An Eye-Movement Study On Defamiliarization And Aesthetic Perception

Defamiliarization is an important aesthetic concept proposed by the Russian formalist school, suggesting that the purpose of art is to stop habitualism and automatism, and to trigger aesthetic perception through extending the duration of information processing procedures. Both theoretical and empirical studies have been carried out on defamiliarization for a long time. During the recent fifty years, issues like the relationship between defamiliarization and aesthetic perception, the procedure of aesthetic perception have been paid great attention to. Also, great emphasis has been put on to the aesthetic perception of visual arts, while the beauty of language has been more or less neglected. As for the limited researches concerning with the aesthetic perception of language, two major problems remained unsolved:for one thing, there is no clear explanation for the dynamic relationship between defamiliarization and aesthetic perception. For another, the aesthetic perception of language can only be explained through a perception model of visual arts. There is seldom any empirical evidence to reveal the procedure of aesthetic perception in language.Taking all these issues into consideration, the present study takes Chinese classifiers as research materials to study the aesthetic perception of language. With the help of aesthetic judgment test and eye-movement experiment, the following questions are discussed. (1) What is the dynamic relationship between defamiliarization and aesthetic perception? (2) What are the procedures of aesthetic perception of language represented by Chinese classifier phrases?Chinese classifiers are selected as the research objects for the following reasons: classifiers contain limited categories; they are context dependent and their meanings under specific context are relatively stable, thus, they are easy to manipulate for experiment conditions. Eye-movement method is selected as the means of measurement for the following reasons:first, eye-movement experiment can provide a very natural environment for reading, which will eliminate the disturbance caused by environmental factors. Second, eye-movement parameters are both time-sensitive and spatial-sensitive, which can provide specific information for both time course and location. Besides, parameter like pupil size can provide evidences for emotional arousal. Therefore, eye-movement method is more suitable for the present study than other methods do (e.g., ERPs, fMRI).In response to the two research questions, the present study picked 37 college students as participants. A 3X2 factorial design was applied, with familiarity (ordinary/defamiliarized/novel) and concreteness (concrete/abstract) as within-subject factors. Research materials were made of 480 Chinese classifier phrases, with 360 as stimuli and 120 as fillers. Accepbility judgment was taken as the experiment task. Participants needed to read the phrases and judge whether they are acceptable, while their eye-movements were recorded. After the eye-movement experiment, participants made judgment on the defamiliarization (measured by familiarity) level and aesthetic level for all phrases tested before.Based on the analysis on the relationship between defamiliarization and aesthetic perception, also based on the analysis on aesthetic perception of Chinese classifier phrases, the present following conclusions were obtained:(1) there is a dynamic relationship between defamiliarization and aesthetic perception, which can be represented by an unsymmetrical inverted U-shaped curve. To be specific, with the increasing level of defamiliarization, in the beginning, aesthetic level rises gradually. When the level of defamiliarization reaches a middle position, aesthetic level reaches its peak. Finally, as the level of defamiliarization continues to increase, aesthetic level drops quickly. During this dynamic change, a threshold exists. The threshold value is about 4-5 on 7-point defamiliarization scale, which indicates that expressions occupying the above-middle position on defamiliarization scale are the most attractive. (2) Aesthetic perception of language can be analyzed through two dimensions:the dimension of location and the demotion of time course. As for location of aesthetic perception, it happens on the crucial element of defamiliarization. As for the time course of aesthetic perception, it happens in the late stage of information processing.The present study made two major contributions:Theoretically, the present study found a dynamic relationship between defamiliarization and aesthetic perception, which can be illustrated by an unsymmetrical inverted U-shaped curve. This curve proved Wundt’s unsymmetrical inverted U-shaped curve and modified Berlyne’s inverted U-shaped curve. Further more, the present study offered a threshold value for the dynamic relationship between defamiliarization and aesthetic perception, suggesting that expressions occupying the above-middle position on defamiliarization scale are the most attractive. Empirically, the present study found evidence for the difference between aesthetic perception of language and aesthetic perception of visual arts:aesthetic perception of visual arts starts from the very early stage of information processing in a global manner, while aesthetic perception of language happens in the late stage of information processing. Thus, empirically, the statistic results of the present study provided reliable evidences for the linear manner of aesthetic perception during language processing.