Maya Bar-Hillel 2008-09-25

From OBTnotes

Does a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

A cognitive perspective on poets and poetry

• from Hebrew University
• Speaker's site

Abstract

A series of experiments will be presented that explores whether, and how, knowing the name of the poet influences the evaluation, and the reading experience,of a poem. Can lay people (or "experts") detect quality without the cue of poet's reputation? Can they detect fakes? Can a fake poen still be "good"? Does a poem "change" when expectations about it change? Can we tell whether people are sincere or pretentious when they evaluate poetry? And how does all this reflect on wine tastings and on the notorious story of New Coke?

Notes

• Market research on wine showed that non-experts show a slight negative correlation between real (but not revealed) price and enjoyment

• Instead of wine, stimuli were in the form of good and bad poems
  • good poems were lesser known poems from real poets
  • bad poems were created by researchers in mimicking the form of real poems

• participants react more strongly to the fame of author's name than to real/fake poems
• participants identified the real poem in a real/fake pair only 53% of the time

• does knowing the author bias the judgment or inform the judgment?