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The Thinking-I and the Being-I in Psychology of the ArtsGerald C. CupchikPublished online: 08 Jun 2010.

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Creativity Research Journal 1999, Vol. 12, NO. 3, 165-173

Copyright 1999 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

The Thinking-I and the Being-I in Psychology of the Arts

Gerald C . Cupchik University of Toronto

ABSTRAC? The thinking-I and being-] are comple- mentary facets of aesthetic creativity and reception. The thinking-1 encompasses perception, cognition, and re- flection, whereas the being-I includes representation, unconscious dynamic processes, and transcendence. An intellectual appreciation ofart requires attention to sensory processes that embody style as well as an at- tempt to develop a coherent understanding of the sub- ject matter of the work, visual or literary, and to relate it to various contexts including the world of the artist or author. In relation to the self; an artistic or literaly work can explicitly represent signijkant personal meaning and implicitly embody unconscious meanings. An un- derstanding of these explicit and implicit meaningspro- vides a basis for transcendence or personal growth.

There are two complementary facets to aesthetic cre- ativity and reception: thinking about the work and relat- ing the work to the self. From the viewpoint of creativ- ity, thinking involves the application of techniques and ideas that (a) organize the subject matter and style of art, literary works, and so on, and (b) make them acces- sible to a community of recipients. When artists trans- form traditional rules or codes that govern the creative process, they challenge recipients who may not appre- ciate the origins of these changes. In terms of aesthetic appreciation, thinking about a work involves an effort to discern its structure, interpret its meaning, and un- derstand the context within which it was created. The burden of originality is, therefore, shared by the artist, who generates a novel system of organization, and the recipient, who must have sufficient patience to decode it. Formalist schools, such as New Criticism in litera- ture (Brooks, 1947), maintain that works can be ana- lyzed in objective terms like objects of scientific in- quiry and that expert knowledge of these formal codes can be transmitted to recipients.

The being-I, or the self, attaches emotional and per- sonal meaning to the subject matter of the work and to the stylistic frame that surrounds it. Thus, sentimental art is accompanied by idealization and simplification of form (Winston, 1992), whereas expressionist art uses jamng colors and harsh outline to echo an ironic mes- sage. The ways that personal meanings are transformed and embodied in creative works has been a concern of the psychodynamic perspective (Ehrenzweig, 1967; Kris, 1952). These themes and their stylistic expression may spontaneously resonate with the emotions and per- sonal experiences of recipients, sometimes engaging them and at othertimes repelling them. The interpretive role ofthe self in literary criticism is emphasized by pro- ponents of the reader response viewpoint, who under- score the authorial role of individuals and communities in an effort after meaning (Fish, 1980; Holland, 1975) and, in the visual arts, by proponents of a social constructivist view of art appreciation (see Bryson, 1983).

At least three stages of processing are encompassed by the thinking-I: perception, cognition, and reflection. Perception engages sensory experiences involved with and evoked by the work either in the act of creation or reception, whereas cognition focuses on properties of the subject matter and style in an "effort after mean- ing" (Bartlett, 1932/1995), and reflection considers the work in various contexts, either within the work itself

This article is based on my presidential address to Division 10 of the American Psychological Association, Psychology and the Arts, Au- gust 1997.

Manuscript received January 29, 1998; revision received March 3, 1998; accepted May 31, 1998.

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Gerald C. Cupchik, University of Toronto at Scarborough, Scarborough, On- tario, Canada MI C 1 A4. E-mail: cupchik@lake.scar.utoronto.ca.

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and relevant previous works, or in relation to the cre- ator and the era. The being-I also becomes involved in at least thee ways that bridge the gap between recipi- ent and work of art, literature, and so on: representa- tion, projection, and transcendence. A work of art, literature, drama, and so on, may be experienced as ex- plicitly representing personal meanings, values, and experiences or those of others. It can also implicitly embody unconscious meanings, as when we project hopes and fears onto characters and events. The cre- ative act can be transcendent for an artist or author to the extent that previously unarticulated meanings and feelings gain expression. In the case of the recipient, reflecting on acts of representation or projection pro- vides an important vehicle for encountering the self and, therefore, for transcendence and personal growth.

