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New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

New Ideas in Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/newideapsych

A model of art perception, evaluation and emotion in transformative

aesthetic experience
Matthew Pelowski*, Fuminori Akiba
Nagoya University, Graduate School of Information Science, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan

a b s t r a c t

PsycINFO classification: While accounts of “aesthetic” experience inspire art study and drive its cognitive goals the
2610 current modeling of art perception, based on the analytic tradition emphasizing successful
2820 assimilation of art information, is unable to truly address this phenomenon, leaving us
2340
without means of accounting for disruption and fundamental changedeither perceptual
Keywords: or self-referentialdas well as epiphany and insight, within the experience of art; and no
Aesthetics means of addressing ’art’s ability to mark and change lives. To address this, we introduce
Emotional response a five-stage model of art-perception, organized around initial disruption and subsequent
Perceptual development meta-cognitive reflection and self-transformation, which allows for this needed discussion
Cognitive processes of perceptual and conceptual change, and a connection of art-viewing to viewer person-
Cognitive dissonance
ality. Based on this, we consider belletristic accounts of aesthetic experience, and discuss
the inter-relation of emotional, cognitive and appraisal factors that may be important for
objective research.
! 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

For centuries viewers have been struck, moved and
changed by their encounters with art, documenting
accounts of transformation and epiphany throughout art’s
history, which have come to be known collectively as
“aesthetic experience.” Proust (1981/1954, p. 48) memori-
alized a disruptive “pleasure invading [his] senses” from
a tea-soaked Madeleine. Kandinsky recorded being
“stopped short” by “an indescribably beautiful picture”dhis
own painting, on its sided“pervaded by an inner glow” (in
Weiss, 2005, p. 145). In contemporary examples, the un-
played piano in the work 4’33 by John Cage, the ‘empty’
canvases of Rothko, and Nam Jun Paik’s blank filmstrips
routinely deliver insight and “transcendence” (Belting,
2002; Pelowski, 2007). As a viewer recently wrote in a visi-
tor’s book after an experience with a Rothko (in Elkins, p.11),
adding his comment to a long tradition of meetings between
viewer and artwork, “This makes me fall down.”
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ81 90 3583 1355; fax: þ81 52 789 4800.
E-mail address: mpelowski@yahoo.com (M. Pelowski).
Freedberg (1989, p. 60) argues that it is these experi-
ences that provide art with its ongoing mystery, and
universality, throughout human anthropology. People, he
notes, are “stirred” by works of art, they “expect to be
elevated by them. They have always responded in these
ways; they still do.” These reactions can be traced
throughout diverse mediadfrom painting to music, theater
to poetry. They quickly spill beyond the gallery, offering
compelling connections between the arts and general
conceptions of enlightenment and insight. And, when we
look to the specific study of art itself, it is this phenomenon
that sits at the heart of art’s scholarship, inspiring
conceptions of what art can do, what art-viewing might
lead to; even, at its best, what art might be.
Despite differences in historical period, terminology and
objects of perception themselves, when writers describe
aesthetic experience, as Shusterman (1997; also Fenner,
1996) has argued in his review of these accounts, they
show fundamental agreement, and central emphasis on the
importance of disruption and transformation. Aesthetic
experience “breaks in upon us” (Fenner, p. 108), and serves

