Applying Bodily Sensation Maps To Art-Elicited Emotions: An Explorative Study

Art is well-known for its emotional effects on perceivers. These emotions consist of physical reactions to the artwork, felt in various regions of the body, as well as an articulation of subjective feelings towards it (cf. Cupchik, 2016). The current study is the first to apply Bodily Sensation Maps (BSMs, Nummenmaa et al., 2014) in encounters with new media visual art.
Through a web survey, 90 participants viewed 36 figurative artworks. Upon displaying each artwork, participants were asked (1) to indicate on two body silhouettes where they felt strong and weak activity (respectively called ‘activations’ and ‘deactivations’); (2) to select, if appropriate, up to two primary emotional words (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, or surprise), and (3) to rate the intensity of these subjective feeling(s) on a continuous scale.
A combination of two primary emotional words was interpreted as complex emotions. Bittersweetness, delight, despair, and repugnance were the complex emotions that occurred the most during the study.
Results showed activations in the body were overall reported more than deactivations, possibly suggesting they are perceived in a more accessible and extensive fashion by the viewers. More specifically, activations at the head area represent a common feature in every emotion-specific BSM regardless of the artworks’ subject, whether depicting human figures or non-human contents (food, landscapes, and monsters). The present research found BSMs as a helpful methodology to provide insights into the nature of art-elicited emotions, particularly to investigate bodily sensations of subjective feelings of simple and complex emotions in visual art engagement.