Affiliation:
1. University of Belgrade
Abstract
A theoretical model is proposed, and two studies are conducted to test the hypothesis that aesthetic experiences may originate from a few basic mechanisms of affective processing related to emotion dimensions and cognitive evaluation. The results of the first study confirmed that aesthetic experience is strongly related to affective valence (pleasantness) and cognitive evaluation (familiarity) and moderately related to arousal. The results of the second study confirmed that the aesthetic experience of music can be substantially explained by the affective experience of meanings that are activated or constructed in the listener’s mind. The results indicate that people like music that activates pleasant, arousing, and familiar meanings. These results align with our proposal of a Valence, Arousal, and Cognitive evaluation (VACe) model of the aesthetic experience of music.
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