Aesthetic evaluation of body movements shaped by embodied and arts experience: Insights from behaviour and fNIRS

Aesthetic appreciation of full-body movements is likely shaped by our cumulative bodily experiences, yet most of the extant literature in this domain has focused on expertise and familiarity. We ran two experiments exploring individual differences in embodied experience and experience with the arts: In Study 1, we explored how participants' (n = 41) abilities to learn a choreography shaped their aesthetic perceptions while viewing learned vs. unknown movements, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure cortical activation over the Action Observation Network (i.e., inferior frontal gyrus [IFG], inferior parietal lobule, middle temporal gyrus [MTG]). Study 1 demonstrated that embodied experience enhanced ratings of enjoyment, familiarity, and reproducibility of movements, and that individual differences in participants' performance of the learned choreography were not associated with aesthetic ratings, but rather cortical activation in IFG and right MTG while viewing learned choreography. In Study 2, we combined the behavioural data from Study 1 with data from additional participants (total n = 141) to examine the relationship between arts experience and aesthetic perceptions of movements robustly. Study 2 revealed that previous arts and sports experience correlated with aesthetic judgements of familiarity and reproducibility of movements. Our findings highlight the relevance of examining individual experiences to fill theoretical gaps in our understanding of action aesthetics.