Rudolf Arnheim's (1969) book, Visual Thinking, established a broad framework within which to con- sider a cognitive approach to visual aesthetics:

My contention is that the cognitive operations called thinking are not the privilege of mental processes above and beyond perception but the essential ingredients of perception itself. I am refening to such operations as active exploration, selec- tion, grasping of essentials, simplification, abstraction, anal- ysis and synthesis, completion, correction, comparison, prob- lem solving, as well as combining, separating, putting in context. . . . By "cognitive" I mean all mental operations in- volved in the receiving, storing and processing of informa- tion: sensory perception, memory, thinking, learning. (p. 13)

Perception

In the linear or sequential approach characteristic of the British empiricist tradition (see Boring, 1950), the sensory elements of perception lay a foundation for subsequent cognitive analysis and higher order reflec- tion. Psychologists who adopt this bottom-up approach have variously characterized elementary physical-sen- sory cues (the stuff of perception) in terms of edges (Hubel & Weisel, 1962), color, brightness, line ends, tilt, curvature (Treisman, 1985), elongated blobs (Julesz, 1981), and convex shapes or "geons" (Biederman, 1987). The brain is deemed as hardwired to detect these elementary properties out of which local

features of meaningful symbols are formed. The goal of everyday perception is to find potentially useful ob- jects that help people fulfill goals (Berlyne, 1971) and, accordingly, these elementary properties are "dis- carded" on route to object identification (Lockhart, Craik, & Jacoby, 1976).

Aesthetic activity, on the other hand, is intrinsi- cally motivated (Berlyne, 197 l), valuing the process and artifact in and of itself. The physical-sensory qualities of perception can be structured so as to cre- ate visual effects (style) as well as symbolic represen- tations of objects and events (subject matter). For this reason, Moles (1 95 811 968) described aesthetic per- ception as hierarchically organized, encompassing both style (syntactic information) and subject matter (semantic information). These two levels of organiza- tion have been consistently found in multidimen- sional scaling studies involving pairwise similarity judgments of paintings. The fundamental dimension is hard-edged versus soft-edged (comparable to the linear vs. painterly art styles described by Wolfflin, 191511950) with degree of representation or fig- ure-ground separation as the second dimension (Avital & Cupchik, 1998; Berlyne & Ogilvie, 1974; Cupchik, 1974; 07Hare, 1976).

The gestalt tradition has offered a different way of conceptualizing perceptual processes. Rather than thinking like British empiricists in terms of sensation preceding cognition, a global versus local distinction is proposed. Thus, holistic processing lays a founda- tion for subsequent local analysis of specific pieces of information (see Arnheim, 1986). This distinction became acceptable to mainstream cognitivists through Neisser's (1 966) notions of preattentive and focal attentive processing. By combining the two tra- ditions, we arrive at the idea that physical-sensory qualities can be globally processed. In fact, viewers can discern structural properties, such as the relative complexity of a visual pattern or painting, within 50 msec, which permits just a single glance and requires holistic perception (Cupchik & Berlyne, 1979). Ac- cording to a gestalt analysis, "expression is an inher- ent characteristic of perceptual patterns" (Arnheim, 1969, p. 433) experienced as "a configuration of forces [and] . . . dynamics" (p. 434). Thus, perceptual processes can provide structured information about visual effects (style) or spontaneously evoke emotion. This emotional quality can then feed forward to the locally processed subject matter and lend it a mood

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within the same psychological moment (Cupchik & Winston, 1996).

The everyday habit of identifying objects leads to a cognitive bias that makes it difficult for novice viewers to discern the subtle visual codes associated with style. The disposition of untrained viewers to favor familiar subject matter over stylistic subtleties was revealed in a study in which viewers performed a seriation task (Cupchik & Gebotys, 1988). They were presented with slides of paintings or sculptures in groups of three (mostly by the same artist within each set). The artworks were chosen so that they lay along a contin- uum from representational to nonrepresentational. Par- ticipants were instructed to indicate the order of increasing meaningfulness from the viewpoint of an artist. Untrained viewers demonstrated a cognitive bias by finding the representational works more meaning- ful, and they also preferred representational artworks. Experienced artists perceived the intended order of in- creasing abstraction and preferred less representational artworks.