0732-118X/$ – see front matter ! 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2010.04.001
 Author's personal copy
M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
as a “check of our daily activities” (Ingarden, 1961, p. 300;
also Dickie, 1974). It constitutes a state of heightened
awareness (Ferree, 1968), leading to self-confrontation,
relieved tension, resolved conflicts (Crittenden, 1968),
consummation (Maslow, 1959); enlightenment
(Shusterman, 1997) and cognitive development (Dewey,
1980; Goodman in Shusterman, 1997; Petts, 2000). It is
this phenomenondwhereby we see something new,
question our conceptions and transform our world-
viewdthat provides art’s ontological (e.g., Blanchot, 1997/
1971; Danto, 1986) and social (Becker, 1982) definition.
When considered as a progression of meetings between
viewer and artist, between expectations and new art-
worksdwhat Gadamer (in Roald, 2007, p. 78) has called
a “reciprocal game”dthese experiences drive art’s history
(e.g., Dufrenne, 1973). In a recent example, the ur experi-
ence for post-modern art, an aesthetic experience had by
Danto (1992) in front of Warhol’s Brillo Box fundamentally
altered and re-defined his, and art’s, entire philosophy. And
it is assumptions about this phenomenon that determine
conceptions of how viewers should perceive art, how they
should be prepared to look at art, and how cognition of art
should be evaluated. Berlyne (1974) argued for novelty,
surprise and arousal as the goals of art interaction. “People
are looking for challenge in art,” Leder, Belke, Oeberst, and
Augustin (2004, p. 2) recently surmised for art apprecia-
tion. “Art,” Blanchot (p. 18) concluded, “and by this should
be understood the entirety of works and that which makes
each one a work of art,” and therefore aesthetic experience,
“is in essence anxiety and movement.”
It is this phenomenon, then, that begs vital questions for
psychology. How does art “break in upon us?” How do
viewers come to see something new in art? How do they
change their conceptions, deepen their evaluation and
achieve insight and epiphany? Given the historical
evidence for the ability of simple stimuli, often without
physical change, to create this outcome (e.g., Freedberg,
1989), how does this occur within the act of perception
itselfdhow do objects become “transformed” (Fenner,
1996)? How is cognition within this process tied to
emotion and evaluation? And ultimately, as argued by
Levi-Strauss (1982, p. 151; also Osborne, 1979) to be the
fundamental question, not only for art, but for human
interactions with their environmentsdhow might these
experiences of disruption, change and insight be modeled,
empirically recorded and identified “in real life?”
However, it is these very questions, and this “aesthetic
experience,” that have not been addressed, or more often
are beyond the scope of consideration, in art’s psycholog-
ical study. While inspiring the study of art, aesthetic
experience also embodies a longstanding disconnect in the
conception and modeling of art perception. When asked to
describe what is important in art, how art might affect
usdessentially, how aesthetic experience is manifest in
real lifedwe find this marked agreement among
researchers highlighting the disruptive and trans-
formational nature of the phenomenon. When asked to
explain what aesthetic experience is, and therefore how
this might be achieved, however, art philosophy, and
subsequently art’s psychology, which is largely built upon
the analytic tradition, give a quite different answer.
81
Focusing almost exclusively on a third factor mentioned in
anecdotal accounts, they posit a state of selfless, pleasur-
able and harmonious mastery, involving the successful
reception and assimilation of art information, that might be
equated to a peak moment of epiphany or insight itself.
When considered in isolation however, as has been the
practice since its Kantian inception, this “aesthetic” in
experience tends to preclude the possibility for art to mark
and transform lives.
As this has come to form the basis for the modeling of
art perception, it has led to a current approach which
presupposes successful reception and understanding at the
expense of the antecedent, and often negative, movement to
moments of insight, pleasure and conceptual or perceptual
transformation; and we are left without a means of
accounting for fundamental change within art experience.
This, in turn, has led to a flattened conception of the
experience of art itself, often divorced from a viewer’s
personal beliefs and identity, limiting our ability to divide
and order perception, as well as to explain and unite
cognitive, emotional and evaluative benchmarks. And as
Funch (1997, p. 42) has concluded, within his survey of the
present psychological analysis of art, “if appreciation of
a specific work of art really has an impact on the viewer’s
life. it would be difficult, if not impossible, to give
evidence of such influences through empirical studies.”
This paper represents our attempt to re-address this
topic. We first consider the present discussion of aesthetic
experience and modeling of art perception, discussing its
current limitations, and then introduce an alternative
approach, based on the pioneering work of John Dewey, who
argued, rather than success, that a model stressing initial
disruption, based not on analysis of specific information but
on the application of the self-image to the perception of
information, and disruption-driven meta-cognitive self
reflection and self-change, may introduce this needed
element of change into the modeling of art perception, as
well as explain how aesthetic experience itself is achieved
and how it might be recorded. We offer a five-stage model
for this process, clarifying the steps leading up to trans-
formation, and therefore calling for an expansion of many of
the current approaches to aesthetic study.
1. “Aesthetic” success and current limitations in the
modeling of art-perception
Before considering our model, it is first necessary to
consider the existing approach to art, noting what is
addressed, and more importantly, what is currently outside
of present discussion. As noted above, while the conception
of art and aesthetic experience as a disruptive/trans-
formative phenomenon represents a long tradition, the
actual conception of aesthetic experience, and the subse-
quent focus of art study, tends to focus exclusively on the
moment of “aesthetic” insight, or peak of harmonious
pleasure and contemplation itself. This can be traced to
Baumgarten’s initial founding of the field of aesthetics, and
definition of “aesthetic experience,” as the “perfection of
sensate cognition” (e.g., Osborne, 1979, p. 136), continuing
into the subsequent Kant (1978/1790) harmony of
“aesthetic judgment.” It is this harmonious state that was
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82 M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
originally linked to explanations for beauty as well as
hedonic valuedas that which is “agreeable” or that which
can be contemplated free from thoughts of utility (Walton,
1993). Often, it is this state that was given as the means of
identifying works of art, as those objects that allow
a viewer to enter, or are intended to be perceived in, this
mode of detached pleasure (Fenner, 1996). This then
extends into the analytic tradition (Beardsley, 1969; Eaton,
1995; Fenner, 1996) of “aesthetic attention,” a form of
perception in which one moves past worldly disruptions,
one’s desires, and negative emotions to a heightened state
of pleasurable scrutiny. And, it is this state, which
Shusterman (1997, p. 30) has called aesthetic experience’s
“evaluative dimension,” and this pursuit of harmonious
reception of art’s information, that has then come to form
the implicit goal for current psychological models.
Building on this tradition, current models equate art-
perception to either an emotional/empathic alignment of
viewer to artist or artwork, as in the psychoanalytic and
psycho-physical conceptions (e.g., documented by Funch,
1997; Roald, 2007); or, more recently, a cognitive ques-
tion of the assessment of an artwork’s formal or semiotic
information via the matching of perceptual schema to the
object of perception, as in Norman’s (2004) “intuitive”
understanding, Berlyne’s (1974) appraisal theory, and
recently Leder et al.’s (2004) “cognitive mastery.” Aesthetic
perception and aesthetic experience are fit into a frame
whereby, it is argued, the more successful an individual is
at “grasping the meaning” of an artwork (Leder et al., 2004,
p. 178; also Walton, 1993), or assimilating oneself to art, the
more ease with which they can perceive and the more
pleasurable or rewarding the outcome (Mitias, 1982). When
one’s perception and evaluation is sufficiently unified or
harmonious, it is then assumed, a viewer may experience
an escape from self-awareness (e.g., Ferree, 1968; Smith,
1996). And it is to these ultimate moments of success,
typified by Bullough’s “psychical distance” (see Funch,
1997), Maslow’s (1959) “peak experience” and recently
Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) “flow” stated“a special,
detached state of consciousness, in which you are aware
only of the moment, of the activity, and of the sheer
enjoyment” (Norman, 2004, p. 125)dthat writers look as
the archetypal explanation of aesthetic experience (e.g.,
Leder et al., 2004). In turn, “aesthetic” experiences, within
art-philosophy and psychology, pertaining to both
mundane art perception and transformative accounts,
become those situations where, in Leder et al.’s (2004, p.
493) words, a viewer can “classify, understand and cogni-
tively master [an] artwork successfully; ” and this becomes
the goal and basis for understanding and assessment of art.
While this approach represents essential work on an
important aspect of the experience of artdindeed, it
focuses on one of the most compelling components of
aesthetic experiencedas has long been argued against the
analytic tradition, this exclusive emphasis on informational
mastery introduces numerous limitations when applied to
the “real life” experience of art. Essentially, there is no
means of accounting for how individuals arrive at these
attunements to their environment within the act of
perception. Rather, following the philosophical focus on
assimilation via the minimization of self-awareness and
disruption, this approach presupposes moments of success,
requiring, for a viewer to meet their parameters, that he or
she employ an observational strategy or set of pre-expec-
tations sufficiently compatible with, or sufficiently
malleable so as to accommodate, a specific artwork. Look-
ing back to the qualities of aesthetic experience posited in
the introduction, scholars question how, given correspon-
dence between expectations and perception, “aesthetic”
mastery can lead to heightened awareness, novel percep-
tion (e.g., Carroll, 1986; Dickie in Petts, 2000), new
knowledge (Smith, 1996), or enlightenment (McDowell in
Petts); or how we might account for art’s ability to surprise
us or to break in upon us. In fact, with the elimination of
disruption, it is these very qualities that would also be
eliminated in the present approach. As Csikszentmihalyi
and Rochenberg-Halton (1981; also Duval & Wicklund,
1972; Smith) note, to the extent that viewer action comes
to match current models of art perception, culminating in
moments of selfless “aesthetic” harmony, art experience
itself would create no impetus to change one’s analysis or
perception because it would create no “checks” in the flow
of perception. Instead, “by providing a familiar symbolic
context [it would] reaffirm” existing conceptions and
identity (p. 187).
Even models that do account for re-assessment (e.g.,
Goodman in Shusterman, 2006; Leder et al., 2004),
different complexities of perception (Parsons, 1987), or
those that explicitly single out disruptive and trans-
formative qualities (Lasher, Carroll, & Bever, 1983), focus
exclusively on successful assessment of art’s formal infor-
mationdoften following Berlyne’s (1974, p. 6) four chan-
nels of semantic, expressive, cultural and syntactic
analysisdflattening the perception of art viewing into this
eventual assimilation without a means of considering
fundamental changes in viewer expectations or schema
themselves. By focusing exclusively on informational
assessment, the significance, or “meaning,” of an artwork
becomes implicitly located outside of the viewer, where it
can be received and assessed but is itself “fixed and
unchangeable” (Dewey, 1929, p. 23). This leaves no opening
for considering the role that self-identity plays in shaping
information, or the role that artwork plays in questioning
expectations. Rather, as noted by Müller-Freienfels (in
Funch, 1997), personal associations and, often, complete or
genuine examples of artworks themselves (see also
Berlyne), are often omitted from consideration because
they represent disturbances in the ability to generalize the
reception of information. Instead, both artwork and viewer
tend to become inert actors in this informational assess-
ment process (considered in detail by Dewey, 1951, 1980).
Because aesthetic mastery presumes the elimination of
self-reflection, there is also no means of linking aesthetic
experience to personal growth or cognitive development
(Carver, 1996). Rather these qualities too must be posited to
occur sometime after, or to have already occurred before,
the actual perception of art.
Even if we do look to this selfless harmony as the
“aesthetic” experience, distinguishing this state from
cognitive processes (e.g., discussed by Funch, 1997), we are
still left with the question of why a viewer is able to suddenly
