A prototypical emotion associated with art is feeling “moved.”  Something changes in our cognitive and probably physiological systems.  We come away with a different understanding. Art offers the opportunity to experience our own positive and negative reactions through the filter of personal safety in the absence of goal directed motivation or threat to coping potential. It also cultivates viewers’ abilities to integrate positive and negative emotions elicited by an artwork with the enjoyment of its perceptual qualities or higher-level meaning.

We hypothesize that an important factor in aestethic experience is empathic resonance – that is, feeling in one’s own body emotions, sensations, and movements depicted or otherwise represented by the artist. To test for changes in empathic resonance when an individual feels moved versus indifferent with respect to a piece of art, we record and analyze wireless electroencephalographic (EEG, 24 channels) and electrocardiographic (ECG) data, as well as gaze points, as healthy adults explore diverse paintings on view at the San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA).  After the data recording session, participants revisit the same pieces of art and for each one, rate the degree to which a range of aesthetic emotions are evoked, encompassing both high and low arousal states, as well as positive and negative valence.