In essence, aesthetic perception requires that the cognitive bias of everyday life be overcome. The Rus- sian formalists, such as Shklovsky (19 1711 988) stressed the importance of "deautomatizing" percep- tion: breaking the cognitive bias and experiencing a re- newed awareness of sensory elements. Elsewhere I suggested that artists are naturally able to overcome the cognitive bias and attend to the process of percep- tion itself (Cupchik, 1992). This enables them to learn the syntaxes underlying tonal, color, and textural vari- ations in natural scenes. Through rehearsal with the manipulation of a medium, they recreate the observed visual effects, matching the emerging artistic product with the original percept (Gombrich, 1960). They can also project an image (Gombrich, 1960) onto or per- ceive an image in the emerging artwork, just as we per- ceive images in cloud formations, and ensure that it remains coherent as the work unfolds (Cupchik, 1992). The ability to engage in matching enables artists to ap- ply the accepted techniques of any school, be it repre- sentation or abstraction oriented. The ability to project coherent images is the means whereby individual ex- perience is expressed. Rule- and image-guided modes of artistic creativity show a surprising parallel to basic systems of neural self-regulation (Tucker & William- son, 1984) and imply a continuity from biological to individual and cultural levels of organization (Cupchik, 1992).

Cognition

If the cognitive bias of everyday life generalizes to aesthetic processing, then subject matter should have precedence over the discerning of style. When people regularly discard physical-sensory qualities on route to object identification, it takes training to reinvest at- tention and appreciate the visual effects that underlie style. Not surprisingly, the aesthetic preferences of un- trained viewers reflect the effects of cognitive bias (Winston & Cupchik, 1992). The aesthetic preferences and attitudes of untrained and trained viewers (mini- mum of six art courses) were examined for representa- tional and abstract artworks. Results showed that untrained viewers preferred representational works that elicited warm feelings, whereas the trained view- ers preferred abstract paintings that challenged them. The hedonic preferences and values of untrained view- ers instantiate Berlyne's (1 97 1) inverted U-shaped curve and the idea that viewers prefer moderate states of arousal. Thus, the evocation of warm feelings and pleasant associations is a valued by-product of the cog- nitive bias from everyday to aesthetic cognition.

The implication that subject matter would interfere with the perceptual discrimination of style was demon- strated in a study (Cupchik, Winston, & Herz, 1992) in which participants made "same" or "different" judg- ments of subject matter or style between pairs of paint- ings. Results showed that it was easier to perform different than same judgments, presumably because the latter require more exhaustive featural examina- tions. As expected, it was easier to make accurate com- parative judgments of subject matter than style. The crucial finding was that participants were less accurate at discerning same style (impressionism or fauvism) when the subject matter was different (portrait vs, still life) and confounded the judgment process.

This experiment (Cupchik et al., 1992) also showed that cognitive processes, such as comparative judg- ments of stylistic similarity, can be influenced by emo- tion. Viewing the pairs of paintings from a "personal, subjective, and emotional" set helped participants per- ceive similar style more accurately than did a "de- tached, objective, and analytical" set. In another study (Cupchik & Saltzman, 1999), participants viewed rock videos from subjective or objective sets and then per- formed a recognition memory task involving clips from these and other videos. A subjective emotional set made it easier for participants to recognize the rock

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music video clips as "old" (previously seen) or "new" (not previously seen).

The basis for this effect can be derived by combin- ing ideas from mainstream cognitive psychology and gestalt theory. Cognitive psychologists maintain that factors that enhance structure make it easier to discern similarity (see Farell, 1985). Adopting a gestalt per- spective, the philosopher Polanyi (1967) speculated that "tacit knowledge" results from integrating indi- vidual stimulus "features" into groups with ''joint meaning." These groups (e.g., facial expressions) have an expressive quality that is independent of the indi- vidual features. For gestaltists, emotion lies in the ex- pressive qualities of the stimulus. Thus, it can be argued that an emotionally involved attitude should fa- cilitate the coherent perception of expressive qualities underlying style both in paintings and music videos.