find harmony or epiphany with a previously inert work or
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M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
what this consummation occurs in reference to. In order to
identify this state, Dewey (1980) noted, would require that
aesthetic epiphany be explained by finding an imagined
threshold for harmony. More often, this state is specifically
linked to underlying cognitive interactiondDickie (in Petts,
2000, p. 64) made this same argument from within the
analytic tradition, noting that when philosophers speak of
“detached” aesthetic appraisal, what they in fact appear to
mean is “paying attention.” Again we return to the need for
a discussion of change either in artwork or viewer, and the
disruption in perception or experience that might drive this
change. This becomes more problematic when coupled with
information-processing research, discussed below,
revealing the fundamental influence that pre-expectations
and self-protectionary filters have on what viewers are or
are not initially able to perceive. Writers question whether
selflessness is not really self-protection (Wenzel, 2005), or
how to distinguish between inattentive and attentive
perception without arbitrarily creating a “correct” meaning
for an artwork (e.g., Merleau-Ponty, 1962/1945). Without
a means of discussing the overcoming of initial expectations
and perceptual schema, there is the question of whether
“aesthetic” success, would not actually signal a “facile” or
premature reaction to art (e.g., Donoghue, 1983), marking
what Dewey (1980, p. 24) termed “a dead spot in experience
that is merely filled in.” There arises the question of whether
aesthetic experiences themselves can be measured (Fenner,
1996; Osborne, 1979; Shusterman, 1997), or can even be said
to exist (Kennick in Beardsley, 1969).
At the same time, when we do look to transformative
examples, it is the very qualities that are currently elimi-
nated from the study of art perception that might give
shape to this phenomenon. According to Tucker (2004),
viewer accounts of their experiences and of the significance
of artworks often have little to do with informational or
formal assessment, instead focusing expressly on their
cognitive and emotional experience surrounding their
interpretation, its effect on deeply held conceptions and
identity, and fundamental changes in their relation to
artworks. The 20th century work allegedly responsible for
the most aesthetic epiphanies (Elkins, 2001) for example,
the Rothko Room mentioned above, consists of an octag-
onal space and 14 black and purple rectangles that explic-
itly reject mimesis, coming to be viewed not as paintings
but as ‘just paint’. Danto’s aesthetic encounter led him to
declare the “death” of art (1992, p. 8). “If art is impossible,”
Fraser (2006, p. 42) recently wrote of an epiphanic
encounter with sculpture, composed only of string, strung
floor to ceiling, “then artists are also impossible, and I
myself am impossible.”
Freedberg (1989) has extensively documented this
consistent, yet “ignored,” “strain of antagonism” between
self-conception and artwork that underlies profound
encounters (p. 11). Levi-Strauss (e.g., 1982, p. 144) as well
as Gadamer (1984) and Dewey (1951, 1980) have gone so
far as to argue that aesthetic experience/transformation is
best understood, not in terms of what is represented, but
via what is “denied” by a specific artwork. This is reiterated
by Becker (1982, p. 204) for the basic mechanism of art,
who argued “to produce unique works of art. artists must
unlearn a little of the conventionally right way of doing
83
things” Artists, when producing art, and viewers when
perceiving, “must violate standards more or less deeply
internalized.” Leder et al. (2004) have noted that one of the
qualities of much contemporary art that makes it troubling
for both viewer and researcher is the fact that it often does
not even make use of the old tropes of beauty or mimetic
depiction in questioning standards and ideas. Instead, as
noted by Bourdieu (1984/1979) the post-modern era
demands that art be interpreted via its effect on one’s
worldview. However, while “ambiguity” is acknowledged
as an important factor in art perception (e.g., Berlyne,
1974), it is precisely this negative quality of collative
breakdown and fundamental change in the mastery
process that violates current models (e.g., Carroll, 1986;
McDowell in Petts, 2000). And again, personal relation to
stimuli and changes in viewer mode of assessment that
might explain art’s ability to “die,” or a string to question
one’s existencedand the epiphanic/self-transformative
reaction this might createdlie outside informational
consideration.
Because of this emphasis on selfless informational
mastery, emotion too tends to be entirely separated from
the cognitive consideration of art (e.g., Roald, 2007); or,
other than pleasure, which is presumed to fit into a one-to-
one relationship with assimilation (Berlyne, 1974; Funch,
1997), following the original Kantian conception of non-
cognitive “aesthetic” pleasure (Pouivet, 2000), omitted
altogether (noted by Eaton & Moore, 2002). However,
empirical studies by Russell and Milne (1997) have seri-
ously questioned this tie between basic hedonic response
and selfless assessment. Cupchik (1994) has questioned the
tie between pleasure and non-discrepant understanding.
Here too, Arnheim (1966) as well as Pouivet argue that
discussion of cognitive change, within personal relation to
an artwork, is necessary in order to create a means of dis-
cussing arousal of emotion, including pleasure (see also
Scherer, 1999). And, as might be expected from the
discussion above, when Steele, Spencer, and Lynch (1993;
also Ingram, 1990) did explore emotion and trans-
formation, outside of art, they argued for a progression of
emotions, specifically including negative affect, which
themselves may be a necessary antecedent to final
epiphany and pleasure. As is discrepancy however, these
antecedent responsesdanxiety, confusion and self-focused
attentiondare in direct opposition to current conceptions
of aesthetic and epiphanic experience (Csikszentmihalyi,
1990; Torrance, 1979).
This same limitation can be traced into the analysis of
art appraisal. Again, while there is specific acknowledge-
ment of the importance that arousal and challenge play in
coloring art assessment (Berlyne, 1974), there is no means
of considering why, in fact, viewers are aroused, surprised
or pleased by art, and therefore how self-identity and
expectations might shape our assessment of beauty and
worth. Ellsworth and Scherer (2003, p. 574) have gone so
far as to note that conscious appraisal often begins when
“something in the environment (physical, social, or mental)
changes.” However, it is this change that is outside current
discussion. Because viewer experience must inevitably
involve the resolution of uncertainty through assimilation,
there is no means of distinguishing between “agreeable”
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84 M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
art and appraisal reflecting profound encounters (e.g.,
Becker, 1982; Harrington, 2004).
Finally, this situation can be traced into the outcomes of
institutional/museum programs for art appreciation. While
championing the challenge of art, the current pedagogical
approach, following the analytic focus on assimilation,
attempts to increase selfless mastery by placing viewers in
comfortable environments and by giving them contextual
information (Haanstra, 1996; Tucker, 2004). Yet, while easy
mastery does lead viewers to feel that they “understand,” it
tends to preclude enjoyment of art experience itself (e.g.,
noted in empirical study by Leder, Carbon, & Ripsas, 2006).
Writers argue that a pedagogical emphasis on informa-
tional mastery, in tandem with the goal of the elimination
of discrepancy, may actually diminish the possibility for
insight or self-transformation (Adorno, 1984/1970;
Bersson, 1982; Dewey, 1956; Dufrenne, 1973; Tucker,
2004) As artworks themselves become increasingly more
refractory, writers argue that this may contribute to an
increasing alienation, and sense among the public that the
arts themselves have no connection to their own lives (e.g.,
argued by Bersson; Bourdieu, 1984/1979; Tucker, 2004).
This might be ascertained, as noted by Eaton (2000), by the
declining support of the National Endowment for the Arts.
This then leaves us with several key points that a model
of art experience, augmenting existing discussion, needs to
address. Specifically, there is need for consideration of 1)
how mastery or “aesthetic” epiphany/flow is achieved from
within experience itself; 2) expanding the conception of art
perception beyond informational assessment; 3) incorpo-
rating a mechanism for local growth and expectational
modification that can account for fundamental changes in
viewer perception and relationship to art, as well as 4)
accounting for the role that viewer self-identity plays in art
perception.
In this way, we may provide a means of explaining how
we might “transcend” the process of cognitive or aesthetic
mastery itself, and may provide the study of art with
a frame for the consideration of emotion and changes in
appraisal. Essentially, as noted by Tucker (2004, p. 85), this
requires a “radical change” in the basic conception of
aesthetic experience; from the peak moments of informa-
tional assimilation, to an “experience-based” discussion of
a viewer’s relation with art; focusing on the process of
arriving at new insight and transformation.
2. An alternative model of art perception and
transformative aesthetic experience
John Dewey offered the basis for such a discussion.
“Instead of denying the importance of conflict in aesthetic
experience,” he argued, “I have emphasized its indispens-
able function (1951, p. 552).” Dewey (1980) argued that it is
disruption in viewer interaction with art, and subsequently
viewer response to disruption, which both provides
a mechanism for substantial change in the experience of
art, and a means of organizing this experience. Rather than
a one-to-one match between artwork and perceptual
schema, he posited that art perception and evaluation be
organized around two distinct states: facile “recognition”
and meta-cognitive “perception.” Whereas the former
represents the successful matching of pre-expectations to
perception through the elimination of discrepancy, assim-
ilation of discrepant information into pre-existing schema,
or self-protectionary escape, the latter represents a “new
organization” of a viewer’s expectations and schema
themselves. This results from cases in which initial failure,
in the application of pre-expectations to perception, forces
a viewer out of informational mastery and induces this
meta-cognitive mode of self-reflection and self-change.
When successful, it is this linked mechanism of discrepancy
and self-change, embedded in a viewer’s personal self
image, that allows us to account for growth, novelty and
insight in art experience, and changes of kind in artworks
(Dewey, 1951; also Doll, 1972).
Because this approach is built around the overcoming of
natural strategies for the reinforcement of the self or self-
protection in the experience of discrepancy, it also gives us
a means of dividing cognition of environmental stimuli in
terms of their relation to a specific viewer’s self-identifi-
cation. Discussion of art perception becomes, not a discus-
sion of specific art information, but a discussion of how
viewers transform themselves through engaging with art.
Finally, this approach offers a means of reconciling the
three factors noted in the anecdotal description of aesthetic
experience, grounding the peak of selfless pleasure and
mastery within this cognitive progression, occurring last
and marking the consummation of this process of ante-
cedent failure and self-transformation. It is this entire
process then, wherein a viewer returns to cognitive
mastery with a new set of expectations or schema as
a direct result of their perception of art, that Dewey argued
should be considered an “aesthetic experience.” And it is
the implicit focus on disruption, whereby we look for
change before assimilation, that should provide the
essential focus for the modeling of art.
The remainder of this paper presents a cognitive model
for this process, fleshing out this conception of Dewey, and
considering a large body of existing scholarly work on its
various aspects. This model (shown as a cognitive flow
diagram in Fig. 1 and broken into a detailed description of
its stages in Table 1) serves as an extension to the current
conception of cognitive mastery, beginning with 1)
a discussion of viewer pre-expectations, self image and
perceptual schema, and then considering four phases
involving: 2) the initial application of these schema within
the cognitive mastery process; 3) subsequent attempts at
self-protectionary reconciliation or escape given the
arousal of discrepancy; 4) transformations of viewer
expectations or schema in meta-cognitive re-assessment,
culminating in 5) an “aesthetic” outcome of epiphany,
cognitive development and pleasurable harmony. While
this discussion is adapted for the specific case of objects
perceived to be “art,” this model readily applies to any
perceptual activity, and, as we discuss below, may offer
a means of equating multiple forms of transformative/
insightful experience.
2.1. Stage 1: pre-expectations and the self-image
First, before perceptual experience, viewers already
hold a set of postulates directing behavior, expectations for
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M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97 85

