The model proposed by Menninghaus et al. is well constructed and comprehensive toward explaining the paradoxical phenomenon of enjoyment of negative emotions in art. They put forward two processing factors, each including several components. The Distancing factor, consisting of the cognitive schemata of art, representation, and fiction, modifies the appraisal of negative emotions, keeping them at some “psychological distance.” The Embracing factor, consisting of the interplays of positive and negative feelings, mixed emotions, aesthetic virtues, meaning construction, and genre scripts, is what allows the integration of negative emotions into the aesthetic experience, modifying them into a pleasurable and rewarding affective outcome.

But what kind of pleasure or enjoyment is derived from or co-occurs with negative emotions? Kant has already described the aesthetic pleasure that we take in beauty as essentially different from the pleasure of mere sensory gratification, such as in eating or drinking (Kant Reference Kant and Bernard1951; Zangwill Reference Zangwill and Zalta2014). More recently, within the field of empirical aesthetics the pleasure from art has been linked with our “knowledge instinct” (Perlovsky Reference Perlovsky2010; Reference Perlovsky2014), namely, an inborn drive for cognition that “compels us to constantly improve our knowledge of the world” (Perlovsky Reference Perlovsky, Perlovsky and Kozma2007, p. 73). In the broader field of affective neuroscience, pleasure has been distinguished into “core” and “conscious” pleasures (Brattico Reference Brattico, Nadal, Houston, Agnati, Mora and Conde2015; Kringelbach & Berridge Reference Kringelbach and Berridge2009). We have proposed a similar distinction for the type of pleasure that is experienced as a consequence of exposure to art objects (Brattico Reference Brattico, Nadal, Houston, Agnati, Mora and Conde2015). Core or sensory pleasure is immediately and involuntarily activated by the sensory properties of the stimulus, and it is associated with the fast firing of dopaminergic neurons of the mesolimbic and nigrostriatal pathways, which, in turn, modulate the neuroendocrine, visceral, and muscle responses of the autonomous nervous system, hence altering the bodily state. A slower, voluntary pathway, recruiting frontal lobe structures, mediates instead conscious pleasure or enjoyment. Also, in philosophical aesthetics, scholars postulate the pivotal role of contemplation, intentionality, and cognition in explaining aesthetic pleasure (Bundgaard Reference Bundgaard2015; Fenner Reference Fenner1996; Kemp Reference Kemp1999). In our previous work, we put forward a spatiotemporal road map of aesthetic processes related to music in particular, discerning between involuntary, low-level perceptual-emotional stages and reflective processes involving cognitive control and leading to the three main outcomes of an aesthetic experience: aesthetic emotion, preference or conscious liking, and aesthetic judgment (Brattico Reference Brattico, Nadal, Houston, Agnati, Mora and Conde2015; Brattico & Jacobsen, Reference Brattico and Jacobsen2009; Brattico et al. Reference Brattico, Brattico and Jacobsen2009–2010; Brattico et al. Reference Brattico, Bogert and Jacobsen2013; Nieminen et al. Reference Nieminen, Istok, Brattico, Tervaniemi and Huotilainen2011; Reybrouck & Brattico Reference Reybrouck and Brattico2015). These early and late processes are guided by what has been termed “focus” (Hodges Reference Hodges, Hallam, Cross and Thaut2016), “aesthetic stance” (Bundgaard Reference Bundgaard2015), and “aesthetic attitude” (Fenner Reference Fenner1996), namely, the intentional act of paying attention and preparing oneself for the contemplation and judgment of a work of art.

In cognitive neuroscience, experiments in which two tasks are contrasted with each other have probed the discernible neural mechanisms underlying aesthetic versus nonaesthetic modes of stimulus processing. For instance, the use of a visual paradigm comprising a task in which participants passively viewed abstract black and white patterns and another task in which participants were asked to contemplate the patterns aesthetically (to reflect on their beauty, but without giving an overt judgment) revealed that evaluative processes occurred during contemplation only and not during mere viewing, as indexed by the late positive electric brain response visible only in the contemplation condition (Höfel & Jacobsen Reference Höfel and Jacobsen2007). Furthermore, in this experiment the “not beautiful” patterns did not elicit the early frontocentral negative electric response indexing impression formation that has previously been observed in tasks involving overt aesthetic judgments (Brattico et al. Reference Brattico, Jacobsen, De Baene, Glerean and Tervaniemi2010; Jacobsen & Höfel Reference Jacobsen and Höfel2003). These findings point to a separation between mechanisms for aesthetic mode, namely, the central processes of thinking about aesthetic value, and those related to deciding on an aesthetic judgment. In other neurophysiological experiments using auditory dual-task paradigms, early negative neural responses to aesthetic versus nonaesthetic tasks differed significantly from each other even before a cognitive judgment of correctness or an aesthetic judgment of beauty or liking was provided, and despite the fact that the same sound stimuli were listened to in both tasks (Brattico et al. Reference Brattico, Jacobsen, De Baene, Glerean and Tervaniemi2010; Muller et al. Reference Muller, Höfel, Brattico and Jacobsen2010). These results indicate that an initial mode or attitude toward the object to be judged is taken, and this attitude conditions the neural mechanisms that prepare for subsequent aesthetic decisions. Similarly, neuroimaging studies consistently have demonstrated that the brain structures recruited during voluntary enjoyment of artworks, such as the orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum, thalamus, insula, and cingulate cortex, are separated from those associated with either unconscious pleasure or other basic emotions (sadness, happiness) (Brattico et al. Reference Brattico, Bogert, Alluri, Tervaniemi, Eerola and Jacobsen2016).

Hence, based on these arguments and empirical evidence, it is reasonable to propose that the intentional act to immerse in an art experience is a precondition for the enjoyment that might co-occur or follow negative emotions. Moreover, we suggest that this enjoyment is intrinsically judgmental; namely, it is glued with the compelling goal of providing a final judgment of liking, beauty, perfection, or similar. Without a proper attitude aimed at providing a final judgment on a work of art or fiction, the immediate response to a negative emotion could be a quick withdrawal, even when taking into account the Distancing factor. In the best cases, the outcome of this situation is a liking or aesthetic judgment, that can be (in various degrees) felt in the body and brain. In other cases, the outcome can even be detached from any feelings, namely, from any change in bodily state linked to neural activation of dopaminergic reward pathways, but instead be restricted to a mere cognitive decision of aesthetic value of an artwork, resulting in the willingness to repeat the experience in the future. And sometimes, a (positive) judgment is already taken even before looking at the (emotionally negative) painting, watching the (horror) movie, or listening to a (dissonant) musical piece, because of prior attitudes, culture, preferences (Gebauer et al. Reference Gebauer, Kringelbach and Vuust2012), and group belonging (Wohl Reference Wohl2015).