The impact of ambiguity in the image and title on the liking and understanding of contemporary paintings

Contemporary artists often deliberately challenge viewers employing a wide range of means that include different variants of ambiguity. In this study we focus on how inconsistencies relating to a painting's content (presence of semantic violations) and title (its semantic incoherence with what is depicted in the painting) influence aesthetic judgement, namely the liking and understanding of contemporary artworks. We also tested if personality traits relate to appreciation of ambiguous works of art and subjective understanding of paintings with semantic violations. Participants (naive viewers) viewed reproductions of paintings both with and without semantic violations in one of three conditions: with a coherent title, with an incoherent title, or without a title. We showed that need for cognitive closure was negatively correlated with aesthetic liking - but only in the case of paintings with semantic violations, and it was not correlated with understanding. Openness was positively correlated with liking and subjective understanding. In line with our hypotheses, paintings without semantic violations were subjectively understood less when equipped with incoherent, rather than coherent, titles. By contrast, the incoherence of the title did not influence the evaluation of paintings with semantic violations. Moreover, paintings with semantic violations were both liked less and understood less than paintings without violations. In sum, our results suggest the positive effect of fluency and openness to experience on the liking and understanding of contemporary paintings by naive observers.

Automated summary

The study shows that paintings with semantic violations have a negative impact on aesthetic liking, but not on understanding. Among personality traits, need for cognitive closure is negatively correlated with aesthetic liking, while openness is positively correlated with liking and subjective understanding. Incoherent titles decreased subjective understanding of paintings without semantic violations but did not affect evaluations of paintings with violations. Paintings with violations were liked and understood less than those without violations, suggesting a positive effect of fluency and openness on the liking and understanding of contemporary paintings by naive observers.