Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Vol 20(2), Apr 2026, 267-278; doi:10.1037/aca0000697
Drawing from philosophical and psychological literatures, we explored people’s beliefs about the experience and nature of art. Across three experiments, we asked participants (N = 420) to rate the ability to experience different artworks after the original work, copies, and memories of the work had been destroyed. People endorsed destroying the original of an artwork as more damaging to the experience of a visual work (paintings, carved sculptures) than a nonvisual work (novel, play, poem, classical music, popular music). However, people endorsed that famous and nonfamous artworks could still be experienced until people’s memories of the pieces were destroyed. Overall, our findings suggest that people believe the identity of artworks exist past the destruction of their physical form, suggesting interesting implications for theories of object identity and the valuation of art. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)