Aesthetic sensitivity to curvature in real objects and abstract designs

Measures of angularity in digital images

In light of the growing interest in studying the affective and aesthetic attributes of curvature, the present paper describes four digital image processing techniques that can be used to objectively discriminate between angular and curvilinear stimuli. MATLAB scripts for each of the techniques accompany the paper. Three studies are then reported that evaluate the efficacy of five metrics, derived from the four techniques, at quantifying the degree of angularity depicted in an image. Images of simple polygons (Study 1), artistic drawings of everyday objects (Study 2), and real-world objects, typefaces, and abstract patterns (Study 3) were analyzed. Logistic regression models were used to determine the relative importance of the metrics at distinguishing between angular and curvilinear items. With one exception, all of the metrics were capable of distinguishing between angular and curvilinear items at a level above chance, but some metrics were better at doing so than others, and their discriminative capacity was influenced by the characteristics of the image. The strengths and limitations of the metrics are discussed, as well as some practical recommendations.

The consumers' response to product design: a narrative review

This paper reviews the research ideas around consumer response to product design. From the product side, we discuss the most significant design features preferred by average consumers, such as aesthetics and utility. And from the consumer side, we investigate the human factors influencing consumer perceptions. We present the main approaches used to measure the consumer response to product design and summarize the multiple biases that occur during the evaluation. Finally, we present in detail the most commonly used methods to analyze consumer response data and their roles in the design evaluation context. Practitioner Summary: To answer the question: What causes differences in design response? We summarise the research findings related to product design features and human factors. We highlight the biases that can emerge from the measurement approach. And discuss the most common analysis methods used for product design response information.

How universal is preference for visual curvature? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Evidence dating back a century shows that humans are sensitive to and exhibit a preference for visual curvature. This effect has been observed in different age groups, human cultures, and primate species, suggesting that a preference for curvature could be universal. At the same time, several studies have found that preference for curvature is modulated by contextual and individual factors, casting doubt on this hypothesis. To resolve these conflicting findings, we conducted a systematic meta-analysis of studies that have investigated the preference for visual curvature. Our meta-analysis included 61 studies which provided 106 independent samples and 309 effect sizes. The results of a three-level random effects model revealed a Hedges' g of 0.39-consistent with a medium effect size. Further analyses revealed that preference for curvature is moderated by four factors: presentation time, stimulus type, expertise, and task. Together, our results suggest that preference for visual curvature is a reliable but not universal phenomenon and is influenced by factors other than perceptual information.

Do we enjoy what we sense and perceive? A dissociation between aesthetic appreciation and basic perception of environmental objects or events

This integrative review rearticulates the notion of human aesthetics by critically appraising the conventional definitions, offerring a new, more comprehensive definition, and identifying the fundamental components associated with it. It intends to advance holistic understanding of the notion by differentiating aesthetic perception from basic perceptual recognition, and by characterizing these concepts from the perspective of information processing in both visual and nonvisual modalities. To this end, we analyze the dissociative nature of information processing in the brain, introducing a novel local-global integrative model that differentiates aesthetic processing from basic perceptual processing. This model builds on the current state of the art in visual aesthetics as well as newer propositions about nonvisual aesthetics. This model comprises two analytic channels: aesthetics-only channel and perception-to-aesthetics channel. The aesthetics-only channel primarily involves restricted local processing for quality or richness (e.g., attractiveness, beauty/prettiness, elegance, sublimeness, catchiness, hedonic value) analysis, whereas the perception-to-aesthetics channel involves global/extended local processing for basic feature analysis, followed by restricted local processing for quality or richness analysis. We contend that aesthetic processing operates independently of basic perceptual processing, but not independently of cognitive processing. We further conjecture that there might be a common faculty, labeled as aesthetic cognition faculty, in the human brain for all sensory aesthetics albeit other parts of the brain can also be activated because of basic sensory processing prior to aesthetic processing, particularly during the operation of the second channel. This generalized model can account not only for simple and pure aesthetic experiences but for partial and complex aesthetic experiences as well.