Self-Image
Pre-state
Classification
Cognitive Mastery
Match self-image to perception?

Yes Recognition

High Flow state

No

Confident?

Wait for more

info
Yes No

All expected info

available
Secondary
Control
Re-classify?

Yes No

Physical escape?

Yes No

Mentally withdraw?

Yes No

Behavior/
Meta-cognitive Expectations can be
changed? (give up)
reassessment

Depression No

Yes

Reassess

Aesthetic Phase/ Schema-change

New Cognitive Mastery

New Schema/Self Image

Fig. 1. Cognitive flow model of aesthetic experience.

interacting with the environment, and their likely response
to possible outcomes (e.g., Epstein, 1973). Interaction with
stimulidand interaction with “art”dentails the application
of some prior, hypothetical postulates to the reality or
scrutiny of the environment, and success or failure in
perception, as well as what individuals can perceive or
understand, are a result of this postulate system. Epstein
notes the need for self-esteem, for fulfilling needs while
avoiding disapproval and anxiety; as well as strategies for
navigating the environment, understanding and control;
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Table 1
Major stages and contextual factors in transformative model of aesthetic experience.

Physiological responsea Emotion/affecta Cognitive activityb Self-image involvementb Art evaluationb

1. Pre-encounter
2. Cognitive mastery Sympathetic arousal: if discrepancy
is present: heightened electrodermal
response/heart rate, decreased
peripheral temperature
3. Secondary control Heightened sympathetic arousal
4. Meta-cognitive Sympathetic and parasympathetic
Success: pleasure,
anticipation, excitement, tension
Failure: anxiety, tension, threat
Self-awareness, tension, anxiety,
need to leave or abort,
anger, sadness
Temporary intensification of
Semiotic or informational/
historical assessment,
attempted assimilation into
classification, assessment of
motive, evaluation
Self-focused attention,
maintain semiotic/informational
assessment. Art is meaningless
Meta-cognitive analysis of activity,
Possess hierarchical
self-image/conceptual
perceptual schema
regarding art viewing,
tie to self
Structure art perception as
self-reinforcing task, utilize
cognitive and social filters
Protect self-involvement and
“be goals”: devaluation of
artwork/context, increased
valuation of self/alternative
activities
Modify “be goals” of
Regard art as either
self-reinforcing (high
self-involvement/high
importance/potency) or
self-protectionary (low
self-involvement/
importance etc.) task
Assessment of artist motive
and subsequent meaning.
Assimilation of meaning into
class. Correspondence
between artwork and artist in
evaluation. Assessment of
meaning based on informational/
formal/historical elements. High
understanding leads to
positive assessment
Accusatory evaluation of
art/artist, devaluation of
artwork, art/artist concept or
situational context. Evaluation
of art that reduces potency,
seriousness. Negative
evaluation as bad or ugly
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Assessment arousal: increased heart rate/ tension/anxiety. Acute expectations, acknowledgement hierarchical
electrodermal response, decreased self-focused attention. and acceptance of failure, self image, resulting
Unsuccessful examination of motives, self-transformation
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finger temperature/respiration
schema-change: depression schema-change
5. Schema-change/ Parasympathetic latency Relief, pleasure, happiness, New cognitive mastery, Self evaluation as less Evaluation of artwork
Aesthetic Outcome period, tears epiphany reengage perceptual task potent meaning/artist motive in terms
of previous meta-cognitive
experience/induced
self-reflection. Positive
evaluation of artwork
as beautiful, good
a
Accumulate throughout experience.
b
Determined by stage in which experience terminates.
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Fig. 2. The hierarchical self-image (adapted from Carver, 1996).
and the need to be a part of society and to act in a non-
deviant manner. Individuals also hold a set of “funda-
mental” meanings regarding themselves, other persons,
objects or behaviors (Lawler & Thye, 1999, p. 228)di.e.,
who am I; what, in the case of meetings with artworks, is
“art,” and how does “art” relate to me. Together, these
postulates constitute an individual’s “ideal self-image”
(Carver, 1996), and the specific hierarchical arrangement of
postulates within the self-image, as in Fig. 2, drives indi-
vidual behavior.
At the highest level of importance are what Carver
(1996) termed “Be goals,” a collection of ideal traits and
concepts such as ‘be creative’ that the individual aspires to.
Be goals are pursued and reinforced through actions,
controlled by “do goals”de.g., understand artdwhich are
then subdivided into specific tasksdclassify, find meaning,
etc. The higher the level of control utilized for a task, the
more relevance to the ideal self and the greater the
potential threat to the self-image should a discrepancy
arise; while low level goals that directly link to high level
concepts are difficult to change without modifying the
higher concept. Lawler and Thye (1999, p. 228) note,
“individuals seek consistency between fundamental
meanings (i.e., that which they believe to be true), and
transient meanings (i.e., that which they experience at
a given moment).” Individuals avoid discrepant situations if
possible, actively work to escape from situations that pose
a threat to the self-image, and are more likely to attend to
information that fits their hypothetical model and rein-
forces their existing self-image (Swann & Read, 1981).
Taylor and Brown (1988, p. 201) also note the presence of “a
series of social and cognitive filters [that] make information
disproportionately positive” while “negative information
that escapes these filters is represented in as unthreatening
a manner as possible.”
In the specific case of art, while individuals for whom art
perception is tied to higher order self-relevant concepts
may have specific goals for art encounters, in most cases
art-viewing expectations are structured toward general
self-reinforcement and control (Leder et al., 2004):
knowledge acquisition and “stimulation”; involvement or
membership with a respected element of culture,
87
distinguishing oneself from ‘others’ who are not members;
and enjoyment (Goulding, 2000; Hendon, Costa, &
Rosenberg, 1989; Jansen-Verbeke & van Rekom, 1996).
These are accompanied by specific cultural expect-
ationsdthe prohibition against touching art, or against
improper actions in the museum (e.g., Goffman, 1974). It is
important to note here that, although much previous study
of art experience has noted pre-expectations in art
perception (reviewed by Leder et al., 2004), this has only
focused on “aesthetic preferences,” past knowledge about
art, level of past exposure, and cultural expectations
(Berlyne, 1974). It is this deeper tie between stimuli and
self, as well as expectations for the self in the perception of
stimuli, which forms the basis of this model, that has not
typically been included.
2.2. Stage 2: cognitive mastery and introduction of
discrepancy
Upon encountering a stimulus in the environment,
individuals make an initial identification or classification,
based upon their pre-expectations and conceptual image in
what Leder et al. (2004) recently called the process of
“cognitive mastery”. Because they have extensively docu-
mented this, we will only refer to specific elements
important to this model. Once a classification is made,
given an “art” situation, viewers make an attributional
inference regarding the basic motive or purpose behind the
object (Gilbert, McNulty, Giuliano, & Benson, 1992).
Humans are preconditioned to employ this perceived
motive in order to assess an artwork’s meaning (Bloom &
Markson, 1998; From, 1971/1953; Gelman & Ebeling,
1998; Parsons, 1987), which is then used to structure
interaction, evaluation and re-evaluation. However, again,
motive is not specifically necessary when considering this
mechanism itselfdone could just as well substitute the
framing question, ‘why is this here?’ (e.g., From; Norman,
2004). Once classification and mode of evaluation are set,
the viewer attempts to locate and combine all information
in order to form one coherent meaning, matching the initial
classification/motive, and then may attempt to formulate
an appropriate evaluative or physical response.
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88 M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
According to Leder et al. (2004), mastery is a circular
process, reflecting Gadamer’s (discussed in Parsons, 1987)
notion of the accumulation and understanding of parts in
terms of a projected sense of the hypothetical whole, and
revising the latter in the light of an investigation of the
parts. This assumes a temporal nature. “There [is]
a successive cyclic interpretation check after each new
piece of syntactic structure is built” (Ferreira, Christianson,
& Hollingworth, 2001, p. 14). Importantly for this discus-
sion, this cyclicality within the cognitive mastery stage
implies that, barring perfect receptivity, there will always
be discrepanciesdinformation that does not fit the present
classification or motive; elements that do not readily
combine. Conceptually speaking, any novel element, to the
extent that it is perceived, is prima facie a ‘discrepancy’.
Discrepancies may also arise between perceived informa-
tion and its relevance to the self or to other important
concepts, or between one’s actions or response and one’s
expectations for action etc. In each case, as noted by
Festinger (1957), discrepancy involves two cognitions, one
involving one’s hypothetical model, the other involving
actual behavior or perception.
Typically, in the case of informational discrepancy,
resolution is possible from within the cognitive mastery
processdeither through ignoring the discrepancy or
through assimilation into a classification (Festinger, 1957).
If individuals are confident that a discrepancy can be
overcome, or will soon be explained, they will wait and
attempt to take in more information in order to achieve
clarification (Goethals & Cooper, 1975). In art situations,
Bloom and Markson (1998) note that viewers afford
a certain leeway to an artist. Parsons (1987, p. 74) adds, “the
thought of the artist’s intentions allows us to believe that [a
work] has a subjective meaning even when we cannot
grasp what it is,” encouraging viewers to persist when
otherwise they might be tempted to move on. As argued
above, researchers typically view this process of mutual
reinforcement and assimilation itself as the archetypal
conception of art-evaluation (e.g., reviewed historically by
Berlyne, 1974, p. 9; Haworth in Mitias, 1982). Gadamer
concludes that it has as its goal the “achieving of a unity of
sense: an interpretation of the whole (in Parsons, p. 81).”
And Leder et al. (2004, p. 493) add, “it is this entire process
that we call an aesthetic experience.” Particular mastery
may even induce pleasurable flow-type states
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
However as this occurs from within the process of
informational evaluation itself, it is essentially an act of
circularity, requiring a viewer to expand his/her classifica-
tion or break off perception rather than modify pre-
expectations to accept a discrepant element. Viewers may
of course be bemused by art, pleasantly stimulated, or find
a work beautifuldaccounting for a great majority of art
interactionsdhowever, if we restrict our analysis of art
perception to only this stage, it is essentially an act of what
Rothbaum, Weisz, and Snyder (1982) call “changing the
world,” so that current ideals and expectations might be
preserved. In fact, successful assimilation reinforces the
existing self-schema (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). While it
becomes suspect to the criticisms laid out above, typified
by the conundrum Ingarden (1961) made explicit by
noting, given information that is discrepantdor from
another perspective, perception that is ‘imper-
fect’dassimilation requires that we ignore some informa-
tion that might disrupt our experience. Frazier and Clifton
(1998) note that the cognitive mastery process follows
