RESEARCH REPORT Empathy, Einfu ¨ hlung, and aesthetic experience: the effect of emotion contagion on appreciation of representational and abstract art using fEMG and SCR Gerger Gernot 1 • Matthew Pelowski 1 • Helmut Leder 1 Received: 20 July 2016 / Accepted: 9 March 2017 Ó Marta Olivetti Belardinelli and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017 Abstract Since the advent of the concept of empathy in the scientific literature, it has been hypothesized, although not necessarily empirically verified, that empathic pro- cesses are essential to aesthetic experiences of visual art. We tested how the ability to ‘‘feel into’’ (‘‘Einfu ¨hlung’’) emotional content—a central aspect of art empathy theo- ries—affects the bodily responses to and the subjective judgments of representational and abstract paintings. The ability to feel into was measured by a standardized pre- survey on ‘‘emotional contagion’’—the ability to pick up and mirror, or in short to ‘‘feel into’’, emotions, which often overlaps with higher general or interpersonal empathetic abilities. Participants evaluated the artworks on several aesthetic dimensions (liking, valence, moving, and inter- est), while their bodily reactions indicative of empathetic engagement (facial electromyography—EMG, and skin conductance responses—SCR) were recorded. High com- pared to low emotion contagion participants showed both more congruent and more intense bodily reactions (EMG and SCR) and aesthetic evaluations (higher being moved, valence, and interest) and also liked the art more. This was largely the case for both representational and abstract art, although stronger with the representational category. Our findings provide tentative evidence for recent arguments by art theorists for a close ‘‘empathic’’ mirroring of emotional content. We discuss this interpretation, as well as a potential tie between emotion contagion and a general increase in emotion intensity, both of which may impact, in tandem, the experience and evaluation of art. Keywords Empathy Á Emotion contagion Á Art Á Facial electromyography (EMG) Á Skin conductance responses (SCR) Introduction Empathy may be crucial to our aesthetic experiences and to our experiences of art (Freedberg and Gallese 2007; Lan- zoni 2009; Lipps 1903). The roots of empathy stem from the nineteenth-century concept of ‘‘Einfu ¨hlung’’—literally meaning ‘‘feeling into’’ (Lee and Anstruther-Thomson 1912; Lipps 1903; Vischer 1873). In the early literature, ‘‘Einfu ¨hlung’’ was most often explained as the tendency to have embodied or kinaesthetic experiences of the form, style, narrative, or emotional content of images or objects (Jahoda 2005; Lanzoni 2012; Lipps 1903). This process could be observed with any class of items, including landscapes, furniture, sculptures, or architecture (Jahoda 2005; Lanzoni 2009). However, especially with objects of traditional aesthetic contemplation such as works of visual art, Einfu ¨hlung came to take on a special importance and was in fact a major component of art theory in the early twentieth century. As notably argued by Vischer (1873) as well as Lipps (1903, 1906; see also Lee and Anstruther- This article is part of the Special Section titled ‘‘From ‘Einfu ¨ hlung’ to empathy: Exploring the relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience’’. Handling editor: Joanna Ganczarek (Pedagogical University of Cracow); Reviewers: Thomas Jacobsen (Helmut-Schmidt-University, Hamburg), Sato Wataru (Kyoto University). Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10339-017-0800-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Gerger Gernot gernot.gerger@univie.ac.at 1 Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria 123 Cogn Process DOI 10.1007/s10339-017-0800-2