Bridging the Arts and Sciences: A Framework for the Psychology of Aesthetics

The investigation of aesthetic processing has constituted a longstanding tradition in experimental psychology, of which experimental aesthetics is the second-oldest branch. The status of this psychology of aesthetics, the science of aesthetic processing, is briefly reviewed here. Building on this heritage and drawing on a host of related scientific disciplines, a framework for a strongly interdisciplinary psychology of aesthetics is proposed. It is argued that the topic can be fruitfully approached from at least seven different perspectives, each with multiple levels of analysis: diachronia, ipsichronia, mind, body, content, person and situation. Eventually, this work may coalesce into a unified theory of aesthetic processing.