Chenxiao Guan¹ (), Yongqi Li¹, Mowei Shen¹, Hui Chen¹; ¹Zhejiang University

Beliefs influence how individuals perceive and evaluate aesthetic experiences, while aesthetic experiences can shape or reinforce beliefs. This interplay highlights the connection between cognitive and perceptual processes. While prior research often examines beliefs related to values or meanings, our study investigates how the belief of having "seen" something affects aesthetic evaluations and how robust this belief becomes once formed. In Experiment 1, participants were paired up and completed a competition task, responding quickly to artworks shown for 3s, followed by "win/lose" feedback. Later, they performed an unexpected recognition task, identifying previously seen artworks, and an aesthetic rating task for both displayed and novel artworks. Artworks were pre-balanced for initial aesthetic ratings from the Vienna Art Picture System. Results showed higher aesthetic ratings for artworks recognized as previously seen in the competition task, even if they had not been displayed. This suggests that when participants believed they had seen an artwork (even without actually having "seen" it), they gave it higher aesthetic evaluations. Experiments 2 and 3 altered the task order and introduced more competitive settings, replicating the findings. Experiment 4 extended the effect to a more general task with only single participant. To test the belief's durability, Experiment 5 separated the competition and recognition/rating tasks by 1-month duration, yet the effect remained. To examine how strong the belief is once it developed, Experiments 6 and 7 manipulated participants’ recognition or rating responses by altering the labels for the response groups and then prompted them to give re-evaluations. These manipulations failed to alter the belief, demonstrating its robustness. Our findings show that the belief of having "seen" an artwork strongly influences aesthetic evaluations, persists over time, and resists external manipulation. This research underscores the powerful role of belief in shaping aesthetic experiences and highlights its cognitive and perceptual underpinnings.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.32400854 awarded to C.G., No.32171046 awarded to H.C.), Priority-Funded Postdoctoral Research Project, Zhejiang Province (No.ZJ2023052 awarded to C.G.)