Timing is everything: Dance aesthetics depend on the complexity of movement kinematics

Orlandi, Andrea; Cross, Emily S. and Orgs, Guido. 2020. Timing is everything: Dance aesthetics depend on the complexity of movement kinematics. Cognition, 205, 104446. ISSN 0010-0277 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

What constitutes a beautiful action? Research into dance aesthetics has largely focussed on subjective features like familiarity with the observed movement, but has rarely studied objective features like speed or acceleration. We manipulated the kinematic complexity of observed actions by creating dance sequences that varied in movement timing, but not in movement trajectory. Dance-naïve participants rated the dance videos on speed, effort, reproducibility, and enjoyment. Using linear mixed-effects modeling, we show that faster, more predictable movement sequences with varied velocity profiles are judged to be more effortful, less reproducible, and more aesthetically pleasing than slower sequences with more uniform velocity profiles. Accordingly, dance aesthetics depend not only on which movements are being performed but on how movements are executed and linked into sequences. The aesthetics of movement timing may apply across culturally-specific dance styles and predict both preference for and perceived difficulty of dance, consistent with information theory and effort heuristic accounts of aesthetic appreciation.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104446

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Psychology

Dates:

DateEvent
20 August 2020Accepted
12 September 2020Published Online
December 2020Published

Item ID:

29266

Date Deposited:

22 Sep 2020 10:58

Last Modified:

03 Aug 2021 15:04

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/29266

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