When you walk through a gallery, how much does the little plaque on the wall change how you see a painting? Does knowing the background story or the artist’s technique make you like it more, and does it literally change the way your eyes move across the canvas?
In our research project exploring the neuroaesthetics of visual art, we investigated how contextual information guides both our aesthetic judgment and our visual exploration.
What We Did: Looking at Art Through the Lens of Eye Tracking
When we look at art, our visual system doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Visual aesthetics are influenced both by bottom-up visual properties (colours, lines, symmetry) and top-down cognitive context (biography, artistic intention, title).
To test this interaction, we presented participants with both abstract and figurative artworks across three distinct context levels:
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Title only
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Title + Aesthetic design context (information explaining the composition or technical elements)
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Title + Semantic context (information uncovering the deeper story, symbolism, or meaning)
Using high-precision eye tracking (featured in the SR Research Case Study: Art Appreciation and Eye Tracking), we measured gaze parameters, such as fixation durations, number of fixations, and regions of interest (ROIs), alongside subjective aesthetic appreciation ratings.
What We Found
Our findings, published in the Journal of Vision (Casteau & Smith, 2024), demonstrated a clear dissociation between art styles:
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Abstract Art Benefits Most: Providing semantic context significantly enhanced viewers’ aesthetic appreciation and led to deeper visual exploration. When abstract art lacks an obvious visual subject, background context acts as a cognitive scaffold, actively directing gaze toward meaningful areas.
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Figurative Art Tells Its Own Story: For figurative art, additional context had a much smaller impact. Because figurative works already contain recognizable objects and familiar narratives, the viewer’s visual search is largely self-explanatory and less reliant on external text.
In short: context doesn’t merely make us appreciate complex, ambiguous art more, it actively alters the path our eyes take across the canvas.
What’s Next? Expanding into Neurodiversity and Reading Profiles
Visual exploration is deeply individual, and our current line of research expands our eye-tracking work into diverse cognitive and perceptual frameworks:
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Context Modalities and Dyslexia (Emma’s MRes Project): Traditional museum interpretation leans heavily on dense, written wall labels, which can pose significant processing hurdles for readers with dyslexia. Emma is investigating how the format of contextual information (written text vs. virtual avatar vs. audio guide) affects aesthetic appreciation, gaze exploration patterns, and artwork memory specifically in dyslexic participants. Her work aims to uncover which delivery channels best support engagement and retention without introducing cognitive or visual strain.
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Art Exploration and Neurodiversity (Soazig & Dan): We are currently developing work focused on neurodiversity and aesthetics. By examining how neurodivergent viewers interact with art, we aim to understand how varying cognitive styles and oculomotor profiles shape gaze strategies and the subjective experience of beauty.
Stay tuned for upcoming updates, open-access preprints, and findings from our lab!