A team of Cambridge psychologists conducted an experiment to compare the cognitive (认知的) effects of merely seeing art with actively judging how beautiful it is.
In the study, 187 people were invited to visit Kettle’s Yard gallery during an exhibition of handmade clay objects. Participants were randomly divided into two groups: the “beauty” group was asked to actively consider and then rate the beauty of each object they viewed, while the control group just matched a line drawing of the object with the artwork itself. All participants were then tested on how they process information, and whether it’s in a more practical or abstract way.
Across all participants, those in the beauty group scored almost 14% higher on average than the control group in abstract thinking. While they were told the study was about cognitive processes, participants were asked about interests, with around half saying they had an artistic hobby. Among those, the effect was greater: those with an artistic hobby in the beauty group scored over 25% higher on average for abstract thinking than those with an artistic hobby in the control group.
Emotional states of participants were also measured by asking about their feelings while completing the gallery task. Across all participants, those in the beauty group reported an average of 23% higher levels of “transformative and self-transcendent feelings” — such as feeling moved, enlightened and inspired — than the control group. Importantly, however, the beauty group did not report feeling any happier than the control group, suggesting that it was the engagement with beauty that influenced abstract thinking, rather than any overall positivity from the experience.
“We usually think in very concrete terms when doing something on a screen,” said Simone Schnall, senior author of the study. “It’s becoming much rarer to zone out and just let the mind wander, but that’s when we think in ways that broaden our minds. Admiring the beauty of art may be the ideal way to initiate the abstract cognitive processes.”
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【详解】 推理判断题。根据第一段的“ A team of Cambridge psychologists conducted an experiment to compare the cognitive ( 认知的 ) effects of merely seeing art with actively judging how beautiful it is.(剑桥大学的一组心理学家进行了一项实验，旨在比较仅仅观看艺术作品与主动评判其美感所产生的认知效应。)”；第三段中的“Across all participants, those in the beauty group scored almost 14% higher on average than the control group in abstract thinking.(在所有参与者中，美感组的抽象思维平均分比对照组高出近 14%。)”以及第五段中的“Admiring the beauty of art may be the ideal way to initiate the abstract cognitive processes.(欣赏艺术之美或许是启动抽象认知过程的理想途径。)”可知，实验全程数据都体现出主动品鉴艺术美感可以提升抽象思维得分，研究者最终也证实欣赏艺术能够启动抽象认知过程，因此推断欣赏艺术之美促进抽象思维。