In this paper aesthetic experience is defined as an experience qualitatively different from everyday experience and similar to other exceptional states of mind. Three crucial characteristics of aesthetic experience are discussed: fascination with an aesthetic object (high arousal and attention), appraisal of the symbolic reality of an object (high cognitive engagement), and a strong feeling of unity with the object of aesthetic fascination and aesthetic appraisal. In a proposed model, two parallel levels of aesthetic information processing are proposed. On the first level two sub-levels of narrative are processed, story (theme) and symbolism (deeper meanings). The second level includes two sub-levels, perceptual associations (implicit meanings of object's physical features) and detection of compositional regularities. Two sub-levels are defined as crucial for aesthetic experience, appraisal of symbolism and compositional regularities. These sub-levels require some specific cognitive and personality dispositions, such as expertise, creative thinking, and openness to experience. Finally, feedback of emotional processing is included in our model: appraisals of everyday emotions are specified as a matter of narrative content (eg, empathy with characters), whereas the aesthetic emotion is defined as an affective evaluation in the process of symbolism appraisal or the detection of compositional regularities.

Visual illusions constitute an interesting perceptual phenomenon, but they also have an aesthetic and affective dimension. We hypothesized that the illusive nature itself causes the increased aesthetic and affective valence of illusions compared with their non-illusory counterparts. We created pairs of stimuli. One qualified as a standard visual illusion whereas the other one did not, although they were matched in as many perceptual dimensions as possible. The phenomenal quality of being an illusion had significant effects on “Aesthetic Experience” (fascinating, irresistible, exceptional, etc), “Evaluation” (pleasant, cheerful, clear, bright, etc), “Arousal” (interesting, imaginative, complex, diverse, etc), and “Regularity” (balanced, coherent, clear, realistic, etc). A subsequent multiple regression analysis suggested that Arousal was a better predictor of Aesthetic Experience than Evaluation. The findings of this study demonstrate that illusion is a phenomenal quality of the percept which has measurable aesthetic and affective valence.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the structure of experience of architectural expressiveness of architects and non-architects. Twenty architects and twenty non-architects rated twenty photographs of architectural objects on thirty expressiveness scales. Principal components analysis revealed four factors for both groups of participants: Aggressiveness, Regularity, Color and Aesthetics. In a cluster analysis two clusters of architectural objects were obtained: Choleric (high Aggressiveness and Color) and Phlegmatic (low Aggressiveness and Color, and high Regularity). All objects were highly rated on Aesthetics. Analysis of variance has shown that architects rated both clusters as less aggressive than non-architects. Also, experts rated the Phlegmatic cluster as more aesthetic, while nonexperts rated the Choleric cluster as more aesthetic. These results supported the Processing Fluency model: compared to non-architects, architects processed the expressive information of minimalistic objects (Phlegmatic cluster) with ease, which led towards positive hedonic reactions and higher.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of congruence between music and paintings on the aesthetic preference of paintings. Congruence was specified as the similarity in perceived regularity and the complexity of jazz compositions and abstract paintings (the ratings of regularity and complexity in both sets of stimuli were obtained in the pilot study). In the main experiment, 32 participants rated the aesthetic pleasantness of paintings with congruent, incongruent, and no music background. In addition, they rated the music-paintings matching (how well the music goes with the painting). The results show no effect of congruence on aesthetic pleasantness ratings. The effect on the perceived matching was significant; matching is higher in the congruent compared to the incongruent condition. These findings suggest that congruency has a strong effect on the perceptual aspect of the music-paintings compatibility (visuo-auditory similarity) and no effect on the aesthetic aspect (liking).

The purpose of the present study was to compare Serbian and Japanese participants in their subjective experience of Serbian and Japanese architectural objects. Subjective experience was operationalized through the ratings on the bipolar scales (e.g. pleasant-unpleasant). In the Preliminary study 1, a set of twelve rating scales was generated. In the Preliminary study 2 twelve Serbian and twelve Japanese architectural objects were specified. In the main experiment two groups of participants, twenty-one Serbian and twenty Japanese, rated twelve Serbian and twelve Japanese objects. A factor analysis extracted three dimensions of subjective experience: Beauty, Firmness and Fullness. Analysis of variance have shown that both Serbian and Japanese participants agreed that Japanese architectural objects looked more beautiful and firmer than Serbian objects. These finding is generally in line with perceptualist hypothesis that stimulus constraints are more effective than culture. However, interactions revealed some cultural differences that are consistent with culturalist hypothesis: compared to Serbian participants, Japanese participants rated Japanese architectural objects as more beautiful, whereas, compared to Japanese, Serbian participants rated Serbian objects as less fragile and emptier than Japanese objects. Generaly, our study have shown that Serbian (Western) and Japanese (Eastern) participants show general similarity in their subjective experience of architectural objects.