the “Minimal Revisions Principle” maintaining as much of
the initial classification as possible. Viewers spend more
time attending to the earliest information in an encounter
(Morgan & Schwalbe, 1990). In situations of contradictory
initial and subsequent information, initial information is
given more value; and viewers often fail to correct an initial
classification given new evidence (Gilbert et al., 1992;
Greenwald, 1980). The longer that a subject has success-
fully employed an initial classification before discrepancy,
the less likely they are to change (Ferreira et al., 2001); and
as adults, viewers become progressively less able to
abandon existing schema and classifications when
perceiving novel objects (Gutheil, Bloom, Valderrama, &
Freedman, 2004). When this process of assimilation is
connected to the selective pre-filtering of information
mentioned above, Dewey’s notion of the difference
between recognition and perception becomes pertinent. In
order to accommodate new information that does not fit
one’s present self-image, viewers must work against this
gradient of self-protection that would diminish or dismiss
the novel in perception; and following the argument laid
out by Becker (1982) above, it might be said that much art is
specifically designed to accomplish this.
2.3. Stage 3: secondary control and escape
When discrepancy cannot be assimilated or ignored,
while it appears that no subsequent information will resolve
the discrepancy and an individual is confident that they
have not made a mistake, we move to the next phase of
interaction. Steele et al. (1993) note that at this point
discrepancies appear as such to the individual, self-protec-
tion, as opposed to self-reinforcement, begins to play an
overt role, and elements such as tension and anxiety become
prevalent. This also entails a switch from “lower order and
often unconscious” perception to a “higher order process
involving conscious assessment” and greater cognitive
involvement.
Interaction becomes a balancing act between elements
involving the self-image. According to Folkman, Lazarus,
Dunkel-Schetter, DeLongis, and Gruen (1986, p. 1000), the
subject has “appraised [the] encounter as having to be
accepted,” yet acceptance would impact the self negatively.
In order to escape discrepancy, the individual must alter
one of the two cognitions so that the relative impact on the
self is lessoned (Bem, 1967; Festinger, 1957). Viewers are
left with a choice between the importance of maintaining
a sense of control and mastery and the relative importance
of the object, task or contextual elements. Because
contextual factors are not typically important to the self-
image, while motor control and action expectations do
impact comparatively higher “do goals” regarding efficacy
and ability, viewers discard or diminish the environment.
In so doing they preserve the integrity of their own, failed,
interaction. However this does not lead to a confrontation
of the self that might result in a true resolution. This phase
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M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
represents what Rothbaum et al. (1982) call “secondary
control,” the attempt to covertly change the conditions of
the environment so that a discrepancy can ultimately be
assimilated or ignored.
First, viewers attempt re-classification. In the case of
man-made stimuli, From (1971/1953; Norman, 2004) notes
that this often utilizes the existence of motive, taking an
accusatory tonedthe artwork is a bad or meaningless
example, i.e., the artist made a mistake, and therefore there
is no need for interpretation. A viewer may also misat-
tribute discrepancy to an uncontrollable external sour-
cednatural phenomena, divine intervention, “an
insurmountable task, chance, or a powerful other”
(Rothbaum et al., 1982, p. 8)dthereby absolving him/
herself from culpability. From (p. 122) concludes that it is
only in rare cases that the viewer is not able to adequately
assign blame to an external source and fully escape from
the proceeding involvement. It is only in cases where “we
participate in such a manner that our personal status is
affected,” where negative reclassification “is of importance
to our self-esteem.” Failing re-classification, viewers
attempt escape. Physically, they may leave the situation,
block out dissonant stimuli, or undertake action shifting
attention away from the dissonant cognitiondclap, fidget,
talk to one’s neighbor (Rothbaum et al.). Individuals next
attempt to escape mentally (e.g., Steele et al., 1993). Roth-
baum et al. (p. 10) label this act “cognitive withdrawal,”
which can be accomplished by raising the relative impor-
tance of the individual’s ideal-selfdfocusing on other
positive self qualities not impacted by the discrepancy (e.g.,
Hill & Martin, 1997)dor lowering the importance of the
discrepant eventdi.e., “it’s only art” (From). These
outcomes result in Dewey’s (1980, p. 52) second form of
“recognition,” “perception arrested at the point where it
will serve some other purpose”dthe self is protected at the
expense of the artwork.
2.4. Stage 4: meta-cognitive re-assessment
When assimilation and subsequent escape mechanisms
are unsuccessful or are bypassed, however, and viewers
become trapped in an intractable situation where the
abortive alteration of either discrepant cognition is not
possibledone can neither escape from perception nor
change its repercussionsdviewers may instead enter into
a period of active experiential and expectational re-
assessment. This event is often accompanied, or preceded,
by acute self-focused attention (Steele et al., 1993), which
appears to serve as a catalyst for inducing an outcome in
discrepant encounters. While self-focused attention forces
subjects who anticipate doing poorly to abort (Ingram,
1990; Steenbarger & Aderman, 1979), through reclassifica-
tion and escape, it induces individuals who cannot abort to
revisit and revise their expectations (Duval & Wicklund,
1972; Greenwald, 1980; Steenbarger & Aderman, 1979).
Self-focus leads to the feeling of “increased submissive-
ness” and “individuation,” causes the individual to “focus
attention on personal limitations and to increase perceived
uncontrollability” (Rothbaum et al., 1982, p. 23), increases
negative affect and anxiety (Mor & Winquist, 2002); and
induces expectational re-assessment (Ingram, 1990).
89
Efran and Spangler (1979; also Miceli & Castalfranchi,
2003) note that this movement is often aided by an
external “trigger”da formal climax (discussed in Frey &
Langseth, 1985; Sloboda, 1991), a mirror, camera, audi-
ence, or the sound of ones own voice (Rothbaum et al.,
1982); even a painting ‘watching you’ (Duval & Wicklund,
1972)dthat consummates an irresolvable conflict or
induces this self-awareness. Dissonant events may also
slowly wear a viewer down over a length of time.
Rothbaum et al. (1982, p.28) note, “when the obstacle and
the resulting failure are salient and of lengthy duration.
individuals’ resources are depleted and they are forced to
give up.”
It is viewers in this position that we can attach to
a discussion of transformation. In order to resolve this
position, viewers must reframe their own involvement
with the problem situation, seeking, what Torrance (1979,
p. 182) has called a “second-order change” whereby they
“look outside” the problem to “the system” itself. This
occurs through viewers switching to a meta-cognitive
approach to their interpretation: acknowledging discrep-
ancy, revisiting their previous expectations or perceptual/
conceptual schema, and eventually discarding or changing
these schema or “do goals” themselvesdoften, essentially
“giving up” their attempt at direct control (Miceli &
Castalfranchi, 2003). Thereby viewers alter their own
hierarchical self-image, achieving a relative “self-trans-
formation” (Rothbaum et al., 1982).
2.5. Stage 5: aesthetic outcome and new mastery
It is this schema change or self-transformation that we
can then reunite to the current conception of aesthetic
experience. As noted by Duval and Wicklund (1972) this
change allows a viewer to reset their interaction and re-
engage with a stimuli, employing a new set of schema that
may then allow renewed/deepened cognitive mastery (e.g.,
Sarason, Pierce, & Sarason 1996), and the ability to attend to
or understand previously discrepant elements (Dewey in
Petts, 2000). This successful completion of schema change
is also explicitly tied in the literature to epiphanic emotions
associated with aesthetic experience da feeling of
“cathartic” release, epiphany, enlightenment, harmony,
pleasure and, often, tears (Efran & Spangler, 1979; Frijda,
1988; Labott & Martin, 1988; Miceli & Castalfranchi, 2003;
Vingerhoets, Van Geleuken, Van Tilburg, & Van Heck,
1997). It is also within the latency period following
schema-change that viewers may return to a harmonious/
selfless contemplation of these new elements or the
physical qualities of a stimuli that allowed for their
preceding experience (e.g., Dewey, 1980). And therefore it is
this outcome, brought about through previous discrepancy
and schema-change, that Dewey (1950, p. 56) termed the
“aesthetic phase” of experience.
3. Art-perception and aesthetic experience
reconsidered via disruption and transformation
Returning to the psychological/philosophical discussion
of art, it is this progression through disruption, to meta-
cognitive reflection, acceptance and self-change, rather
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90 M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
than assimilation or escape, that introduces a vital element
of distinction in art experience. Adorno (1984/1970, p. 25)
put this best when he argued that aesthetic experience,
or enlightenment through art involves “the individual
effect[ing] his identification with art not by assimilating the
work of art to himself,” as would occur in the initial
cognitive mastery and secondary control stages, “but by
assimilating himself to the work.” By introducing a means
of breaking from the mastery process, through the intro-
duction of meta-cognitive assessment and schema-change,
and then re-engaging in final mastery/assimilation with
a new set of schema/expectations, we introduce a means of
explaining the transcendental quality of artdreflecting
a relative adjustment in a viewer’s self-image or relation-
ship to the worlddas well as a means of connecting the
existing conception of mastery to insight, novelty and
personal growth.
This then also offers a means of explaining the arousal of
“aesthetic” harmony, pleasure and emotion itself. While
this model may end with mastery and aesthetic emotions,
these responses are explicitly connected to this antecedent
cognitive progression of discrepancy, overcoming self-
protectionary strategies and achieving self-transformation.
In this way, this final “aesthetic phase,” of experience, is
given grounding and purpose. Rather than being champ-
ioned for its own intrinsic value or the pleasure it entails,
these emotions become “signs. that point to a cognitive or
psychological reorganization” (Efran & Spangler, p. 68), or
as noted by Bohart (1980, p. 199), “sign[s] that one is
allowing oneself to actively experience and perceive.” In
turn, as Dewey argued, it is as much this antecedent
disruption, as well as subsequent self-reflection, as it is final
harmony and pleasure, that should be regarded as an
“aesthetic experience” and should be considered when
examining the perception of art. However, it is these
antecedent stages that are typically overlooked.
When we return to literary examples, however, we can
trace this process. Danto’s account of transformation
through viewing Warhol’s Brillo Box, for example, details
a discrepancy between his pre-expectations and percep-
tion, self-reflection and self-change. He recalls that he,
a philosopher interested in the ontological meaning of art,
was confronted with an artwork designed as an exact copy
of a commercial shipping container for soap, leaving him
(1992, p. 3) “struck by the question of how it was possible”
for the Brillo Box to be a work of art. He recalled that this
placed him in the intractable position noted in this model,
where either the work was not art, which, because it was
placed in an art gallery, called into question the very exis-
