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in Figure 7 and 8. As indicated by the interaction of Aesthetic x Time, the activation by high and low aesthetic stimuli varied in time. And, the interaction of Distance x Aesthetics, as in terms of the difference in aesthetic effect at far or close distance, showed more aesthetic effect at far distance, but not at close distance.
The Verification of the Psychological Distancing Hypothesis
To verify the relationship between psychological distancing and aesthetic emotion, a comprehensive comparison was conducted separately for high and low aesthetic and yet negative stimuli at far and close distance. From the results of post hoc comparison of M. zygomaticus activation (Figure 7, 8) at far distance, there was significantly more activation to both negative and positive stimuli with pictures of high aesthetic level from t3 to t8, p<0.05. The activation pattern of the high aesthetic stimuli in 2(Emotion:
positive, negative) x 2(Distance: far, close) conditions of the present study was similar to that of Gerger et al. (2014). To verify the similarity, the only significant effect of Gerger et al. (2014) relevant to this issue was tested with our data. An independent t test between the two Distance conditions was performed for the high aesthetic negative stimuli during later period (T4~T8) (Figure 9). There was a significant difference between the two, t(42)= 9.77, p<0.001, under a stricter alpha (α = 0.001), that high aesthetic negative stimuli (M = 1.62) had a greater activation at far distance than at
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close distance (M = 0.68).
For the four Aesthetics-Distance conditions, beautiful pictures was assumed to produce aesthetic emotion when viewed at far distance. Therefore, to better understand the impact of distance on aesthetic emotion, the condition of high aesthetic but negative stimuli at far distance was compared to other conditions of negative emotion, including low aesthetic negative pictures at far distance and both high and low aesthetic but negative pictures at close distance. The same comparison was conducted for positive pictures. Please refer to Figure 10 and 11.
Figure 9. Verification of Psychological Distancing in the activation of M. zygomaticus. F = far distance. C = close distance. NB = high aesthetic but negative pictures. Cs = M. Corrugator Supercilii. Zm = M. zygomaticus. * as the independent t-test p-value of each datapoint. *as p<0.001.
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Figure 10. Comparison of the Effect of Distance in Negative Conditions. F = far distance. C = close distance.
NB = high aesthetic but negative pictures. NU = low aesthetic but negative pictures. Cs = M. Corrugator Supercilii. Zm
= M. zygomaticus. * as the independent t-test p-value at late period. *as p<0.05. ** as p<0.01.
Figure 11. Comparison of the Effect of Distance in Positive Conditions. F = far distance. C = close distance.
PB = high aesthetic but positive pictures. PU = low aesthetic but positive pictures. Cs = M. Corrugator Supercilii. Zm
= M. zygomaticus. * as the independent t-test p-value at late period. *as p<0.05.
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This comparison was made separately for the early (T1-T4) and late (T5-T8) time periods with t test analysis. In M. Corrugator Supercilii, there were significant differences in the negative pictures in both the early and late time periods, T1-T4 (t(82)
= -2.57, p<0.05), and T5-T8 (t(82) = -2.96, p<0.01). In M. zygomaticus, there were significant differences only at T7 of the negative pictures (t(82) = -2.02, p<0.05), and T5 of the positive pictures (t(82) = -2.27, p<0.05). The results indicated that with highly aesthetic but negative pictures at far distance, there was significantly lower activation of M. Corrugator Supercilii during the entire course of time, while observing higher activation of M. zygomaticus at only T7. For high aesthetic positive pictures at far distance, the only difference was the significantly higher activation of M. zygomaticus at T5. Considering that the activity of M. Corrugator Supercilii might be not the main characteristic of positive emotion in fEMG measurement, aesthetic emotion produced from high aesthetic pictures with positive and negative emotions at far distance was highly similar in pattern. This also implied that the emotional state of high aesthetic pictures at far distance was indeed different from other conditions, confirming the effect of distance on the production of aesthetic emotion. Therefore, these results could be indication that viewers would experience aesthetic emotion at a suitable to far psychological distance and were less likely to have it when viewing at a too-close distance.
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Decomposition of Aesthetic Emotion and Basic Emotion
The results were shown in Figure 12. First, a 2×2×2×9 mixed ANOVA test with Distance (Far, Close) as a between-participants factor, and Kind (Basic emotion,
Aesthetic emotion), Aesthetics (High, Low), and Time (T0-T8) as the within-participants factors was separately conducted for analyses of M. corrugator supercilii and M. zygomaticus.
Figure 12. Activation Patterns, Host Poc Comparison and Pearson’s r value of Decomposed Aesthetic Emotion and Basic emotion in M. Corrugator Supercilii and M. Zygomaticus. F = far distance. C = close distance. Cs = M. corrugator supercilii. Zm = M. zygomaticus.
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M. Corrugator Supercilii
The results of ANOVA test showed significant effects in terms of Distance, F(1,0)
= 4.65, p<0.05, Kind, F(1,0) = 17.57, p<0.01, and Time, F(8,0) = 2.28, p<0.05. The main effect of Distance showed more activation of M. Corrugator Supercilii at far distance (M = 0.65) than at close distance (M = 0.27). The main effect of Kind showed that there was more activation of basic emotion (M = 0.53) than aesthetic emotion (M
= 0.41). And, the main effect of Time showed that the activation did vary from time to time at different time points (T4(M = 0.19) > T8(M = 0.18) > T7(M = 0.18) > T6(M = 0.18) > T2(M = 0.17) > T3(M = 0.16) > T5(M = 0.11) > T1(M = 0.09) ). There was an interaction between kind and time (F(8,0) = 4.11, p<0.01 ). The interaction between Emotion and Time indicated that the response levels of different emotions varied by time and in different patterns.
M. Zygomaticus
The ANOVA test results of M. zygomaticus only showed a significant effect in Time ( F(8,0) = 4.85, p<0.01 ), when the activation did vary at different time points (T7(M
= 0.83) > T8(M = 0.67) > T6(M = 0.65) > T5(M = 0.59) > T4(M = 0.54) > T3(M = 0.51) > T2(M
= 0.35) > T1(M = 0.12) ).