ABSTRACT
Artists and nonartists have different amounts of experience representing visual information in their culture, and experience is likely to impact the individual's embodied cognition when viewing or creating art. Frequently when comparing artists with nonartists, the author simply assume the two groups are different. The three types of studies mentioned to compare artists to nonartists—those measuring eye movements, standardized testing, and brain activity—demonstrate some perceptual differences between these groups and some similarities. The programs in the brain for muscle movements that artists learn for drawing and handling different art media may also contribute to aesthetic judgments. Overall, finding a few differences and many similarities between artists and nonartists represents the outcome of much systematic cognitive research about perceptual, cognitive, and aesthetic responses to art. Several reasons can account for finding only a few robust differences between artists and nonartists.