tence of art itself; or it was art, but, because it was designed
to not be beautiful or meaningful, was un-interpretable.
This in turn challenged his previous philosophical basis for
interpreting art (his “do goals”), and therefore his self-
identity as a philosopher. His aesthetic experience came
when he realized that it was his own expectations for the
interpretability of art itself that were incorrect, and that
this in fact was the intention of the artist; leading to
epiphany and the famous “death” of artworks, as he had
known them.
Also recalled that many of his colleagues did not make it
past the “secondary control” stage when confronted by this
discrepancy, choosing instead to protect their own self-
identities. “The [gallery] director. felt absolutely betrayed
by the Brillo Box. She hated them. she was livid at the
opening.” “People laughed. An artist friend of mine wrote
SHIT across the guest book.” They “were clearly not ready
for [an artwork] which put no premium whatever on the
romantic. imperatives that defined painting.”
The epiphanic response to the works of Rothko follows
a similar progression. According to Nodelman (1997, p.
333), the paintings, monumental black and purple color
fields representative of mid-twentieth century abstract
expressionism, are “cunningly designed to incite” the
attempt at direct mimetic interpretationdbegging viewers
to find a message or meaning from the artistd“while at the
same time rendering it untenable.” Elkins (2001, p. 11)
continues, viewers are forced into a turning point, “the
moment when they have seen everything they can, and
they sense its time to look away.” It is viewers who do not
flee at this point who are likely to have a moving experi-
ence. This in turn comes to fit into this model’s description
of meta-cognitive reflection. “Frustrated and thrown back
to yourself,” Nodelman (p. 330) argues, “you become the
center of the room. You think about your conduct, your
body.” The art “forces disturbing questions about the
nature of the self and its relation to the world.” One realizes
that the real is only “a system of signs constructed
continuously by and for the viewer” (p. 342). And this self-
confrontation and meta-cognitive assessment induces an
expectational change in the viewer, who “may emerge on
a new plateau” of understanding where “the experiential
structure of the installation [itself] is transformed.” “Rothko
makes a “transcendental promise,” Dutoit and Bersani (in
Elkins, p. 16) conclude, “but he breaks it and gives us
ourselves.”
It is by considering this tie to self-image, and the meta-
cognitive nature of viewer assessment in the schema-
change process, that we can account for these fundamental
changes in a viewer’s relation to stimuli; and explain the
“negative” quality of aesthetic transformation. The re-
assessment process may often explicitly take on a negative
tone, deeply tied to the defeat of a viewer’s personal
expectationsd“what did I expect?”; “what am I doing?”
However, in all cases, schema-change requires a viewer to
“give up” a previous, personally important, expectation or
desire for action (Miceli & Castalfranchi, 2003). The
resulting transformation, in turn, creates a fundamental
change in the viewer’s relation to the stimuli; a switch from
positive informational analysis, or direct attempt to control
their situation, to essentially an aniconic assessment of
their own, “failed,” participation with art. This in turn
reunites the outcome of art perception to the specific
qualities of an artwork itself, which, by questioning vital
elements of a viewer’s self-image, creates the opportunity
for this self-reflection; and, when a viewer is able to ach-
ieve self adjustment, may be evaluated expressly for its
ability to provide this enlightenment. Much like Rothko
above, Belting (2002, p. 391) notes of the epiphanic
response to the empty films of Nam Jun Paik and the silent
piano of John Cage, the artists “devised zones of silence as
zones of freedom where the audience was expected to
become creative in the face of nothing.”
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M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
This however, should not be thought of as a recent
development, or a new kind of interaction, but rather can
be traced throughout art experiences. Rollins (2004, p. 182)
notes that this response is fundamental to paintings that
are often tied to conceptions of beauty and mimesis. He
offered as an example Monet’s painting Springtime through
the branches, arguing that it represented leaves so that it is
impossible to combine them together in order to resolve
their depth, leading to a forced, and eventually pleasurable,
re-assessment of the “way the visual system ordinarily
works.” This can also occur via discrepancy between what
is mimetically depicted in art and its relevance to a viewer.
Magherini (1989; also Elkins, 2001) has documented
numerous intense responses to pre-modern works,
involving for example a discrepant relation between
a “repressed” gay male viewer, a troublingly titular Rubens
painting of a young man, and transformative confrontation
of the viewer’s self-expectations. As she concluded, while
“different people have strong reactions to the same works
of art,” response ultimately comes down to “the [viewer’s]
history and personal experience” (in Elkins, p. 47), and self-
adjustments therein.
In his empirical studies of music, Sloboda (1991, p. 120)
notes this same mechanism, arguing that emotional or
aesthetic responses are linked to “creation and violation of
expectancy. within musical structures.” In opera, Poizat
(1992/1986) notes that aesthetic emotions occur when
viewers “dimly sense that the singer is trying to free
themselves from the prison of words. at the point when
a voice has almost made it, but gives out” (in Elkins, 2001, p.
146) forcing a viewer to give up their prior expectation.
Burch-Brown (1983, p. 122) argues that transformational or
epiphanic experience from reading poetry results from
a “metaphoric process” that alters one’s expectations in
such a way as to engage and change their “whole self.”
This process can also be traced in accounts that corre-
spond directly to the classical conception of aesthetic
experience. Cases of extremely resonant stim-
ulidexperiences beauty or harmony (e.g., documented by
Elkins, 2001)dor “sublime,” overwhelming natural
phenomena, when considered in the broadened viewpoint
of this model, are often marked by discrepancy between
one’s expectations for understanding the significance of
what they have perceived and their actual response. Elkins
(p. 20) argues that, while the examples above are “painfully
vacant,” these cases are “overfull”. Miceli and Castalfranchi
(2003, p. 260) add, viewers experience a “sense of contrast
between one’s experience. and one’s perceived ‘small-
ness’, ordinariness, and imperfection. together with one’s
helpless need to comprehend and express the whole
experience.” “Viewers see more [,or experience more,] than
they expect” (Elkins, p. 20). And, again, it is self-awareness,
acceptance, and final forfeiture of one’s expectations for
control that leads to pleasure and epiphany. As Frijda (1988,
p. 351) concludes, these instances result from meta-
cognitive “awareness of [one’s] state of action readiness”
and, ultimately, “some change” in one’s expectations for
this state. Koestler (in Frey & Langseth, 1985, p. 92) adds;
these experiences too are always “self-transcending.”
Viewers may also be presented with a powerful stim-
ulus in a situation, such as a museum, where an overt
91
action is socially discouraged (e.g., Lutz, 1999; Vingerhoets
et al., 1997). Art history recounts these responses indicative
of “secondary control”: the desire to clap or yell (Elkins,
2001), the need to “do something with itdto run through
it, or eat it, or tear it apart (Beckley & Shapiro, 2001, p.
360).” The inability to do so, because of social constraints, is
deeply dissonant, and giving up this need or accepting the
impossibility of a correct response leads to intense emotion
(Elkins, 2001; Goffman, 1974; Magherini, 1989). In these
cases, the particular discrepant cognitions in the model for
arriving at an “aesthetic phase” concern not the evaluation
of the artwork itself, but the evaluation of one’s response
while perceiving the artwork. However the progression
from primary to secondary control to acceptance remains
fundamentally the same.
While each account, and the specific combination of
events that conspire to create transformation and the
specific relevance of this outcome to a viewer are of course
different in each case, this model gives us a means of
considering these elements via this underlying progres-
sion, and a key elementdthis self or schema changedthat
unites them. This allows us to expand this model beyond
art, providing a basic mechanism for self-transformations
in the relation to environmental stimuli, without need for
a definition of “artworks”. This also draws together both
man-made and natural stimulidi.e., those with an absence
or presence of perceived underlying intentionalitydas well
as objects not intended to be art. Again, as was discussed
above, objects that are perceived as “artworks” certainly
invite a set of pre-expectations that play an important role
in information processing, and may determine the specific
means of escape in secondary control, however, the basic
mechanism of self-change itself remains the same. As noted
above, great deal of 20th century art, notably the Brillo Box,
created disruption and reflection in viewers by presenting
objects not intended to look like “art.” More recently,
exhibitions, such as the 1998 Guggenheim exhibition of
Harley Davidson motorcycles, created disruption and
reflection through the appropriation, into the “art” context,
of objects expressly not intended to be art. And with post-
modernism and performance art, “artists” have moved past
even this trope, using design to question elements of life
having nothing to do with “art” at all. We would argue, it is
this procession, regardless of the specific stimuli, that
writers implicitly refer to when speaking of ”challenge” of
art. And it is art’s ability to act, in whatever form, as an
impetus of this process, again, that is given as the historical
basis and definition of art itself (Becker, 1982).
In turn, Dewey (1929, 1956) explicitly argued for
a fundamental equivalence between artworks and educa-
tional materials, and for basic equivalence between this
conception of “aesthetic experience” and everyday acts of
growth and insight. And this model can be readily con-
nected to numerous such conceptions. Gadamer (1984, p.
317), writing of knowledge acquisition, much like Dewey,
noted two types of experience: an initial facile interaction
with the environment that “fit[s] in with our expectation
and confirm[s] it,” and “real” experience “[whereby] we
gain through it better knowledge, not only of itself, but of
what we thought we knew before.” This is reiterated by
Heidegger in his notion of “destructive hermeneutics,”
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92 M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
requiring for the discovery of something new, that the
“traditional interpretive instrument breaks down” and an
individual be forced to evaluate their schema for “being in
the world” (Spanos, 1993, p. 55). Torrance (1979), in his
review of insight and “aha moments” in education, notes
this same process of antecedent disruption and decon-
struction of initial schema and ideas leading to meta-
cognitive reflection and acquisition of new knowledge.
This model can also be connected to conceptions of
transformative experience in religion or spiritual contexts.
Notably, James (1958) description of religious experience
noted“to get to it, a critical point must usually be passed,
a corner turned within one. Something must give way,”
explicitly linking this progression to negative emotions,
a “change in terms of the old self” and a final feeling of
“conversion” (pp. 169–175). This “negative” nature of reli-
gious transformation is reiterated by Kierkegaard (in
Spanos, 1993). Stoudenmire (1971, p. 254) adds that the
initial contradiction of one’s religious beliefs elicits
“significantly more emotion” than expectational affirma-
tion. And the phenomenon of “satori” or enlightenment in
