Comparison of Cognitive Differences of Artworks between Artist and Artistic Style Transfer

Abstract

This study explores how audiences responded to perceiving and distinguishing the paintings created by AI or human artists. The stimuli were six paintings which were completed by AI and human artists. A total of 750 subjects participated to identify which ones were completed by human artists or by AI. Results revealed that most participants could correctly distinguish between paintings made by AI or human artists and that accuracy was higher for those who used “intuition” as the criterion for judgment. The participants preferred the paintings created by human artists. Furthermore, there were big differences in the perception of the denotation and connotation of paintings between audiences of different backgrounds. The reasons for this will be analyzed in subsequent research.