Style Discrimination of Non-Art-Trained Adults: Decentration Capacity and Attention to Manipulated Visual Elements

"Research in style classification attempts to understand cognitive and perceptual abilities related to aesthetic appreciation. Due to the complexity of the analytic stimuli, artwork, research findings have conflicted on two significant issues, i.e., the dominant dimensions in style classification (or ""effecting style classification"") and training to overlook dominant dimensions in style classification. The present study attempts to reexamine these issues by investigating the responses of 130 non-art-trained adult subjects who are believed to have decentration ability, the ability to overcome the influences of the dominant dimensions when sorting artistic style. An experimental design provided two groups of subjects, the control and the experimental group, with different stimulus exemplars for a match-to-sample task. Stimuli used for both groups systematically minimized the effects of subject matter and degree of realism. Subjects in the control group perceived stimulus exemplars that were original. In the experimental group, subjects perceived stimulus exemplars in which stylistic elements were manipulated to increase relevant stylistic information. Results support three hypotheses stated in this study: (1) subject matter and degree of realism are not likely to be the most influential dimensions in style classification, and these dimensions are unlikely to have sufficient correlation with the adults' decentration ability, (2) stylistic elements are highly likely to be the most influential factors on subjects' classification abilities, and (3) training to overcome the influence of subject matter is not a necessary condition. The results of this study are inconsistent with previous research findings, except in regard to the training issue."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Music

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Ruttanachun, Narin

Contributors dc:contributor

• Thompson, Christine

• Psychology, Cognitive

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9912363

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/85861