Zen Buddhism explicitly follows this failure-based
progression. Suzuki (1950, p. 87; also Torrance, 1979) notes
that “a psychological impasse” and a “highly wrought-up
state of consciousness” are “the necessary antecedent of
satori.” Sogen Hori (2000) adds that Zen masters, playing
the role of artist, and using the religious context of
Buddhism as their medium, violate the basic rules of
interaction, creating a discrepancy between students’
expectations and their perception, inducing reassessment,
schema-change and epiphany.
This then suggests a potential universal nature to these
accounts, able to explain the equivalence of small acts of
insight and “big” aesthetic experiences. Essentially, as
Carver (1996; also Festinger, 1957) has argued, regardless of
what the specific stimuli and means of arousing discrep-
ancy are, the more fundamental an affected schema or
concept is to the core self-image, the greater the magnitude
of potential dissonance, the greater the difficulty in over-
coming self protection, and therefore the greater the final
transformation of the hierarchical self; and the more
profound the experience.
We might even connect this process to shocking events
such as war, natural disaster or the World Trade Center
tragedy.1 Virilio and Lotringer (2002) note that, while for
many, overwhelming violence and its aftermath constitute
a simply horrifying experience, for some, these events,
what Virilio (p. 147) called “negative historical monu-
ments,” act, just as artworks, as a “rite of passage,”
becoming “the means by which you connect creatively to
the world” or “touch base with reality” itself (p. 9). This is of
course not to champion the transformative potential of
disaster, but to equate it, as one more potential stimuli, in
this basic mechanism of disruption and change.
This reiterates one more important note about this
model’s discussion, connecting back to the educational
1
These examples were raised in the peer review of this paper.
However, the specific interpretation of these examples is that of the
authors.
discussion in the introduction. Following the typical
conception of the arts as affording detached moments of
contemplation, we are lead to assume that the role that art
might play in human existence is as a form of “rehearsal,”
with the consequences of interaction somehow removed
from a viewer’s real life. It is assumed that “aesthetic”
interaction fits into this cognitive mastery process where
viewers test their conceptions and seek challenge, being
careful not to go too far so as to find themselves in an
intractable position. And the idea of “aesthetic” evaluation,
as detached analysis of an object’s informational qualities,
itself informs this conception. This paper, however, argues
just the opposite. Truly detached “aesthetic” contempla-
tion, as noted above, would signal a self-defense/rein-
forcement mechanism, allowing a viewer to escape
personal involvement with their environmentdleading to
the discomfort of many writers when this conception of
aesthetics is extrapolated to the ‘aestheticization’ of war
and tragedy (e.g., Arendt, 1958). This, however, exemplifies
the basic disconnect with the current approach to art,
where despite the effort of artworks to force intractable
disruption, it is this process that is dissuaded by the focus
on physical/mimetic evaluation. Jagodzinski (1981, p. 29)
makes this explicit when he laments; “by fiat, new art
forms are critical and reflective of existence” [demanding]
“please don’t relax and have an aesthetic experience.”
However, what this paper calls for is an entirely
different conception of aesthetic experience, equated to
cognitive schema-change rather than a particular manner
of perception, because such labels become meaningless as
they shade into other psychological/contextual disciplines.
In turn, this expressly requires a viewer/artwork to over-
come the human instinct of escape or assimilation through
surface evaluation or self-withdrawal and instead enter an
intractable position whereby one might use their own
disruptive encounter as a means of self-reflection and
transformation, and therefore come to believe or see
something new, as well as feel pleasure, epiphany and
harmony.
Finally, while there are examples of art experience that
do seem to break suddenly upon viewers (see
Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), their distinction from the above
accounts highlights this important cognitive distinction.
Without this process of disruption, reflection and meta-
cognitive change, in which a viewer is able to process their
experience and make it a part of their life, these events do
not contain a cognitive resolution, they do not change
future behaviordsave for possibly motivating a viewer to
try again to duplicate the feeling. They do not include
a component of self-modification and leave the viewer
without any understanding of the significance of the
preceding event (e.g., Carver, 1996; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990;
Smith, 1996). These accounts often appear to be the result
of the application of a classification that is so broad, or
flawed, so as to allow for wonderment and contemplation;
and examples from the arts often suggest that the viewer
entered the experience in an already altered state of fatigue
or dreams, returning to question of facile assimilation.
Often they share a sense of lost opportunity. Kandinsky
lamented that he tried to recreate his impression and “only
half succeeded” (Weiss, 2005, p. 145). Proust (1981/1954, p.
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M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
48) diminished his madeleine experience, summing up the
problems with “isolated, detached” moments of success,
“with no suggestion of origin”d“Whence did it come?
What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?”
4. Factors for empirical study: interrelation between
emotion, appraisal and viewer experience through the
stages of aesthetic experience
Whether talking of peak accounts or the basic mecha-
nism of change in art perception, this then leaves one final
question for this paperdthe empirical study of this process.
As noted above, if we focus only on the peak conclusion of
epiphany or assimilation of art information, we are left with
no means of assessing art experience other than pleasure or
formal assessment. And as Osborne (1979) notes, there is
probably then no individual measure that could determine
the occurrence of an “aesthetic” experience.
However, if we approach art perception not as a distinct
moment of assessment, but rather, following the discussion
of this paper, as a progression of stages whereby the viewer
matches and adjusts their self-schema against an artwork,
we can connect a great deal of existing work on the various
stages discussed herein. By using this model as a frame, and
introducing this process of self-change, we can then
introduce a means of considering the interrelation of
emotion, appraisal, understanding and viewer self-
conception through each stage of this model. By consid-
ering the elements most likely to arise throughout an
experience culminating in this schema-change (detailed in
Table 1), we can then propose a means of identifying this
outcome and making a distinction from facile acts of
assimilation or abortive secondary control. While it is
certainly true that schema-change itself may occur over
a long period of time, involving multiple stimuli, because of
the distinct nature of most meetings with art, we can argue
that this full progression might be looked for in a specific
encounter.
5. Art evaluation and assessment of meaning
This model posits three general outcomes to art view-
ingdinitial self-reinforcing mastery, abortive self-protec-
tionary escape in secondary control, and final “aesthetic”
meta-cognitive schema-change. When looking at the
evaluation of art and the assessment of meaning, we would
expect to track an evolution in viewer understanding
through these stages within a distinct art encounter:
beginning with 1) direct evaluation of art in the cognitive
mastery stage, involving appraisals of the formal elements
of an artwork such as those qualities noted by Berlyne
(1974)dits semiotic or conceptual meaning, its historical
or cultural significance, as well as syntactic and expressive
qualities transmitted via the art form. Given discrepancy
that cannot be assimilated, this should then be followed by
2) a period of meaninglessness and loss of understanding of
artist motive in the secondary control stage; concluding
with 3) a fundamental shift in assessment from the infor-
mational plane to a meta-cognitive mode of “experiential”
interpretation. In the case of plastic arts, viewers may
revise their analysis of the artwork’s significance, deciding
93
that that the artist’s intention for the artwork, rather than
transmitting signs, may have been the creation of the
viewer’s preceding experience itself. For example, Danto
(1992), when assessing the meaning of the Brillo Box
surmised that what it was “about” was its ability to ques-
tion his attempt to answer that very question. The
descriptions of Rollins (2004) and Fraser (2006) above offer
similar examples. It is this personalized, experience-based
interpretation of art that Dewey (1980) and Tucker (2004)
argue constitutes the goal of a deepened art experience.
And it is this form of interpretation that Bourdieu (1984/
1979) claims is expressly demanded by post-modern and
much contemporary art.
This progression might be assessed by having viewers
keep a log of their interactions with an artwork, or asking
viewers to walk a researcher through their interaction after
the fact, as in the work by Roald (2007), looking for these
changes. Alternatively, Pelowski (2007) has asked viewers
to describe the “meaning” of an artwork, as well as the
“artist’s motive,” after a viewing experience, assessing their
answer via these three stages. We are essentially then
calling for an analysis of art perception, if at all possible, in
a “natural” setting, in which a viewer is allowed to interact,
without intrusion, with a complete work of art. From (1971/
1953), and Bloom and Markson (1998), on the other hand,
have explored this isolated progression in the laboratory,
presenting viewers with an artwork or stimuli and then
purposefully introduced a discrepancy, typically by calling
into question the existence of artist motive or a work’s
classification as a meaningful object, tracking viewer
response through these stages.
It is also important to note that this final experiential
assessment proposed as the end-state of a transformative
outcome should not be confused with what Leder et al.
(2004) have described as self-related interpretation, refer-
ring to a form of art assessment often equated with facile
understanding. While the latter involves assessment of
formal qualities in relation to existing schema that a viewer
may holddi.e., “that character looks like my cousin”dthe
experiential interpretation reflects the viewer’s own art
experience itself and the role the artwork plays in this
experience.
6. Appraisal and self-conception
When looking to appraisal of art, again, much useful
work has been done which might be applied to this
discussion; specifically, the work of Berlyne (1974), Vitz
(reviewed in Funch, 1997), or approaches considered by
Scherer (1999), which consider a multivariate analysis of
appraisal terms. As these authors note, following the initial
work of Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum (1961), who also
applied this analysis to art, appraisal typically can be
divided into the three factors of an evaluative or hedonic
response, as well as evaluations of potency and activity.
While much work has gone toward the consideration of,
predominantly hedonic, factors in aesthetic experi-
encedspecifically the tie between complexity or challenge
posed by art and hedonic value/beauty, relation between
understanding and positive or negative hedonic evaluation,
and the agreeable “collative” application of art to one’s self
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94 M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
in the assimilation process (e.g., Berlyne)dthere has not
been consideration of the underlying role that self-image,
