Durkin and colleagues link seeing abstract art and more abstract thinking. They report that, “In three different decision making tasks, we found that abstract art evokes a more abstract mindset than representational art. Our data suggest that abstract and representational art have differential effects on cognition…abstract art was evocative of greater psychological distance. Our data demonstrate that different levels of artistic abstraction evoke different levels of mental abstraction.”
Celia Durkin, Eileen Hartnett, Daphna Shohamy, and Eric Kandel. 2020. “An Objective Evaluation of the Beholder’s Response to Abstract and Figurative Art Based on Construal Level Theory.” PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001772117
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.