ArticleCognitive processing2018
Empathy, Einfühlung, and aesthetic experience: the effect of emotion contagion on appreciation of representational and abstract art using fEMG and SCR.
Article in Cognitive processing, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 89 citations in OpenAlex.
- Being moved by modern abstract art.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Semantic Representation and Emotional Awareness in Chinese Painting Viewing: Is There a Difference Between Landscape Painting and Figure Painting?Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Experiencing art together: integrating affect and semiosis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- The 7 Muses of Neuro-Creative Cycle: How some patients with Parkinson's disease can unleash latent creativity.AIMS neuroscience · 2025Article
- Empathy strengthens the effect of emotion on beauty.Research square · 2024Article
- The mediating effect of the need for cognition between aesthetic experiences and aesthetic competence in art.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Evaluations of dyadic synchrony: observers' traits influence estimation and enjoyment of synchrony in mirror-game movements.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Effectiveness of labels in digital art experience: psychophysiological and behavioral evidence.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Article
- Emotions of subject and object affect beauty differently for images and music.Journal of vision · 2023Article
- Psychophysiological and behavioral responses to descriptive labels in modern art museums.PloS one · 2023Article
- Psychological distance and user engagement in online exhibitions: Visualization of moiré patterns based on electroencephalography signals.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Beauty and Uncertainty as Transformative Factors: A Free Energy Principle Account of Aesthetic Diagnosis and Intervention in Gestalt Psychotherapy.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
- Beholders' sensorimotor engagement enhances aesthetic rating of pictorial facial expressions of pain.Psychological research · 2020Article
- "Art, Colors, and Emotions" Treatment (ACE-t): A Pilot Study on the Efficacy of an Art-Based Intervention for People With Alzheimer's Disease.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- The Aesthetic Self. The Importance of Aesthetic Taste in Music and Art for Our Perceived Identity.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Article
- Art and Psychological Well-Being: Linking the Brain to the Aesthetic Emotion.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Review
- TMS over the superior temporal sulcus affects expressivity evaluation of portraits.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2018Article
- From "Einfühlung" to empathy: exploring the relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience.Cognitive processing · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Since the advent of the concept of empathy in the scientific literature, it has been hypothesized, although not necessarily empirically verified, that empathic processes are essential to aesthetic experiences of visual art. We tested how the ability to "feel into" ("Einfühlung") emotional content-a central aspect of art empathy theories-affects the bodily responses to and the subjective judgments of representational and abstract paintings. The ability to feel into was measured by a standardized pre-survey on "emotional contagion"-the ability to pick up and mirror, or in short to "feel into", emotions, which often overlaps with higher general or interpersonal empathetic abilities. Participants evaluated the artworks on several aesthetic dimensions (liking, valence, moving, and interest), while their bodily reactions indicative of empathetic engagement (facial electromyography-EMG, and skin conductance responses-SCR) were recorded. High compared to low emotion contagion participants showed both more congruent and more intense bodily reactions (EMG and SCR) and aesthetic evaluations (higher being moved, valence, and interest) and also liked the art more. This was largely the case for both representational and abstract art, although stronger with the representational category. Our findings provide tentative evidence for recent arguments by art theorists for a close "empathic" mirroring of emotional content. We discuss this interpretation, as well as a potential tie between emotion contagion and a general increase in emotion intensity, both of which may impact, in tandem, the experience and evaluation of art.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.