About the talk
In 2004, Reber, Schwarz, and Winkielman proposed that aesthetic pleasure is a function of the perceiver’s processing dynamics: The more fluently perceivers can process an object, the more positive is their aesthetic response. This perspective integrates variables that have long been known to influence aesthetic judgments, such as figural goodness, figure–ground contrast, stimulus repetition, symmetry, and prototypicality, by tracing their influence to increased processing fluency. More important, it draws attention to variables that have rarely been considered determinants of aesthetic pleasure, such as knowledge accessibility, metaphorical fit, the perceiver’s processing goals, and a host of contextual influences that impact processing fluency. Recent experimental research shows that all of them influence aesthetic pleasure as predicted by a fluency account. I review what has been learned and identify issues for future research.
About the speaker
Norbert Schwarz is Provost Professor in the Department of Psychology and Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and co-founder of the USC Dornsife Mind & Society Center. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Mannheim, Germany (1980) and a “Habilitation” in psychology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany (1986). Prior to joining the University of Southern California he was the Charles Horton Cooley Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan (1993-2013), where he held positions in the Institute for Social Research, the Department of Psychology, and the Ross School of Business. He previously taught psychology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany (1981-1992) and served as Scientific Director of ZUMA (now GESIS), an interdisciplinary social science research center in Mannheim, Germany (1987-1992). Norbert Schwarz has been a recipient of numerous honors and awards, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the German National Academy of Science, the Wilhelm Wundt Medal of the German Psychological Association and the Wilhelm Wundt-William James Award of the American Psychological Foundation and European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations. His research focuses on the context sensitivity of human judgment and decision making, which he explored in different areas, including public opinion, consumer behavior, well-being, and aesthetics. His work highlights the interplay of declarative and experiential information in these domains, including the role of moods, emotions, and metacognitive experiences. His publications have been cited more than 53,000 times, with an h-index of 105.