Aesthetic-Formulation Pleasure
A brief, low-intensity pleasure a user reports when an AI produces a notably elegant, apt, or aesthetically pleasing formulation. The construct refers to the user's momentary aesthetic-appreciation state, not to any emotion of the system.
Operational Definition
Graded condition: immediately after a flagged output, the user rates the intensity of aesthetic pleasure experienced with that formulation. It is tied to a specific output and rated, rather than counted as a discrete behavioral event.
Measurement Schema
Proposed measurement protocol (not yet empirically validated): Single-item post-output aesthetic-pleasure rating (1-7), optionally combined with items from an aesthetic-experience scale for convergent validity; aggregated as the mean rating across flagged elegant outputs.