An EEG Dataset on Aesthetic and Creative Judgments of Brief Structured Poetry
2025-12-03
Understanding how the brain engages with poetic language is key to advancing empirical research on aesthetic and creative cognition. We present a 64-channel EEG and behavioural dataset from 51 participants who read and evaluated 210 short English-language texts (70 Haiku, poems focusing on nature; 70 Senryu, poems focusing on emotion; 70 structurally-matched non-poetic control texts). Participants rated each stimulus on five dimensions (aesthetic appeal, vivid imagery, emotional impact, originality and creativity) on a 7-point scale. The dataset includes time-aligned EEG and behavioural responses, self-report trait measures, and rich stimulus metadata. Further, the dataset also includes resting state EEG data before and after the experiment. Exploratory validation analysis revealed condition-specific spectral power differences and trial-level brain-behaviour associations. By combining poetic structure, subjective evaluation, and high-temporal-resolution neural activity, this comprehensive dataset enables detailed investigation into neuroaesthetics, cognitive poetics, and the neuroscience of creativity.