Abstract A recent outgrowth in the burgeoning area of cognitive studies in the arts is the sub-field of empirical aesthetics. Leading research in this area tracks physical responses to the mechanisms of art and the emotions such devices elicit. In so doing, an empirical aesthetics seeks a genuinely situated psychology of artistic experience. This essay tests the design, terms, and verdicts of key studies in empirical aesthetics. It suggests that they veer into parascience by conceiving the arts primarily as sensuous stimuli and by excluding intention and subjectivity from their trials, instead of recognizing them as integral components of artistic creation and aesthetic judgment.
Edmund Goehring (Mon,) studied this question.