findings reported by Trawiński, Zang, et al. (2021) on the impact of the Other Race Effect on the viewing of paintings; (b) show the time course associated with a more general cross-cultural influence on scene perception (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001)

The time-course of fixations in representational paintings: A cross-cultural study.

British and Chinese participants viewed a set of Western representational paintings (henceforth paintings) for later identification in a yes/no discrimination task. Eye movements were recorded while participants viewed the paintings with each painting split into face, theme of the painting and its context regions of interest (ROIs). British participants performed the discrimination task more accurately than Chinese participants. Eye movement data were first analyzed to confirm reliable individual differences in the proportion of fixations made to ROIs, and second, for evidence of a cross-cultural influence in focus on ROIs over the time-course of viewing. The results confirmed that individual differences in the proportion of fixations made to ROIs were reliable across a subset of paintings for both British and Chinese. In the context of the present study, this finding was a precondition to explore the time-course of fixations across ROIs. With respect to the time-course of fixations across ROIs, Chinese participants focused more on the theme, and less on faces (and vice-versa for British participants), in a period starting around 2 s after the onset of viewing. Earlier in viewing there was evidence that Chinese participants had an increased focus on the context. The results (a) extend the findings reported by Trawiński, Zang, et al. (2021) on the impact of the Other Race Effect on the viewing of paintings; (b) show the time course associated with a more general cross-cultural influence on scene perception (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001)

Visual exploration mediates the influence of personal traits on responses to artworks in an art gallery setting

The present study investigated the role of visual exploration of artworks in relation to personal traits and aesthetic responses during a visit to the TATE Liverpool gallery. Specifically, the study tested whether visual exploration mediated the influence of individual differences in personality and cognitive style on aesthetic responses. Fifty-six visitors to the gallery viewed seven artworks while their eye movements were recorded. Participants rated their aesthetic response to the artwork and wrote their thoughts and impressions about each artwork. Written reports were analysed in terms of word count and frequency of use of aesthetic descriptors. Participants completed individual difference measures, including Openness to Experience [OTE] and Need for Cognitive Closure [NFC] before viewing artworks. The results showed that (1) the duration of looking at artworks (dwell time) mediated the relationship between OTE, NFC and word count as well as the frequency of use of aesthetic descriptors, and (2) the spatial distribution of fixations mediated the relationship between both OTE and NFC and the number of words used in response to viewing artworks. The results indicate that visual exploration plays a functional role in the experience of artworks in a real gallery setting, and that visual exploration is a mechanism through which OTE and NFC influence aesthetic responses

The spectatorship of portraits by naïve beholders

The spectatorship of portraits by naïve viewers (beholders) was explored in a singleexperiment. Twenty-five participants rated their liking for 142 portraits painted by Courbet (36 paintings), Fantin-Latour (36 paintings) and Manet (70 paintings) on a 4-point Likert scale. The portraits were classified in terms of focussed versus ambiguous nature of sitter gaze and the presence of salient features in the context beyond sitters. Participants rated portraits while having their eye movements recorded. The portraits were split into regions of interest (ROIs) defined by faces, bodies and context. Participants also completed individual difference measures of attention and task focus. Results showed naïve spectatorship to be subject to attentional capture by faces. Paradoxically, the presence of salient features in the context amplified the attentional capture by faces through increasing participants liking of portraits. Attentional capture by faces was also influenced by sitter gaze and task focus. Unsurprisingly, the spectatorship of portraits by naïve beholders is dominated by faces, but the extent of this dominance is influenced by exogenous and endogenous attentional factors