On the role of perception in the psychology of art: More than meets the eye of the beholder.

Perception is a cornerstone of aesthetic experience and the psychology of art, providing the primary means through which people engage with artworks and generate emotional and cognitive responses. Across theories of aesthetics, perception is the key process connecting the classic psychological triad of stimulus, person, and context, by integrating sensory information with situational influences. It encompasses factors ranging from low-level visual features, such as natural image statistics with broad appeal, to high-level influences related to familiarity with particular contents and artistic styles shaped by individual experience and sociocultural background. Crucially, mid-level perceptual processes are where perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and contextual factors interact most strongly, playing a central role in aesthetic appreciation and in explaining individual differences in artistic preferences.