Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics

The Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) was founded in 2013 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and is part of the Max Planck Society. In a joint effort of researchers from the humanities and the natural sciences, it explores who aesthetically appreciates what, for which reasons and under which situational and historical circumstances, and analyzes the functions of aesthetic practices and preferences for both individuals and societies. In this interplay between the humanities and the natural sciences, the MPIEA draws on a broad range of multidisciplinary expertise as well as a variety of methods. The primary focuses in our research on the many nuances of aesthetic perception include the individual, cultural, and historical differences among aesthetic preferences; the cognitive and affective mechanisms governing aesthetically evaluative perception as well as their neural, physiological, and behavioral correlates, the functions of aesthetic experiences for personal development, subjective well-being, and social communication.