How do we move in front of art? How does this relate to art experience? Linking movement, eye tracking, emotion, and evaluations in an ecologically-valid gallery setting

Embodied cognition claims that the way we move our body is central for experience. Exploring dimensions of bodily engagement should therefore also be central for understanding the experience of viewing and evaluating art. However, in both laboratory and in more ecologically-valid gallery studies, little attention has been paid to the actual ways viewers move in front of art—where they stand, how they approach or shift positions—and how this impacts their experiences. This paper aims to close this gap by demonstrating a new paradigm in a gallery-like setting, in which we tracked movements of participants that engaged an abstract artwork via infrared cameras. We also captured their viewing behavior via mobile eye tracking and collected self-reported art appraisals, cognitive and emotional phenomenal factors, as well as subjective awareness of their bodies and physical engagement. Via correlational analysis, based on a theoretical review of past literature and arguments regarding compelling movement aspects, we consider the relation of a broad range of objective and subjective movement aspects to reported art experiences. We also—for the first time—define basic, shared patterns of global movement that could be related to different art appraisals and emotional experiences employing a bottom-up statistical analysis using principal component and cluster analyses. As a proof-of-concept paper we identify the importance and explanatory advantages of our approach both for a more embodied, enactive understanding of art engagements, and as a practical guideline for future empirical aesthetics, art, and museum research.