and threats to this self, play in determining viewer
response to, and assessment of, art (e.g., Scherer). Nor has
there been a consideration of assessment following major
changes in viewer relationship to artworks.
When we return to the three stages proposed for viewer
interaction moving to schema-change, it is this role of
self-protection, self-reinforcement, and final self-trans-
formation that might give further shape to many assess-
ments of art appraisal. Evaluation ending in initial cognitive
mastery, according to Garfinkel (1967) and Goffman (1974),
should likely reveal appraisals that aid in ignoring or
assimilating discrepancy, thereby aiding self-reinforce-
ment, diminishing the potential threat to the individual by
reducing art’s potential meaningfulness and importance
(also Rothbaum et al., 1982). We might expect these low-
ered measures in baseline evaluation of the general cate-
gory of “art”. When experience ends in the secondary
control stage, on the other hand, we would expect self-
protectionary strategies to play an important role in
appraisal. This might be revealed through an analysis of
terms corresponding to potency or activity. Carroll (1959, p.
113) notes that these factors of appraisal suggest
a measurement of the amount of adjustment that “must be
made” to a stimulus. Berlyne (1974) too has noted the
ability of these regions to measure “collative uncertainty”
or tension between pre-expectations and perception in art
assessment. We would expect a correlation between
secondary control and negative evaluations in these scales,
reducing the “need” for evaluation from an individual and
therefore reducing the threat art plays to the self. Viewers
may also evaluate the artist in equally negative terms,
reflecting the accusatory or dismissive tone noted above by
From (1971/1953). Matched pre and post testing may also
show a re-evaluation of general categories of art and artist
reflecting this lowered importance and potency. In addi-
tion, Becker (1974, p. 773; also Harrington, 2004), adds, an
“attack” on the self, “becomes an attack on the aesthetic
related to it,” and for viewers who end with escape, we
expect a negative hedonic evaluation of the artwork as
“distasteful,” “ugly” and bad. Finally, with schema-change,
the work may be again evaluated positively, as evaluation
moves from self-protectionary impotence and lack of seri-
ousness to evaluations revealing heightened potency
(Becker, 1982), affecting both specific artwork and re-
evaluation of the general category of art. In this way, as
noted by Bourdieu (1984/1979) this final schema-change
with a specific artwork may also create a deepened rela-
tionship between viewer and the category of art itself.
This of course, leaves many questions for future study,
such as the relation that this model proposes between
impotence of artworks, negative hedonic assessment and
threat to the self, or potency and positive assessment of
beauty and worth given “aesthetic” outcome. This also
raises the question of possible differences between initial
assessments of beauty or hedonic evaluation and that
following a schema-change. While it is generally assumed
that initial assimilation or understanding of art results in
reward/relief and therefore positive assessment (e.g.,
Berlyne, 1974), recent studies by Russell and Milne (1997),
as well as Cupchik (1994), have questioned this assump-
tion, suggesting that initial difficulty may instead lead to
a deepened hedonic response. This in turn may be tied to
this epiphanic/schema-change progression proposed
herein, suggesting that the final stage in this model may
result in a more profound hedonic appraisal. By tying
appraisal to the other factors of evaluation and emotion, we
might shed light on this distinction. These proposed
changes in viewer evaluation of artist and “art,” which may
represent either self-protection or self-transformation, also
call for future exploration.
Miceli and Castalfranchi (2003) also argue that this
progression from secondary control to schema-change
should manifest in re-evaluation of a viewer’s own self-
image, revealing, in the case of the transformation posited
in this model, increased personal impotence as a viewer
acknowledges discrepancy and gives up attempts at
control. This might be assessed by issuing matched pre-
and post-tests evaluating a viewer self-image following
Osgood et al. (1961). Bem (1967) notes that changes in self
appraisal using multivariate analysis may prove a ready
indicator of this cognitive self transformation.
7. Emotion, physiological response and experiential
factors
Finally, a review of literature on the major cognitive
elements of this modeldcognitive dissonance studies,
secondary control and schema changedalso offers a means
of ordering and incorporating numerous emotions and
physiognomic responses, as well as specific experiential
factors, to this discussion.
Discrepancy in the cognitive mastery stage should
correspond physiologically to sympathetic arousal of the
autonomic nervous system (Frey & Langseth, 1985; Gross,
Fredrickson, & Levenson, 1994). Whereas successful assim-
ilation of discrepancy results in a “positive” feeling of
“anticipation or excitement,” unsuccessful assimilation
results in confusion, anxiety and tension (Epstein, 1973), as
well as loss, failure and threat (Efran & Spangler, 1979).
Movement to secondary control results in heightened
tension, anxiety and professed desire to leave or abort an
interaction (Steele et al., 1993). Viewers may note elements
tied to self-awarenessdawareness of others, feeling of being
watched, awareness of one’s body and actions. And for those
who do not escape, but continue on to the meta-cognitive
re-assessment, we should find a switch from outward
“subjective awareness” to inward “self-awareness” (Duval &
Wicklund, 1972), and specific awareness of “triggering”
elements, marking a distinction between these stages.
Schema-change itself, then, appears to temporarily
intensify the preceding tension and emotion (e.g., Miceli &
Castalfranchi, 2003). The moment of schema change
appears to result in both sympathetic and parasympathetic
response. Gross et al. (1994, p. 466) conclude, “it may be
precisely this coordinated activation of parasympathetic
and sympathetic [response] that makes [it] such a potent
physiological state.” This is accompanied by meta-cognitive
analysis of the previous activity, analysis of one’s motives,
changing one’s mind; and reported epiphany. As the indi-
vidual moves past the height of schema change into
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M. Pelowski, F. Akiba / New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 80–97
a period of latency, parasympathetic response is expected,
as is reported relief, happiness and pleasure (Efran &
Spangler, 1979; Labott & Martin, 1988; Miceli &
Castalfranchi, 2003). This outcome may also be accompa-
nied by tears, which, according to Frey and Langseth (1985),
represent a physical indicator of schematic change. Martin
and Labott (1991) also note a correlation between this final
aesthetic emotion/tears and superior recall of the
preceding experience. Physiological factors might be
measured by galvanic skin response, following Ram-
achandran and Hirstein (in Leder et al., 2004). In turn,
emotional/experiential factors might be assessed by ques-
tionnaire or through interviews (e.g., Pelowski, 2007;
Roald, 2007).
8. Specific combination of factors in empirical study
of aesthetic experience
When we consider the above elements in combination
(Table 1), following the underlying progression to schema-
change discussed herein, we can begin to organize art-
experience based upon the combination of factors reported.
Viewer experiences of emotion and experiential factors
should reflect their historical movement through each
subsequent stage of this model, while art appraisal, self-
evaluation and understanding should show a correlation
with the stage at which experience ends. When looking to
the transformative outcome, we can argue that those
viewers who do achieve schema-change should report this
entire progression of experiential terms, including: anxiety,
tension and confusion from failed cognitive mastery, self-
awareness and meta-cognitive re-assessment, as well as
happiness, relief, tears and epiphany, which may serve as
a central marker of transformation. Viewers may also report
specific changes, reflecting lowered personal potency, in
their own self-image, and increased importance and
potency in art. Epiphany and schema-change should be tied
to a movement from direct informational evaluation to an
experiential evaluation of art, as well as final assessments of
beauty and quality. As argued above, this makes an explicit
tie between emotion and cognitive appraisal/evaluation,
and a natural progression to emotions themselves. In addi-
tion, following Steele et al. (1993), the antecedent emotions
of anxiety, confusion, as well as self-focused attention,
become important elements of both an art encounter and
final, often selfless, aesthetic epiphany. Cupchik and
Gebotys (1988) too have suggested the importance of
discrepancy and the overcoming of disruption as a vital
component of insight and mastery of art. However, this
model provides a frame for understanding this process.
When we talk of a unique art encounter, Arnheim (1966) has
given the rough estimate of 10 min necessary for this
complete progression.
On the other hand, viewers who show discrepancy,
anxiety and confusion but lack this full progression, should
show negative appraisals, reflecting the influence of abor-
tive self-protection. They should remain on the informa-
tional plane of assessment, or evaluate art as meaningless.
In addition they should not report self-focused attention or
epiphanic emotions, and should show no self-trans-
formation. While those who lack discrepancy, although
95
their experience may include pleasure and “mastery,” too
should lack important factors in this full pro-
gressiondspecifically, self-focus and expectational change.
Just as this cognitive progression underlying this progres-
sion is argued to be universal, so too should be these
appraisals and emotions in each stage. As Ellsworth and
Scherer (2003, p. 584) have argued, the relationship
between these factors, considering their tie to self-protection,
“is culturally general, perhaps even universal.”
9. General conclusion
This paper argued for an alternate approach to the
traditional conception of aesthetic experience, and the
current modeling of art perception. Instead of initial
assimilation of viewer to artwork, and an exclusive analysis
of art’s formal information, we argued that a model focused
on discrepancy, and subsequent processes of overcoming
discrepancy through meta-cognitive analysis and expecta-
tional or schema change may allow us to account for those
disruptive and transformative aesthetic experiences in art’s
history. In addition, we argue that this basic mechanism for
schema change itself should not be thought of as mystical
or once in a lifetime event, although when it involves
fundamental aspects of the self it certainly can be, but
rather may be an everyday occurrence. This in turn calls for
much future work considering the aspects raised by this
model.
Essentially, this calls for a broadening of what we
consider to constitute an aesthetic experience itself, and
what researchers include in their study of art perception. It
may be that what is considered to constitute cognitive
mastery in the present conception is actual deepened
mastery following this model proposed herein, where
a viewer, in a single encounter with art, both leaves the
mastery process due to failure, and returns with a new
means of addressing, and new relationship to, the artwork
itself. This in turn calls for a renewed focus on the rela-
tionship between viewer and artwork. By dealing with this
combination in terms of viewer processes for self-protec-
tion rather than the specific meaning of art, this model may
provide a means of generalizing and discussing this
phenomenon. Ultimately, the most fruitful question may
become, what environmental and psychological combina-
tions allow viewers to move beyond assimilation/escape to
this aesthetic outcome, and how can this be enhanced?
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