The principles of matching and coherence that were introduced in relation to perceptual processing apply just as well at the cognitive level. This was illustrated in literary reception studies where New Criticism stressed that a "correct" analysis of literary works can be objectively achieved. Matching occurs when read- ers analyze the formal structure of literary works in ac- cordance with the frames or codes supplied to them by experts. Reader Response theory, on the other hand, af- firms the value of individual interpretation. This posi- tion is founded on the openness (Eco, 196211989) and indeterminacy (Iser, 1978) of literary works whose meaning can never be hlly resolved. According to the gestalt-phenomenological viewpoint (Iser, 1978), readers fill in gaps and seek appropriate contexts within the work to explain unexpected events. Coher- ence is the criterion with which readers assess their un- derstanding of the text (Iser, 1978). Although matching is founded on objective external criteria, co- herence has a more subjective feel to it.

Some of the dynamics involved in the effort after coherence were revealed in a series of studies con- ducted on the reading process. In one experiment that examined rereading, participants were presented with short story excerpts from the work of James Joyce (Cupchik, Leonard, Axelrad, & Kalin, 1998). Chal- lenging and difficult passages were, in general, read more slowly. On first reading, participants reported missing more detail and having thought more about other parts of the stories, and, as might be expected, they comprehended them better after the second read- ing. Thus, the slower initial reading speed reflected an

effort to develop coherent mental representations (Graesscr, Singer, & Trabasso, 1994) of the stories. This was consistent with the finding of an earlier study (Cupchik & Laszlo, 1994) that showed that partici- pants slowed the pace of reading if they judged the text to be rich in meaning about life.

Reflection

Reflection is a process that involves standing back and thinking about the results of lower order opera- tions, either perceptual or cognitive. Although New Criticism treats a literary work as self-sufficient and closed, Reader Response theory believes that it is inde- terminate and open to individual interpretation. From the objective perspective ofNew Criticism, an individ- ual's ideas about literary works should accommodate the interpretations of experts. A relativist perspective, such as that of Reader Response theory, believes that knowledge about a work can extend beyond it to in- clude the author or the social context within which the work was created. Reflecting the conflict between New Criticism and Reader Response theory, we can ask whether greater insight is achieved by receiving expert opinion regarding the structure and meaning of a work or by generating one's own interpretation.

The study on rereading processes (Cupchik, Leon- ard, et al., 1998) showed that receiving an expert inter- pretation between first and second readings made participants more aware of the author's choice of words. The results of two studies involving sculptures showed that receiving information from the artists about the meaning of the pieces made them seem more personally meaningful, socially relevant, expressive, and powerful (Cupchik, Shereck, & Spiegel, 1994) and produced a deeper sense of understanding (Cupchik & Shereck, in press) on a second viewing.

Onthe other hand, Bruner's (1 961) "discovery learn- ing" approach favors actively generated knowledge over that which is passively received. The results oftwo recent studies showed that generating interpretations about the broader meaning of sculptures made them ap- pear more complex and challenging (Cupchik, Spiegel, & Shereck, 1996) and more original (Cupchik & Shereck, 1998). In our study of rereading (Cupchik, Leonard, et al., 1998), generating interpretations facili- tated the experience of images for emotionally loaded texts, while fostering an awareness of the author's

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choice of words and of richness of meaning in descrip- tively dense texts. It bears noting that, in both the litera- ture (Cupchik, Leonard, et al., 1998) and sculpture (Cupchik et al., 1994) studies, experienced readers and viewers responded adversely to expert opinions. This would appear to be a reaction against having the works framed in a constraining manner.

May (1958) proposed an existential transformation of Descartes's famous dictum "I think, therefore I am" to "I am, therefore I think, I act" (p. 44). An artistic ver- sion of this would be "I am, therefore I think, act, and express [in art, literature, etc.]." In this sense, art or lit- erary works and reception episodes can relate to the self in at least three domains. First, in a very conscious and explicit manner, they can serve as representations in that the subject matter is informative either about the self or another person. Second, creative works provide a vehicle for the unconscious embodiment or projec- tion of meaning by the artist or author or the recipient. Third, the act of reflecting on either of the first two do- mains, representation or projection, can heighten self-awareness and provide a framework for transcen- dence and personal growth.

