Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Vol 20(4), Aug 2026, 832-846; doi:10.1037/aca0000727
Aesthetic cognitivism assumes a positive relationship between aesthetic experience and knowledge acquisition. Here, we study this relationship in the context of contemporary dance. 207 audience members watched either a live performance or a screening of a contemporary dance duet and reported on their aesthetic experience after the show. Qualitatively, a thematic analysis of open questions revealed that the audience recalled the performance in both descriptive and imaginative ways, highlighting ambiguity and meaning making as recurrent ways of engagement. Quantitatively, a principal component analysis revealed two distinct dimensions of aesthetic experience: engagement and confusion. Simple group comparisons suggested that engagement was higher in the live than in the screened performances and among spectators not equipped with additional measurement devices (mobile electroencephalograms). However, these effects disappeared when prior dance experience was taken into account. In contrast, perceived confusion did not depend on live or screened performance context, wearing measurement devices, or prior dance experience. Our findings suggest that dance experience is an important predictor of how people engage with dance across both live and recorded performance contexts. Moreover, we show that ambiguity and confusion are not necessarily aversive components of aesthetic experience but can be experienced as artistically intended features of an artwork, and in the process become a form of engagement, more so if viewers have sufficient experience with the art form. Our findings therefore challenge a conceptualization of aesthetic experience as a simple by-product of insight and suggest a distinction between pleasure from experiencing and pleasure from understanding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)