The effect of left-right reversal on film: Watching Kurosawa reversed

The Bias toward the Right Side of Others Is Stronger for Hands than for Feet

As shown by a series of previous studies, ambiguous human bodies performing unimanual or unipedal actions tend to be perceived more frequently as right-handed or right-footed rather than left-handed or left-footed, which indicates a perceptual and attentional bias toward the right side of others’ body. However, none of such studies assessed whether the relative strength of such a bias differs between the upper and lower limbs. Indeed, given that the prevalence of right-handedness is slightly larger than that of right-footedness, and given that hands provide more information than feet as regards both communicative and aggressive acts, it is plausible that the bias toward the right side of human bodies should be stronger for the hand than for the foot. We performed three experiments in each of which participants had to indicate the rotating direction (revealing the perceived handedness/footedness) of ambiguous human figures with either one limb (arm or leg) or two limbs (one arm and the contralateral leg) extended. The hypothesized advantage of the right hand over the right foot was found in both the second and the third experiment.

Self-portraits: smartphones reveal a side bias in non-artists

According to surveys of art books and exhibitions, artists prefer poses showing the left side of the face when composing a portrait and the right side when composing a self-portrait. However, it is presently not known whether similar biases can be observed in individuals that lack formal artistic training. We collected self-portraits by naïve photographers who used the iPhone™ front camera, and confirmed a right side bias in this non-artist sample and even when biomechanical constraints would have favored the opposite. This result undermines explanations based on posing conventions due to artistic training or biomechanical factors, and is consistent with the hypothesis that side biases in portraiture and self-portraiture are caused by biologically- determined asymmetries in facial expressiveness.

Empirical aesthetics, the beautiful challenge: An introduction to the special issue on Art & Perception

The i-Perception special issue Art & Perception is based on the Art & Perception Conference 2010 in Brussels. Our vision with this conference was to bring together artists and vision scientists from different backgrounds to exchange views and state-of-the-art knowledge on art perception and aesthetics. The complexity of the experience of art and of aesthetic phenomena, in general, calls for specific research approaches, for which interdisciplinarity seems to be key. Following this logic, the special issue Art & Perception contains contributions by artists and vision scientists with different methodological approaches. The contributions span a wide range of topics, but are all centred around two questions: How can one understand art perception and aesthetics from a psychological point of view, and how is this reflected in art itself?