Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Posters for cultural products such as theater performances aim at communicating aesthetic features of the product by their own aesthetic features. Successful communication entails a correct decoding of the aesthetic attributes of performances by poster viewers. An aesthetic communication effect was investigated in two studies, in which three attributes were rated, namely complexity, unconventionality and quality, of 37 posters and related performances. Three expectations were put to test, using multilevel modelling. First, poster judgments should correspond to an external criterion, that is, performance judgments obtained in an earlier study. Both studies showed associations between criterion judgments of complexity and unconventionality, but not of quality. Second, performance ratings produced immediately after the rating of posters should correspond to poster ratings. Results of Study 2 were entirely in line with the expectation, whereas Study 1 supported it for complexity and unconventionality but not for quality. Third, theater expertise of raters should enhance the two correspondences just mentioned. Study 2 only tested the expectation, and it failed to produce expertise differences. Some explorations of the determinants of poster quality were carried out. Taken together, the studies provide some evidence for successful communication of some “collative” properties of theater posters, but further research is needed to shed light on the communication of quality. In further research aesthetic communication may be understood as an only partially intentional form of emotional communication.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Berlyne

(1971). Aesthetics and psychobiology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Berlyne

(1974). Studies in the new experimental aesthetics. New York: Wiley.

Child

I. L.

(1969). Esthetics. In Lindzey

& Aronson

(Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 853–916). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Cupchik

, & Gebotys

R. J.

(1988). The search for meaning in art: Interpretive styles and judgments of quality. Visual Arts Research, 14, 38–50.

Dörr

Eversmann

Jonker

, & Tan

(1988). Complexity simplified. An experimental study into the reception of formal qualities of music and dance. In Sauter

(Ed.), New directions in audience research: Advances in reception and audience research (Vol. 2, pp. 97–122). Utrecht, The Netherlands: Instituut voor Theaterwetenschap Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht.

Hekkert

, & Snelders

(1995). Prototypicality as an explanatory concept in aesthetics. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 13, 149–160.

Hekkert

, & van Wieringen

P. C. W.

(1990). Complexity and prototypicality of determinants of the appraisal of cubist paintings. British Journal of Psychology, 81, 483–495.

Hochberg

(1978). Art and perception. In Carterette

E. C.

& Friedman

M. P.

(Eds), Handbook of perception (Vol. X, pp. 225–258). New York: Academic Press.

Konijn

E. A.

(2000). Spotlight on spectators: Emotions in the theatre. Discourse Processes, 28(2), 169–194.

10.

Locher

P. J.

(1995). A measure of information content of visual art stimuli for studies in experimental aesthetics. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 13, 183–191.

11.

Maas

Verhoeff

, & Ganzeboom

H. B. G.

(1990). Podiumkunsten en publiek. Een empirisch-theoretisch onderzoek naar omvang en samenstelling van het publiek van de podiumkunsten [Performing arts and audience. An empirical-theoretical study into extent and composition of the audience for the performing arts]. Rijswijk, The Netherlands: Ministerie van WVC (Ministry of Welfare, Public Health and Culture).

12.

Silvia

P. J.

(2005). What is interesting? Exploring the appraisal structure of interest. Emotion, 5(1), 89–102.

13.

Silvia

P. J.

(this issue). An introduction to multilevel modeling for research on the psychology of art and creativity.

14.

Smith

D. J.

, & Melara

R. J.

(1990). Aesthetic preference and syntactic prototypicality in music: ‘Tis the gift to be simple.’ Cognition, 34, 279–298.

15.

Tan

E. S.

(2000). Emotion, art and the humanities. In Lewis

& Haviland-Jones

J. M.

(Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd. Ed., pp. 116–136). New York: Guilford Press.

16.

Whitfield

T. W. A.

(2000). Beyond prototypicality: Toward a categorical-motivation model of aesthetics. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 18, 1–11.

17.

Winner

(1982). Invented worlds. The psychology of the arts. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Aesthetic Communication through Posters

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References