Representation

In its simplest form, representation involves one thing standing for or denoting another (see Goodman, 1968). Thus, the subject matter of a painting of a bowl of fruit, for example, can represent a particular in- stance of bowls of fruit. Representation achieves a higher level of meaning when it goes beyond individ- ual objects to include social situations and meanings. It is here that the process of identification enters the fray from the perspective of recipients. A viewer or reader may experience the art or literary work as representing something personally meaningful, which usually im- plies that it depicts subject matter reminiscent of themes or events fiom the recipient's life. This per- ceived relation bonds a person to the work and pro- vides a basis for aesthetic preference that will be strengthened if the resolution of the plot (in literature or drama) is to the person's liking.

In a recent study on reactions to sculptures (Cupchik & Shereck, 1998), visitors to a public art gallery were in- vited to view four emotionally charged scenes, each in- volving two or three figures (roughly 2 ft high in painted plaster). For example, one scene involved two figures, an old man with a scar indicating surgery and an angel dressed in black standing behind him. Participants rated the works twice on a series of scales and either received or generated interpretations between ratings. Emotional responses predominated during the initial encounter, whereas intellectual elaboration was moresignificant in the second one. A qualitative analysis revealed that many participants resonated to the themes depicted in the work that evoked personal memories. In addition, generating personal interpretations reduced the ten- dency for emotional impact and perceived originality to diminish over time, thereby showing the effects of en- hanced bonding.

It is easier for readers to find personal meaning in literary texts when they are given sufficient aesthetic distance as sympathetic spectators rather than explic- itly instructed to identify with characters and imagine how they are feeling. In a study using short story ex- cerpts by James Joyce (Cupchik, Oatley, & Vorderer, 1998), readers were instructed either to identify with the main characters or adopt the more detached stance of sympathetic spectators. Participants who were in- structed to feel sympathy for the protagonist experi- enced more primary emotions and positive emotional memories in response to emotionally loaded passages. A related finding was obtained in another study using passages from Canadian short stories (Vorderer, Cupchik, & Oatley, 1997). When participants were in- structed to focus on themselves in relation to what was happening in the story and to be aware of their own re- actions and personal responses, they found experi- ence-loaded texts to be more personally meaningful and wanted to continue reading them. Not surprisingly, they also had less knowledge of the main characters in action-oriented passages that factually described un- folding events. These findings clearly show that, when participants perceive works of art and literature as per- sonally relevant (i.e., as representing their own lives), they digress into themselves and do not see the work in formal objective terms.

Another study (Cupchik, Levin, & Ritterfeld, 1997) showed how interior settings, specifically living and dining rooms, can be seen as representing the lives of others. The paradigm involved presenting viewers

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with slides of rooms that were either fancy, modem, or familiar (see Ritterfeld & Cupchik, 1996). Participants either imagined the person who in fact lived there ("other" set) or imagined that they themselves lived in the room ("self' set). Participants later indicated whether or not details shown in slides (e-g., a vase on a table) were from the rooms they had seen. As in the ini- tial study, participants were more accurate at recogniz- ing details from the modem rooms that were geometric in layout. Of greatest importance, they were most ac- curate at recognizing these details under the "other" set than under the "self' set. Thus, it was easiest to recog- nize details when rooms were seen as representing the aesthetic values of others. Participants could not arbi- trarily bond with the individual features of the rooms under the "self' set.

Projection

When meaning is embodied in or projected onto a work or art of literature, the opportunity arises for a spe- cial interplay of subject matter and style. One can speak about a trade-off between attention to subject matter or style. Thus, when subject matter becomes the focus of one's attention, style becomes an indirect route for the unconscious expression of emotion. Alternatively, when the execution of style is the central focus, the choice of subject matter provides a means for inadver- tently revealing what is of paramount importance to the self. This trade-off is especially revealing about per- sonal meaning in the artist's life but can also be informa- tive about the private lives of recipients.

