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Hawley-Dolan, A. & Winner, E. (2011). Seeing the mind behind the art: people can distinguish abstract expressionist paintings from highly similar paintings by children, chimps, monkeys, and elephants. Psychological Science, X, 1-7.
@Article{HawleydolanWinner2011,
author = {Hawley-Dolan, Angelina and Winner, Ellen},
title = {Seeing the mind behind the art: people can distinguish abstract expressionist paintings from highly similar paintings by children, chimps, moneys, and elephants},
journal = {Psychological Science},
year = {2011},
volume = {X},
pages = {1--7}
}
Author of the summary: Megan Ross, 2011, mross3@connect.carleton.ca
Cite this paper for:
- Works of art created by professionals often get mistaken for children's paintings. (p1)
- People preferred works of art generated by a computer versus a painting by Mondrian (p1)
- Works of art labeled as being from a prestigious galley are regarded more highly than images said to have been generated by a computer. (p1)
- Attribution can alter responses of judgement and preference (p2)
- People "speculate about the artist's mind-- what the artist planned and intended-- when they respond to nonrepresentational works of art." (p2)
- Preference refers to what image people liked more, and judgement refers to which image the people thought was a better work of art. (p3)
- Mentalistic: "when the skill, thinking, or intentionality of the artist was referenced." (p3)
- Nonmentalistic: "the content of the images without referencing the artist's thinking." (p3)
- "Adults untrained in the visual arts were able to distinguish abstract works by professional artists." (p5)
- Findings are "inconsistent with reports of people misidentifying paintings by children (Chittenden, 2007) or apes (Hussain, 1965) as professional artworks." (p5)
- "People see the mind behind the art." (p6)
The actual paper can be found at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/03/01/0956797611400915.short?rss=1&ssource=mfr
Evaluating skill in nonrepresentational paintings is subjective.
Works of art created by professionals have been mistaken for paintings by children. (p1)
“Paintings by chimpanzees that have been described as “great” art (Hussian, 1965).” (p1)
In a past study, computer-generated paintings were preferred over and mistaken for paintings by Mondrian (Noll, 1966). (p1)
“Abstract expressionist paintings were paired with superficially similar works by children and nonhumans (apes, monkeys, and elephants), and participants were asked which paintings they preferred (preference question; a perceptually based response) and which was better (judgment question; a cognitively based evaluative response).” (p2)
This study has the five following hypotheses:
1. In each of the three conditions, both groups of students "should choose the professional works at an above-chance level in response to both the judgment question and the preference question." (p2)
2. Professional works of art are expected to be "chosen more often in response to the judgment question than in response to the preference question." (p2)
3. Art students are expected to "choose the professional works more often in response to the judgment and preference questions, then nonart students." (p2)
4. "Labels should affect judgment more than preference." (p2)
5. A) "Mentalisitc explanations should be more common when people justify choices of professional works than when they justify choices of nonprofessional works." B) "Mentalistic explanations should also be more common for judgments than for preferences." C) "Art students should provide more mentalistic explanations than nonart students." (p2)
Participants saw three series of pairs of paintings:
Labels were expected to affect judgment more than preference. (p2)
“…both art students and nonart students should choose professional works at an above-chance level in response to both the judgment question and the preference question.” (p2)
People were expected to “see more intention and planning in works by professional artists”, which would invoke more mentalistic responses than expected in response to paintings by children and nonhumans. (p2)
The participants were 40 undergraduate psychology majors as the nonart students (11 males, 29 females; ages 18-23 years, M = 19.3) and 32 undergraduate studio-art majors as the art students (12 males, 20 females; ages 18-33 years, M = 20.3). (p2)
“Thirty paintings by abstract expressionists…were selected” and “paired with a similar painting by a child or a nonhuman.” All works of art were obtained from online databases. (p3)
Professional and non professional paintings were matched according to four attributes: colour, line quality, brushstroke, and medium. Each pair of paintings had to share at least two of the four attributes. (p3)
"As response to both questions and in all conditions, both groups chose the professional work significantly more often than would be predicated by chance." (p4)
As expected, professional works of art were chosen more often for judgments than for preferences. (p4)
Art students showed a preference to professional works more than nonart students. (p4)
"Art students provided more mentalistic responses than did nonart students" when justifying their preferences, and both groups provided a relatively equal number of mentalistic reposes to judgment questions. (p4)
It was found that "both groups gave more mentalistic justifications when they chose the professional works than when they chose the nonprofessional works." (p4)
It is most notable that even though professional works of art were not chosen 100 percent of the time, nonart students were able to "distinguish abstract works by professional artists." (p5)
The results support the hypothesis that, "compared with preferences, judgments of quality should be more responsive to perceived signs of skill: Professional works were selected more often in response to the judgment question than in response to the preference question." (p5)
"Incorrect labels failed to decrease either group's choice of the professional's work in response to either question." (p6)
"When participants preferred the professional works and judged them as better, they did so because they saw more intention, planning, and skill in these works then in those by nonprofessionals." (p6)
"People untrained in visual art see more than they realize when looked at abstract expressionist paintings." (p6)
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