“Just labeling something as ‘art’ really changed people’s intuitions,” Mr. Newman said.

In a second experiment, the researchers showed the students an image of an original painting and said that, because of damage, a duplicate painting was commissioned, identical in every way. The researchers then manipulated facts about the original painting: that the artist had painted it himself and thought it was among his very best works, or that he thought of it as “sell-out piece,” got the idea for the design from another painter, and had an assistant execute the painting.

The level of “contagion” — the artist’s personal involvement with the original painting — influenced opinions about the duplicate. In the cases where the artist did not paint the work with his own hand or think highly of it, the participants thought there wasn’t much difference between the copy and the original. In the cases where the artist was personally invested in the original work, the copy was seen as lesser than the other. “It is a copy,” one participant said. “It has no soul.”

“It’s interesting that people have pretty detailed and sophisticated theories about the things that are contributing to art’s value,” Mr. Newman said. “And moreover that those ideas have not that much to do with what the artwork actually looks like.”