Machotka (1 979) described aprojective function of art whereby viewers become attached to objects or themes in artworks that relate meaningfully to their needs. This projective function reflects two processes from a psychodynamic viewpoint, one relating to tem- porary wish fulfillment and the other to ego defense. Aesthetic preferences for aggressive or sexual subject matter may reflect a temporary symbolic replenish- ment of deficits. Alternatively, art can serve an ego de- fensive function, as when a preference for calm or highly controlled artistic style buttresses the viewer's need for inhibition or self-control. Similarly, Scheff (1979) argued that a properly constructed drama en- ables spectators to come into contact with repressed emotions and experience catharsis but with sufficient distance that they are not overwhelmed. However,

when "underdistancing" occurs and the material is all too familiar, negative emotions are evoked and the work will be avoided. According to the analysis pro- posed here, one means for avoiding upsetting themes is to intellectualize and concentrate on seemingly neutral stylistic matters.

A recent study on reactions to perfume advertise- ments (Cupchik, Leonard, & Irvine-Kopetski, 1998) illustrated how subject matter can encourage projec- tion. In this experiment, viewers were presented with simple and complex perfume advertisements. Simple ads were ones in which the image and copy rein- forced each other and were sentimentalized, whereas complex ads involved an ironic relation between the image and copy. Participants who wrote a brief narra- tive outline about what might be going on in the scenes depicted in the simple romantic ads rated themselves as feeling more powerful and masculine or feminine if they were to use the perfume products, and a content analysis of their outlines revealed a ro- mantic leitmotif. Thus, participants were able to pro- ject onto the advertisements a desire to feel more powerful in fulfilling their gender roles.

A defensive response would be expected when the theme of a work elicits negative emotions even with- out the recipient's explicit awareness. Under these circumstances, one might expect the viewer or reader to turn away from the offending theme and focus on some kind of neutral distraction, such as an intellec- tualized commentary on style. This kind of selective attention enables the viewer to adopt an acceptable aesthetic viewpoint, while avoiding the threatening subject matter. These dynamics were observed in an experiment (Cupchik & Wroblewski-Raya, 1998) ex- amining responses to artworks by Hopper, Munch, and Degas depicting individuals who are alone in the scene. When participants were instructed to identify with the figure and imagine how he or she felt, they reported the paintings to be more personally mean- ingful and also preferred the narrative implied by the subject matter. Lonely participants (measured by the Revised UCLA Loneliness scale, Peplau & Cutrona, 1980) also judged the paintings to be personally meaningful and pleasing but preferred the style over the subject matter, indicating a defensive intellectual- izing response. Clearly, when the work strikes too close to home, a defensive response ensues.

The process of defensive avoidance is not restricted to recipients but can be applied equally to those who cre-

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ate paintings, novels, plays, and so on. It is an interesting paradox that, although artists focus on stylistic prob- lems they encounter during the creative process, power- ful emotional content can unconsciously leak into the work. Thus, selective attention to the manifest stylistic facet of an artwork enables latent emotional content to symbolically take center stage unbeknownst to the art- ist. Artists and writers can be so fixed in their aesthetic view of the work that they resist any acknowledgment that personal material has been embodied in it. This re- veals the transformative power of the artistic endeavor, much as dream work enables repressed material to make its way into sleep-time consciousness!

Transcendence

Iser (1978) maintained that the act of constituting meaning by selecting appropriate interpretive contexts heightens a reader's self-awareness. This is similar to an argument made by Pomerantz and Kubovy (1 98 1) regarding awareness and stimulus processing. If

changes are not occurring on the printed page but are gener- ated internally, observers are forced in the metaperceptual mode. In this fashion they are made aware of the workings of their perceptual processes, of which they are usually un- aware; processes that are normally transparent. (p. 425)

The further statement by Pomerantz and Kubovy to the effect "we believe that this is the essence of the Gestalt phenomenological method" (p. 425) reveals a surpris- ing convergence between mainstream perception and literary reception theory.