Preference at First Sight: Effects of Shape and Font Qualities on Evaluation of Object-Word Pairs

Subjective preferences for visual qualities of shapes and fonts have been separately reported. Such preferences are often similarly attributed to factors such as aesthetic impressions, attributed meaning from the visual properties, or processing fluency. Because shapes and fonts were rarely studied together, we investigated whether these qualities had a similar impact on preference judgment of object-word pairs. Each pair consisted of an abstract object with either preferred or disliked shape qualities and a pseudoword with either preferred or disliked font qualities. We found that only shape qualities, but not font qualities, influenced preference ratings of the object-word pairs, with higher preferences for pairs with preferred than disliked shapes. Moreover, eye movement results indicated that while participants fixated the word before the object, their prolonged fixation on the object when first attending to it might have contributed to the preference ratings. Nonetheless, other measures, including response times, total fixation numbers, and total dwell time, showed different patterns for shape and font qualities, revealing that participants attended more to objects with preferred than disliked shapes, and to words with disliked than preferred fonts. Taken together, these results suggest that shape and font qualities have differential influences on preferences and processing of objects and words.

Is Hogarth’s ‘Line of Beauty’ really the most beautiful? An empirical answer after more than 250 years

Since the Renaissance, different line types have been distinguished by artists and art theorists. However, it took another hundreds of years until the British artist William Hogarth attributed different degrees of beauty to them. Particularly, in his book “The Analysis of Beauty” (1753) he depicted seven waving lines, declared line number 4 as the most beautiful, and called it the “line of beauty”. Until today, the line of beauty has a persistently strong influence in many areas such as landscape art and design, calligraphy, furniture design, architecture, dance, etc. It is astonishing that Hogarth's assumptions have never been empirically tested. Therefore, we asked participants to rate Hogarth's lines by their beauty. As a result, line number 4 was indeed the most preferred, although number 5 was judged similarly. An analysis revealed that curvature was nonlinearly related to beauty and explains more than 90% of the variance in the mean aesthetic judgments.

The Living Space: Psychological Well-Being and Mental Health in Response to Interiors Presented in Virtual Reality

There has been a recent interest in how architecture affects mental health and psychological well-being, motivated by the fact that we spend the majority of our waking time inside and interacting with built environments. Some studies have investigated the psychological responses to indoor design parameters; for instance, contours, and proposed that curved interiors, when compared to angular ones, were aesthetically preferred and induced higher positive emotions. The present study aimed to systematically examine this hypothesis and further explore the impact of contrasting contours on affect, behavior, and cognition. We exposed 42 participants to four well-matched indoor living rooms under a free-exploration photorealistic virtual reality paradigm. We included style as an explorative second-level variable. Out of the 33 outcome variables measured, and after correcting for false discoveries, only two eventually confirmed differences in the contours analysis, in favor of angular rooms. Analysis of style primarily validated the contrast of our stimulus set, and showed significance in one other dependent variable. Results of additional analysis using the Bayesian framework were in line with those of the frequentist approach. The present results provide evidence against the hypothesis that curvature is preferred, suggesting that the psychological response to contours in a close-to-reality architectural setting could be more complex. This study, therefore, helps to communicate a more complete scientific view on the experience of interior spaces and proposes directions for necessary future research.

Differences in regional gray matter volume predict the extent to which openness influences judgments of beauty and pleasantness of interior architectural spaces

Hedonic evaluation of sensory objects varies from person to person. While this variability has been linked to differences in experience, little is known about why stimuli lead to different evaluations in different people. We used linear mixed-effects models to determine the extent to which the openness, contour, and ceiling height of interior spaces influenced the beauty and pleasantness ratings of 18 participants. Then, by analyzing structural brain images acquired for the same group of participants, we asked if any regional gray matter volume (rGMV) covaried with these differences in the extent to which the three features influence beauty and pleasantness ratings. Voxel-based morphometry analysis revealed that the influence of openness on pleasantness ratings correlated with rGMV in the anterior prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area (BA)-10), and the influence of openness on beauty ratings correlated with rGMV in the temporal pole (BA38) and cluster, including the posterior cingulate cortex (BA31) and paracentral lobule (BA5/6). There were no significant correlations involving contour or ceiling height. Our results suggest that regional variance in gray matter volume may play a role in the computation of hedonic valuation and account for differences in the way people weigh certain attributes of interior architectural spaces.

