IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0248529.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beauty and the busy mind: Occupied working memory resources impair aesthetic experiences in everyday life

Author

Listed:
  • Rosalie Weigand
  • Thomas Jacobsen

Abstract

Aesthetic experiences have been distinguished from other experiences based on an aesthetic mode of processing that often entails concentrating working memory resources on the aesthetic stimulus. Since working memory is a limited-capacity system, there should be a trade-off between available resources and the aesthetic experience. To test whether the intensity of the aesthetic experience is reduced if working memory resources are otherwise occupied, we employed an experience sampling method. One hundred and fifteen undergraduate students (45% female; Mage = 23.50 years, SD = 2.72 years) participated in a 2-week experience sampling study and furnished a total of 15,047 reports of their aesthetic experiences. As measures of current working memory resources, participants answered questions regarding their current working memory load and whether they were engaged in a second task. In addition, they reported whether they had had an aesthetic experience and how much they had savored the aesthetic experience. Multilevel modeling was used for data analysis. A higher working memory load was associated with fewer aesthetic experiences and reduced the savoring of aesthetic experiences. Second tasks, however, that were perceived as demanding and requiring a lot of concentration enhanced the savoring of aesthetic experiences. In sum, other goal-oriented behavior that requires working memory resources appears to conflict with aesthetic experiences in everyday life.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosalie Weigand & Thomas Jacobsen, 2021. "Beauty and the busy mind: Occupied working memory resources impair aesthetic experiences in everyday life," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-15, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0248529
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248529
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0248529
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0248529&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0248529?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. María Luisa Martínez-Martí & María José Hernández-Lloreda & María Dolores Avia, 2016. "Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence: Relationship with Personality, Prosociality and Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(6), pages 2613-2634, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0248529. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.