On the musical sublime: the effects of music on the beauty and sublimity of images

Recent studies have measured the sublime and beautiful in visual images, particularly photographs (Ishizu & Zeki, 2014; Hur, Gerger, Leder, & McManus, 2018). The sublime and beautiful are also often discussed in musicology, although there is no empirical work on how these aesthetic evaluations relate to musical experiences. This research examined the aesthetics of music alone and then the influence of music on the aesthetics of images. The first study explored how mode (major key vs. minor key vs. atonal) and tempo (slow vs. fast) related to the sublime and beautiful in 6-second clips of piano music by Bach, Chopin and Schoenberg. The second study explored the relative influence of visual and auditory components on composite stimuli when the music pieces appeared with photographs. For music alone, mode was the predominant predictor, with sublimity predicted by minor keys, whereas beauty was predicted by major keys. In the combined stimuli, aesthetic valuations of both photographs and music clips predicted the overall evaluation. However, the sublimity and beauty of a composite image were influenced about three times as strongly by the visual component as by the musical component. In both conditions, sublimity and beauty were predicted by different sets of variables, suggesting that although sublimity and beauty may be related, they may ultimately operate on separate mechanisms. The results are also discussed in light of individual differences, and will consider whether some of these findings can be predicted by Big Five personality traits, masculinity-femininity, and empathy

An Empirical Aesthetics of the Sublime and Beautiful

The sublime and the beautiful are two of the oldest, most discussed categories of aesthetic experience. In their most basic of descriptions, the sublime refers to an aesthetic experience of fear and delight, and the beautiful refers to an aesthetic experie nce of pure pleasure. explores them empirically, theoretically informed by Edmund Burke’s This thesis A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1) What are the physical characteri of 1759. Three questions are asked: stics of objects considered sublime, particularly size, height, colour, brightness, and contrast in photographs, and modality, style, and tempo in piano music? (2) What are the emotional characteristics of sublime experiences, especially in relation to fea r? 1 5 and (3) What is the relationship between judgements of the sublime and beautiful in various contexts? In separate studies involving 76 8 participants, sublimity and beauty are related but separate experiences with distinct visual and auditory mechani sms. For images, although subjective sublimity and beauty ratings of images often show moderate correlations, sublimity is more influenced by presentation size than is beauty, while beauty is relatively more sensitive towards the presence of colour, and su blimity and beauty are both increased by higher presentation of images. Although subjective sublimity often correlates with subjective fear finding replicated in various studies and tasks correlates of fear meathere is no evidence that physiological sured by skin conductance responses (SCR) and faciala electromyography (fEMG) are activated at the same time as subjective sublimity. Together , these findings show that the associations of sublimity with size, height, and fear which are found in various cultures and languages, and especially in Burke’s text, of large number of stimuli and partici are realistic. Methodologically , pants makes the findings generali s the studies’ s use able, which is often not always the case in the literature of empirical aesthetics. In conclusion, sublimity is an important and separate component of aesthetic experience, beyond the mere study of beauty alone, which meri ts further study in aesthetic science

An Empirical Aesthetics of the Sublime and Beautiful

The sublime and the beautiful are two of the oldest, most discussed categories of aesthetic experience. In their most basic of descriptions, the sublime refers to an aesthetic experience of fear and delight, and the beautiful refers to an aesthetic experie nce of pure pleasure. explores them empirically, theoretically informed by Edmund Burke’s This thesis A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1) What are the physical characteri of 1759. Three questions are asked: stics of objects considered sublime, particularly size, height, colour, brightness, and contrast in photographs, and modality, style, and tempo in piano music? (2) What are the emotional characteristics of sublime experiences, especially in relation to fea r? 1 5 and (3) What is the relationship between judgements of the sublime and beautiful in various contexts? In separate studies involving 76 8 participants, sublimity and beauty are related but separate experiences with distinct visual and auditory mechani sms. For images, although subjective sublimity and beauty ratings of images often show moderate correlations, sublimity is more influenced by presentation size than is beauty, while beauty is relatively more sensitive towards the presence of colour, and su blimity and beauty are both increased by higher presentation of images. Although subjective sublimity often correlates with subjective fear finding replicated in various studies and tasks correlates of fear meathere is no evidence that physiological sured by skin conductance responses (SCR) and faciala electromyography (fEMG) are activated at the same time as subjective sublimity. Together , these findings show that the associations of sublimity with size, height, and fear which are found in various cultures and languages, and especially in Burke’s text, of large number of stimuli and partici are realistic. Methodologically , pants makes the findings generali s the studies’ s use able, which is often not always the case in the literature of empirical aesthetics. In conclusion, sublimity is an important and separate component of aesthetic experience, beyond the mere study of beauty alone, which meri ts further study in aesthetic science

The Sublime, an empirical investigation

The sublime has occupied a special space in aesthetic theory since Burke’s classic A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful of 1757, referring to a group of aesthetic experiences associated with magnitude and power. Despite recent use of the term in general psychology, there is a lack of empirical characterisation of the sublime, especially in relation to beauty. Our exploratory work addresses these issues: (1) to understand the physical characteristics of items judged as sublime, (2) to understand underlying emotional and cognitive factors of the sublime and (3) to understand the role of individual differences. Study 1 was an image rating task in which participants rated a wide range of natural images on their degree of the sublime and beauty. Study 2 was a word-association task, with words taken from a corpus of aesthetic-related and sublime-related adjectives/phrases being rated in terms of their perceived associations with the sublime and the beautiful. Results demonstrate that there are physical and psychological properties associated uniquely with the sublime, and that individual differences may play an important role. The current results provide insight into the literature of the sublime, and have implications on recent trends of emotional and environmental psychology

The Great Beauty; the effects of presentation size and height of photographs on sublimity perception

The sublime remains one of the most enduring aesthetic concepts in Western aesthetic discourse, and is portrayed often – most notably in Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful from 1759 – as an aesthetic delight that evokes emotions of fear and shock. In two studies (Ns = 32 & 39), we explored the role of three physical characteristics often attributed central to an object that elicits feelings of sublimity, namely size (large vs. small), height (high vs. central) and colour (in colour vs. in black and white), in influencing ratings of sublimity in a large number of photographs (60 stimuli in each study). We report that after controlling for by-subject and by-item variations, as well as ratings of beauty, i.e. pleasure, the increase of size and height of presented objects were associated with significant increases of their sublimity ratings. Colour, while it did not influence ratings of sublimity, influenced ratings of beauty. Based on these results, we propose the selective influence of physical presentation forms on aesthetic perception. Burke, E. (2009). A philosophical inquiry into the origins of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Oxon, UK: Routledge Classics. (Original work published 1759)

Can Fashion Aesthetics be Studied Empirically? the Preference Structure of Everyday Clothing Choices

Despite fashion being one of the most common and accessible aesthetic activities in everyday life, very few empirical studies of clothing selection and preferences exist. To address this empirical gap, an online survey of 500 participants was constructed. A four-factor preference structure, Everyday Clothing Preference Factors (ECPF), emerged, consisting of essential, comfortable, feminine, and trendy styles. Further analysis revealed the preference for each of these four factors to be associated with clothing colors and individual differences. The transferability of ECPF across three preference judgment types (clothing one likes and owns, clothing one likes but does not own, and clothing one owns but does not like) revealed the robustness of the preference structure, through which a short questionnaire version of ECPF was created. The paper concludes by discussing the implications and impact of scientifically studying fashion as an object of aesthetics and empirical study