A very interesting parallel emerges if we reach back to the very first section on perception and the think- ing-I. Just as artists attend to the process of perception itself and the underlying sensory parameters that shape the perception of objects, readers can attend to the con- text of their own lives against which the meanings of literary scenes are thrown into sharp personal relief (see Bleich, 1978). Transcendence for the recipient en- compasses not just an appreciation of personal themes, but an awareness that cultural biases about what con- stitutes good art and personal dispositions toward in- tellectualization can get in the way. As heightened self-awareness, it provides a basis for greater under- standing of the self and one's being-in-the-world and acting-in-the-world.

One concern remains, however. Can transcen- dence reduce artistic creativity? If the artist becomes

explicitly aware of personal emotional themes em- bodied in a work and of the ways that style fosters the expression of those meanings, then is creativity cut short? One possible answer to this dilemma comes from the very notion of indeterminacy applied to text interpretation. The life of the artist or author is itself open-ended in that emotionally loaded themes from different stages of experience remain unresolved. The act of creation becomes a vehicle for the concrete embodiment and transformation of those themes, not to speak of the catharsis of built-up emotion that is attached to them. In the case of the artist or author, transcendence implies an openness to those emotions that gain expression through culturally meaningful avenues. Excessive psychological analysis of subject matter and style would distract from the expressive and meaning-creating process.

Conclusions

The thinking-I (or eye and ear) focuses on the stim- ulus, and the three stages, perception, cognition, and reflection, seem to follow in linear sequence. Percep- tion uncovers the structure of physical-sensory quali- ties that provide the foundation for discerning style in the visual arts. Cognition uses these qualities to iden- tify the subject matter of the work, including both physical objects and social meanings. On reflection, viewers and readers can consider style and subject matter from different perspectives, relating them to other works or to the context in which they were cre- ated or experienced.

The three domains associated with the being-I (rep- resentation, unconscious dynamic processes, and tran- scendence) do not unfold in a linear manner. Rather, representation and unconscious dynamic processes are complementary. Viewers or readers can consciously observe that the subject matter in an art or literary work represents their own lives or those of other people. However, when unconscious processes predominate, they have spontaneous emotional reactions to the life experiences of figures and characters depicted in vi- sual and literary works. This may lead them to identify with powerful figures, thereby feeling temporarily more powerful, or to display an unexpected and intel- lectualized interest in neutral matters of style, thus be- traying the negative emotions that were evoked by the subject matter of the work. Transcendence occurs

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when recipients focus on the meaning of representa- tions or become aware of their projective and defen- sive reactions to evocative works. From a therapeutic viewpoint, it can be argued that art and literature are important because they provide an avenue for the free expression of unconscious emotions. However, if art-

ists look too carefully at the symbolic meaning of their artworks, there is a tendency for the creative process to freeze up. It is best that they reflect on the products of their creative efforts to ensure continuing originality.

This discussion of the thinking4 and the being4 im- plies at least four basic processes. First, aesthetics re- quires deautomatization of the cognitive bias. In other words, viewers, in particular, must learn to overcome the everyday pragmatic tendency to object identifica- tion so as to invest attention in sensory processes and learn about the structure of artistic style. Second, aes- thetics encompasses the complementary processes of matching and coherence. Matching provides a means for determining whether externalized criteria for ef- fecting style or attaining a correct interpretation have been properly applied. Coherence is a more subjective criterion that reflects the extent to which a unifying structure of creation or appreciation has been achieved. Third, art and literary works provide a vehicle for em- bodying meaning in the choice of subject matter and style. This may involve the conscious and planned choice of particular subject matter and style, or the un- conscious and spontaneous expression of meaning within the framework of an interplay between subject matter and style. Attention to style permits the inadver- tent expression of meaning in the symbolic choice of subject matter, whereas concern for subject matter pro- vides for the indirect expression of emotion through the very act of executing the artwork. Fourth, it is im- portant to take into consideration the trade-off between global (and pretattentive) attention to overall structure and local (and focal) attention to specific visual or lit- erary effects. These several processes unify the two faces of aesthetic creation and reception: the thinking-I and the being-I.

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