Aesthetic judgments of 3D arts in virtual reality and online settings

Abstract

Empirical aesthetics is beginning to branch off from conventional laboratory-based studies, leading to in-situ, immersive, often more accessible experiments. Here, we explored different types of aesthetic judgments of three-dimensional artworks in two contexts: virtual reality (VR), aiming for an immersive experience, and online settings aiming for an accessible setup for a remote audience. Following the pilot experiment conducted to select a set of 3D artworks, in the first experiment, participants freely engaged with virtual artworks via an eye-tracking-enabled VR headset and provided evaluations based on subjective measures of aesthetic experience such as ratings on liking, novelty, complexity, perceived viewing duration; and the objective viewing duration was also recorded. Results showed positive, linear, and mostly moderate correlations between liking and the other perceived judgment attributes. Supplementary eye-tracking data showed a range of viewing strategies and variation in viewing durations between participants and artworks. Results of the second experiment, adapted as a short online follow-up, showed converging evidence on correlations between the different aspects contributing to aesthetic judgments and suggested similarity of judgment strategies across contexts. In both settings, participants provided further insights via exit questionnaires. We speculate that both VR and online settings offer ecologically valid experimental contexts, create immersive visual arts experience, and enhance accessibility to cultural heritage.