Art Perception

The Effect of Prior Viewing Position and Spatial Scale on the Viewing of Paintings

The visual inspection of scenes is disrupted when participants are forced to begin inspection away from the centre of an image. The present study explored the effect of the starting point on the visual inspection of paintings. Eye movements were …

The time-course of fixations in representational paintings. A cross-cultural study

British and Chinese participants viewed a set of Western representational paintings (henceforth paintings) for later identification in a yes/no discrimination task. Eye movements were recorded while participants viewed the paintings with each …

Visual exploration mediates the influence of personal traits on responses to artworks in an art gallery setting

The present study investigated the role of visual exploration of artworks in relation to personal traits and aesthetic responses during a visit to the TATE Liverpool gallery. Specifically, the study tested whether visual exploration mediated the …

The influence of culture on the viewing of Western and East Asian paintings

The influence of British and Chinese culture on the viewing of paintings from Western and East Asian traditions was explored in an old/new discrimination task. Accuracy data were considered alongside signal detection measures of sensitivity and bias. …

The spectatorship of portraits by naïve beholders

The spectatorship of portraits by naïve viewers (beholders) was explored in a single experiment. Twenty-five participants rated their liking for 142 portraits painted by Courbet (36 paintings), Fantin-Latour (36 paintings), and Manet (70 paintings) …

The influence of pupil alignment on spectator address in Manet’s portraiture

Participants judged 94 portraits painted by Édouard Manet (70), Gustave Courbet (12) and Henri Fantin-Latour (12) for horizontal and vertical pupil misalignment and gaze ambiguity (Experiment 1) and focal point of gaze (Experiment 2). Eye movements …

Aesthetic Experience in Museum Setting

Art for Social Change

Space Design for Well Being