Shape familiarity modulates preference for curvature in drawings of common-use objects

Drawing is a way to represent common-use objects. The contour of an object is a salient feature that defines its identity. Preference for a contour (curved or angular) may depend on how familiar the resulting shape looks for that given object. In this research, we examined the influence of shape familiarity on preference for curved or sharp-angled drawings of common-use objects. We also examined the possibility that some individual differences modulated this preference. Preference for curvature was assessed with a liking rating task (Experiment 1) and with a two-alternative forced-choice task simulating approach/avoidance responses (Experiment 2). Shape familiarity was assessed with a familiarity selection task where participants selected the most familiar shape between the curved and the angular version for each object, or whether both shapes were equally familiar for the object. We found a consistent preference for curvature in both experiments. This preference increased when the objects with a curved shape were selected as the most familiar ones. We also found preference for curvature when participants selected the shape of objects as equally familiar. However, there was no preference for curvature or preference for angularity when participants selected the sharp-angled shapes as the most familiar ones. In Experiment 2, holistic and affective types of intuition predicted higher preference for curvature. Conversely, participants with higher scores in the unconventionality facet showed less preference for the curved drawings. We conclude that shape familiarity and individual characteristics modulate preference for curvature.

Evaluative judgment across domains: Liking balance, contour, symmetry and complexity in melodies and visual designs

Evaluative judgment-i.e., assessing to what degree a stimulus is liked or disliked-is a fundamental aspect of cognition, facilitating comparison and choosing among alternatives, deciding, and prioritizing actions. Neuroimaging studies have shown that evaluative judgment involves the projection of sensory information to the reward circuit. To investigate whether evaluative judgments are based on modality-specific or modality-general attributes, we compared the extent to which balance, contour, symmetry, and complexity affect liking responses in the auditory and visual modalities. We found no significant correlation for any of the four attributes across sensory modalities, except for contour. This suggests that evaluative judgments primarily rely on modality-specific sensory representations elaborated in the brain's sensory cortices and relayed to the reward circuit, rather than abstract modality-general representations. The individual traits art experience, openness to experience, and desire for aesthetics were associated with the extent to which design or compositional attributes influenced liking, but inconsistently across sensory modalities and attributes, also suggesting modality-specific influences.

The role of gender and academic degree on preference for smooth curvature of abstract shapes

BACKGROUND

Preference for smooth contours occurs for a variety of visual stimuli. However, there are individual differences. Openness to experience, a trait associated with aesthetic appreciation, emotional sensitivity and abstract thinking, correlates with this preference. The evaluation of meaningless stimuli entails automatic associations influenced by knowledge, intellectual interests and individual experiences which are diverse. However, it is difficult to capture this variability in studies restricted to Undergraduate students in Psychology with a prevalence of female participants.

METHODS

Here we examined preference for curvature with 160 undergraduate students in Psychology, Mathematics, Engineering and Computer Science, balanced for gender. Participants viewed abstract shapes varying for contour (angular vs. curved). The shapes presented variations in Vertices (10, 20, 30) and Concavity (30%, 40%, 50%) to increase complexity. Participants rated how much they liked each shape on a 0 (dislike) to 100 (like) scale. Furthermore, because students in pure Science disciplines present autistic-like traits as measured with the Autism Quotient (AQ), and there is evidence that individuals with autism respond positively to edgy abstract shapes, participants also completed the AQ.

