Phases of aesthetic judgment in art perception

Background: Aesthetic judgment in visual art has often been treated as a final evaluative outcome, but the temporal process through which such judgment emerges during viewing remains insufficiently understood. Although gaze behaviour has been associated with aesthetic evaluation, it is still unclear when and how perceptual exploration becomes linked to judgment formation. Methods: We examined gaze dynamics during self-paced viewing of 12 Japanese woodblock landscape prints (Ukiyo-e) in 35 participants. Participants observed each artwork until they felt able to make an aesthetic judgment, and then reported their rating. Gaze data from the first 30 s were analysed in successive 3-s time bins using EMHMM-based gaze-state representations and distributional indices, including Hnorm, MaxP, NeffNorm, TV, and Switch. Results: In the early phase of viewing, gaze behaviour was exploratory and spatially distributed regardless of whether subsequent evaluations were high or low. Clear group differences emerged locally during the middle phase (6-12 s): viewing episodes leading to higher evaluations showed earlier reduction of uncertainty and earlier convergence of gaze-state distributions, whereas lower-evaluation episodes remained more exploratory for longer. However, these effects should be interpreted as exploratory when multiple-comparison correction is taken into account. Conclusion: These findings suggest that aesthetic judgment is not completed immediately at stimulus onset, but becomes manifest within a temporally unfolding perceptual process. The study supports a framework in which aesthetic judgment is understood as a form of decision-making emerging through the transition from exploration to convergence in gaze dynamics.