Mustafa Alperen Ekinci

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This suggests that how we visually explore the world contributes to individual differences in aesthetic experience.

3/4
We compared similarities in gaze patterns with similarities in aesthetic ratings.

Key results:
Greater similarity in gaze patterns was associated with greater similarity in aesthetic ratings. Moreover, gaze during free viewing without any rating task predicted later aesthetic judgments.

2/4
In two eye tracking experiments, participants watched the documentary movie "Home" while we recorded eye movements. We also collected moment to moment aesthetic ratings throughout the whole movie in experiment 1, and only during the second half in experiment 2.

New preprint!

Why do people disagree about what looks beautiful, even when viewing the same stimulus?

We show that shared aesthetic experience is linked to shared gaze during naturalistic viewing: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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📢 Workshop announcement.

We are super excited to announce the workshop Perceptual Inferences, from philosophy to neuroscience, organized by Alexander Schütz and Daniel Kaiser.

📍 Rauischholzhausen Castle, near Marburg, Germany
🗓️ June 8 to 10, 2026.
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📣 New Paper Alert!
My PhD student Hannah Ovadia and I wrote a concise update on “The Role of the Default Mode Network (DMN) in Aesthetic Appeal” to synthesize evidence, highlight issues, and most importantly, consider theoretical alternatives.

Free access:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1lz-h8MqMi...

Welcome to the IAEA Aesthetics Conference 2026 in Jena!

We are delighted to announce that the International Association for Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA) will hold its next international conference in Jena, Germany, from 5th to 8th May.
Discover more at iaea-jena2026.org (link in bio)

How do we see style? In a recent series of experiments, Boger and Firestone ask: How do we perceive style?’. Their findings suggest that style perception relies on basic p…

I finally have some new work to share - some thoughts on how we perceive style with a sprinkle of aesthetics, Fechner, and most importantly: labradors 🐕

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Looking forward to #VSAC2025 ! I’ll present my poster on how eye movements relate to aesthetic preferences in Poster Session 1.

Hi Bluesky! 🦋

We are the Aesthetics and Learning Lab (ALL).
ALLab is based in the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM) in Tübingen. Its aim is to empirically investigate how and what can be learned from aesthetic experiences ✨

Stay tuned, for now... That's ALL folks!

Why use our new library of 300+ art images for your experiment?
🌍 Intentionally inclusive of non-Western art
😀😵‍💫😢 Normed for 11 emotional states each
📊 Interactive data viz for stimulus selection
Got questions? Let us know!
doi.org/10.1037/aca0...

Kaiser Lab goes #Exzellenz! The excellence cluster „The Adaptive Mind“ got funding for the next 7 years! Proud to be part of this awesome team and looking forward to all the exciting research to come. 🎆✨🥂

Creativity Research Journal Publishes research on various approaches to the study of creativity, including behavioral, clinical, educational, genetic, psychoanalytic, social and more.

Hi, Bluesky! 👋

We're Creativity Research Journal (CRJ), here to highlight some of the great scientific work being done in the field of creativity research. We're the official journal of @tsfnc.bsky.social. Check out some of our latest articles here! www.tandfonline.com/journals/hcr...

JOB ALERT!

2-year post-doc available here in Vienna at the ARTIS Lab as part of a @fwf-at.bsky.social funded project on emotion communication through artistic drawing in autistic and non-autistic adults.

Find out more here: www.artislab.org/projects/asd...

We are recruiting postdocs! Want to grow your own social networks to study creativity, cultural evolution & decision-making? We are hiring a funded postdoc at Cornell in collaboration with UC Davis, CUNY, & Princeton. Apply here: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/28959

Neuroaesthetics: Unlocking How Art Can Make Us Smarter, Happier, and Healthier Neuroaesthetics, an emerging field of research, studies how the arts can enhance our health and wellbeing.

I was interviewed as part of this article on Neuroaesthetics. Also featuring @anjanchatterjee.bsky.social

www.theoverview.art/neuroaesthet...

We are excited to host you this year at the Museum Reinhard Ernst! The museum exclusively features abstract art and will stay open late on the 22nd for #VSAC2025 attendees to marvel at their extensive collection.

Link: www.museum-re.de/en/

Enhanced and idiosyncratic neural representations of personally typical scenes | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Previous research shows that the typicality of visual scenes (i.e. if they are good examples of a category) determines how easily they can be perceived and represented in the brain. However, the uniqu...

Now out in @royalsocietypublishing.org Proceedings B! Check out Gongting Wang's EEG work on individual differences in scene perception: Scenes that are more typical for individual observers are represented in an enhanced yet more idiosyncratic way. Link:
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

While we sadly had to say goodbye to Eva in the EVAlabs, two new people will have the chance to say hello to her at her new lab in Tübingen @iwmtue.bsky.social

www.iwm-tuebingen.de/www/en/karri...

Happy to share our paper on the #AestheticsToolbox around the #QIP-Machine has been published #OpenAccsess in Behavior Research Methods!

It can can be used to easily and transparently compute a wide range of quantitative image properties for digital images 📸
📄 link.springer.com/article/10.3...

Can arts-based interventions improve health? A conceptual and methodological critique Can art improve health and wellbeing? The claim that there is strong evidence that engaging with art ameliorates symptoms of mental and physical disor…

"Can arts-based interventions improve health? A conceptual and methodological critique" by @mnadal.bsky.social and I has been accepted for publication in Physics of Life Reviews.

The pre-proof version is online at the following URL:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

VSAC 2025 is honoured to welcome our keynote speakers!

One of them will be Aaron Hertzmann. @aaronhertzmann.bsky.social

Find more information on 2025.vsac.eu
#VSAC2025 #Conference #VisualScienceofArt
VISUAL SCIENCE OF ARI
Keynote

Job alert! We are now looking for a PhD student starting Sept 2025, for a project on visual relations between people and objects, using behavior, EEG, fMRI, and ANNs. The project involves a collaboration with brilliant @ljubapi.bsky.social. You can find the official advertisement below.👇

We discussed the possible roles of aesthetic pleasure in evolution a bit at the journal club this week, and this makes for a good follow-up read:

A starter pack for empirical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics researchers.
go.bsky.app/HKuJYiw
#empiricalaesthetics
#neuroaesthetics

In recognition of Segio Della Sall's innovative use of artwork for the journal Cortex, I wrote this piece about using imagery to enhance curiosity about neuroscience papers. authors.elsevier.com/a/1kSNC2VHYC...

Decoding the rhythmic representation and communication of visual contents Rhythmic neural activity is considered essential for adaptively modulating responses in the visual system. In this opinion article we posit that visua…

Now out in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social : We discuss how the contents of visual perception, imagery, and prediction can be decoded from rhythmic brain activity and argue that such rhythmic representations offer new insights into neural information propagation. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#vsac

Hallo Bluesky!
Wir sind die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. #DFG Als Selbstverwaltungsorganisation der #Wissenschaft in Deutschland fördern wir erkenntnisgeleitete #Forschung. Hier erhaltet Ihr Infos u.a. zu Förderangeboten, Ausschreibungen und Anträgen. Wir freuen uns auf den Austausch!

Postdoc position “Visual factors underlying aesthetic image preferences” Exciting opportunity for a postdoc interested in visual aesthetic preferences!

Come work as a postdoctoral researcher in our research group at KU Leuven in Belgium and help us unravel the visual factors underlying aesthetic image preferences! www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...