RESULTS

Overall participants preferred curved shapes to angular shapes. We confirmed past research showing that complexity played a key role, with simple shapes with less vertices (10 vertices) being preferred over shapes with larger number of vertices (20 and 30 vertices). Furthermore, simple shapes (10 vertices) were preferred more with more concavities (50%). Importantly, an interaction between academic degree and gender revealed that preference for smooth curvature was stronger for Psychology female participants. Science students scored higher than Psychology students on the AQ. Interestingly, multilevel analyses showed that the variability of AQ traits in the sample did not contribute to this interaction. The results are discussed in relation to theories of preference formation and individual differences.

Replicability of the Curvature Effect as a Function of Presentation Time and Response Measure in Japanese Observers

Although objects with curved contours are generally preferred over those with sharp-angled contours, the strength of this preference varies according to several factors. In the present study, non-Western Japanese observers viewed and rated their preferences (e.g., liking or attractiveness) for real and meaningless objects with curved or sharp-angled contours. We varied the presentation time (90 ms vs. until a response was received) and the response measure (like/dislike vs. 1-100 rating scale). When using like/dislike ratings, a preference for curved objects was found only when images of real objects were presented briefly (90 ms), whereas this effect was reversed (i.e., increased preference for sharp-angled contours) when using the 1 to 100 scale under the until-response condition. In addition, the curvature effect was not observed for real objects when the like/dislike rating and the until-response condition were employed or when the 1 to 100 scale and 90 ms presentation time were used. The curvature effect for meaningless objects remained unstable regardless of presentation time or response measure. Similar to the preference for real objects, a preference for sharp-angled objects was observed when preference was measured using a 1 to 100 rating scale. Taken together, the present findings indicate that the preferences for curved objects were situation-dependent in Japanese observers.

A Farewell to Art: Aesthetics as a Topic in Psychology and Neuroscience

Empirical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics study two main issues: the valuation of sensory objects and art experience. These two issues are often treated as if they were intrinsically interrelated: Research on art experience focuses on how art elicits aesthetic pleasure, and research on valuation focuses on special categories of objects or emotional processes that determine the aesthetic experience. This entanglement hampers progress in empirical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics and limits their relevance to other domains of psychology and neuroscience. Substantial progress in these fields is possible only if research on aesthetics is disentangled from research on art. We define aesthetics as the study of how and why sensory stimuli acquire hedonic value. Under this definition, aesthetics becomes a fundamental topic for psychology and neuroscience because it links hedonics (the study of what hedonic valuation is in itself) and neuroeconomics (the study of how hedonic values are integrated into decision making and behavioral control). We also propose that this definition of aesthetics leads to concrete empirical questions, such as how perceptual information comes to engage value signals in the reward circuit or why different psychological and neurobiological factors elicit different appreciation events for identical sensory objects.

A new conception of visual aesthetic sensitivity

Aesthetic sensitivity has been defined as the ability to recognize and appreciate beauty and compositional excellence, and to judge artistic merit according to standards of aesthetic value. The Visual Aesthetic Sensitivity Test (VAST) has often been used to assess this ability, but recent research has revealed it has several psychometric problems. Such problems are not easily remedied, because they reflect flawed assumptions inherent to the concept of aesthetic sensitivity as traditionally understood, and to the VAST itself. We introduce a new conception of aesthetic sensitivity defined as the extent to which someone's aesthetic valuation is influenced by a given feature. Experiment 1 aimed to characterize aesthetic sensitivity to four prominent features in visual aesthetics: complexity, symmetry, contour, and balance. Experiment 2 aimed to replicate the findings of Experiment 1 and to assess the test-retest reliability of an instrument designed to measure aesthetic sensitivity to these features using an abridged set of stimuli. Our results reveal that people differ remarkably in the extent to which visual features influence their liking, highlighting the crucial role of individual variation when modelling aesthetic preferences. We did not find clear relations between the four measures of aesthetic sensitivity and personality, intelligence, and art interest and knowledge. Finally, our measurement instrument exhibited an adequate-to-good test-retest reliability.