Making Sense With Art Together: Integrating Affect and Semiosis

Art is ubiquitous in our lives, and its experience and understanding are deeply emotional. Dewey (1934) suggested that all human experience, including art experiences, emerges from active engagement with the environment. In this view, affect and interpretation are interconnected processes that unfold together. To examine the integration of these processes, this interdisciplinary study used a multi-method approach. Eighteen dyads of adult participants took part in the study. They were instructed to each bring an art object that was meaningful to them. During the experiment participants engaged in an audio-visually recorded, semi-structured conversation, reflecting on both art objects. They also answered pre- and post-questionnaires on their emotions. The sense-making process was coded in terms of four strategies, namely: perception, imagination, conceptualisation, and analysis (van Heusden, 2015). Affect in sense-making was measured through self-reported valence and arousal of emotions, and sentiment analysis of the conversation. The results showed that dyadic interactions led to significant changes, at the group level, in participants’ self-reported affect toward the other’s art object. An Exploratory Graph Analysis revealed unique weighted networks of sentiment for each strategy. Additionally, a Multinomial Log-linear Model demonstrated that affect and strategies work in tandem during the sense-making process, to predict perceived affect.